Tonic to scale the individual

There's really something wonderful about the Harper's Weekly Review.

By pulling the major and dazzling facts together from a week of history and presenting them as string of rather objective sentences, the format gives the reader (or at least me) both powerful access to the Mind of Civilization -- a kind of Sauron's Eye-witness account of it all -- and a proper scaling of the individual's tiny part in the Process. You can watch it all happen, but no more than that. This shouldn't be depressing in the least; it's an affirmation that your part is all you can possibly do, and that you must rely on and trust in others to do theirs.

I highly suggest it to anyone who occasionally has feelings of grandeur, or succumbs to the idea that the world would go much smoother if they just had more control.

Here's a snip from this week's:

Afghanistan held its first parliamentary elections in over three decades; about 6 million people went to the polls to elect 249 people to the Wolesi Jirga. The Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda crossed the White Nile River into southern Sudan and attacked the city of Juba; North Korea announced that it would halt its nuclear programs in exchange for oil, energy aid, and diplomatic recognition; and Delta and Northwest both filed for bankruptcy.