Winter before Spring

The sky over Geneva was overcast during most of February, although, people say, a few miles away, up in the mountains, the sky was brilliant blue and the snow-white peaks shone in the sun. Under this overcast, out of the sun, there met this year again, for the 37th time, the UN Human Rights Commission. Each year, for six weeks, representatives of 43 nations sit, like 43 judges, surveying a prepared agenda on human rights in various nations of the world.

Geneva is the most expensive city in the world. It teems with diplomats, experts, technicians, and their families, who arrive with the hard-earned currencies of many governments. Taxi drivers and restaurateurs, secretaries and shopkeepers, travel services and waiters work around the clock to separate them from their francs. They succeed quite quickly and without pause.

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Michael Novak

Michael Novak was a Catholic philosopher, journalist, novelist, and diplomat.

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The sky over Geneva was overcast during most of February, although, people say, a few miles away, up in the mountains, the sky was brilliant blue and the snow-white peaks shone in the sun. Under this overcast, out of the sun, there met this year again, for the 37th time, the UN Human Rights Commission. Each year, for six weeks, representatives of 43 nations sit, like 43 judges, surveying a prepared agenda on human rights in various nations of the world.

Geneva is the most expensive city in the world. It teems with diplomats, experts, technicians, and their families, who arrive with the hard-earned currencies of many governments. Taxi drivers and restaurateurs, secretaries and shopkeepers, travel services and waiters work around the clock to separate them from their francs. They succeed quite quickly and without pause.