Word: pitilessness
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This realization undermines the centuries-old myth of Judaism as severe and unforgiving, a slave of Pharisaic ritual, as opposed to the grace and charity of its progeny religion. Lieberman will not dethrone Shylock, still the single most influential Jewish figure in Western culture, for whom the law is pitiless law. But Lieberman's prominence and practice will illuminate the little-appreciated fact that Rabbinic Judaism is an attempt to take a very stark document--the Bible--and, by interpretation and adaptation, make it habitable for fallible human beings...
Every journalist has a novel in him, said Karl Kraus, and if he's smart, he'll keep it there. Countless potboilers by deadline drudges have proved the wisdom of Kraus' pitiless warning. But with Primary Colors in 1996, Joe Klein made himself an exception to the rule. Klein's first novel managed to survive the gimmickry of its initial publication. It was released, as the world will recall, under the byline Anonymous, making Guess the Author a favorite parlor game along the Washington-Manhattan media axis. With its deft plotting, crackling dialogue and a raft of engaging characters, thinly...
...President who thought a change of clothes and address could turn him into an Alpha male. But his rivals aren't laughing now. The ones who've tangled with him over the years have always known that behind closed doors, in budget fights and partisan brawls, Gore was a pitiless enemy; and now he's taken it public. What was derided as a phony makeover turns out to bring us closer to the truth about Gore, and whatever limbs he rips off Bill Bradley, whatever truth he shaves and scars he leaves would be nothing compared with what...
...will, with saints ground down by sinners; Diary of a Country Priest and The Trial of Joan of Arc depict a state of grace under pressure. But all his attractive heroes, whether explicitly religious or not, are trudging up their own private Calvary. In Mouchette, the beautifully pitiless story of a teenage outcast so maladroit that she must try three times before she succeeds in drowning herself, the girl's schoolmates sing one refrain as if it were a prayer: "Hope--for more hope." Bresson's films, handmade and precious, gave viewers hope for a more exact, more exalted form...
...corrective to zero-tolerance excesses won't come from courts, it may come from parents. Communities sometimes revolt against pitiless punishments. In Hartford, Wis., outside Milwaukee, 550 people crammed into a high school cafeteria for a shouting match over zero tolerance. Since the beginning of the academic year, 10 students have been expelled from the school for various infractions. Raged one parent: "Expulsion is just another unfeeling word for abandonment...