I have more time on my hands lately than ever before, so it gives me the opportunity to read as many news stories as I can. The big international news story at the moment is the release of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi after another seven years under house arrest. She really is a model politician, molded in the same fashion as Ghandi and MLK, she has shown a lot of compassion for her captors, pushing that they really need to work together to get the country back on track. I really respect this type of reaction, someone who is always trying to start a conversation and create a dialogue despite the disposition of the other side.

What really resonated with me this week is this global issue of the extreme versus the moderate. Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart had a wonderful conversation on this topic last week, the entire interview can be seen here and is well worth a watch. The important point I got from it was that statements that are essentially manufactured as conversation enders should always be avoided, there are no use for them and they just act to broaden the gap between parties, increasing the polarity of two schools of thought.

At the moment, my Dad is working with the Lord Mayor of Dublin to try to twin Dublin with Beijing. They've got the support of most parties, except for Sinn Féin, who are the perennial conversation enders of this country. Sinn Féin highlight the problem the North has got itself into, where two extreme parties were given a lot of exposure, thus increasing their profile, increasing the polarity in the government and reducing the level of conversation between the two ruling parties. But aside from Sinn Féin, three councillors from the Labour party remain opposed to the twinning. Luckily, there is still some dialogue here, they disagree with China in terms of some of the human rights issues, and that's fine. I don't agree with what China does in a lot of respects, but for something like this, I think it's incorrect to veto this sort of action. We need to look to open up avenues of conversation, rather than close them down, there is no way we will find a solution if we close that dialogue, and it will never help the cause.