"I was neglected and abused in a harsh institution when I had the option of love and a family life with my foster mother in England," O'Brien said.
After four years on Helgøya he was transferred to Bastøy school home for maladjusted boys, an equally harsh institution.
It's true that I can be very harsh on these institutions and on those who run them.
And in this harsh economic environment, institutions that feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and train jobless workers are acutely feeling the crush of an increased demand for their services as their funding sources dry up.
The government's treatment of A.I.G. was, Wheeler argues, "unduly harsh," because other financial institutions, including banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup, were offered more lenient treatment.
Adam Cohen (Editorial Observer, June 3) disapproves of Justice Clarence Thomas's jurisprudence, because in Mr. Cohen's view it is indifferent to suffering and "harsh," will make various institutions "less civilized" and "less fair," and fails to respond to "moral truth".
NEW YORK TIMES From MF Global Bankruptcy, a Shadow on the Fed | The failure of MF Global comes as a harsh reminder that the institutions authorized to do business directly with the Federal Reserve — the so-called primary dealers — are not infallible, Reuters writes.
On one of those stultifying, dull Sunday afternoons, my eldest child asked: "Mum, why don't we go to Safari parks, like other families do?" This mild rebuke set off a memory of my adolescent self and my interior monologue, which was full of self-pity and harsh criticism of most institutions.
The documentary guides us through the legacy of the nineties — the draconian crime policies, the talk of juvenile super-predators — with damning clips of rhetoric made by politicians ranging from Newt Gingrich to the Clintons; the policies of that era led to harsh sentencing and grim institutions that often fail to rehabilitate offenders or to reduce crime.
