(Dec 28)... Do you realise that in 57 weeks you will have reached 25 years of Wednesday nights?
Could be a good time to create a coffee table book covering the issues that have arisen in 25 years of round table discussions.
It will be Jan 31st 2007...1300 Wednesday Nights, or 25 years.
That's impressive.
Marc Nicholson
Be sure to check here for last week's Summary
Warmest greetings and to those of who you have celebrated, are celebrating, or are about to celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Synaxis tis Panagias, Kwanza and/or Russian Orthodox Christmas; we wish you very happy holidays of your choice and along with peace, health and happiness, the fulfillment of your wildest dreams in 2006.
As always the doors are open this Wednesday Night and we are so happy to have John Moore to entertain us with the Toronto view (is that an oxymoron?) of the world at large. His wit and sometimes unorthodox views should enliven the final session of 2005 and possibly inspire us to a bit more thoughtful laughter in the coming year.
Please join us this Wednesday and, if not possible, then soon in the new year (when you will be returning to the City of Westmount). For the account of a most enjoyable pre-Christmas Wednesday, please see Wed1242 and for updates, breaking news, hot topics or gossip, return here www.wednesday-night.com/Wed1243.asp
May the Force be with you!
Retrospective
The last Wednesday of the year generally provokes musings about events of the past 52 weeks, the state of the nation, and those other ponderables leading to The Meaning of The Universe.
And there have certainly been ponderables and imponderables. To guide you - and us - in those reflections, we offer an overview of some of Wednesday Night's outstanding topics and recurrent themes. We welcome comments and suggestions of others we may have overlooked. What cannot be overlooked is the wealth and diversity of opinion and experience with which this marvelous group (YOU) imbues each and every discussion.
For us for us the year began on December 26, 2004 with the horrific news of the tsunami, a word that was new to many and a concept that was relegated to murky recollections of the explosion of Krakatoa. We remember the following Wednesday [ Wed1291] vividly, the frantic sense of "we must do something", fueled in our case by eloquent messages from our friends and former Wednesday Nighters Jim Domville and Pat Michel in Phuket. Within ten days of the disaster, Wednesday Night was commenting: "As the body count continues to climb, pious pledges to install tsunami warning systems are trumpeted and donor countries still seem to be trying to trump one another's last offer - as though this were some kind of gruesome auction ... traffic jams caused by celebrity visits to Aceh - while regrettable that the airport has had to temporarily close down for security reasons, slowing delivery of goods ... the publicity given to the area's devastation will keep the pressure on the donors."
Little did we dare think that for once the world would respond with amazing generosity - and real money - with Bill Clinton reincarnated as a highly effective UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery. Although recovery efforts have been uneven and there remains much to accomplish, President Clinton's One-Year Report the improvement of the political situation in Aceh is an encouraging beacon. If only the same were true for Sri Lanka.
Leaving the recovery to the NGOs, during the next weeks and months, we turned to the issues of the war in Iraq, George W's proposals to reform Social Security wednesday-night.com/SocialSecurity , a topic that preoccupied us along with the Economist, New York Times and other thoughtful media, not to mention our own Tony Deutsch and Peter Ratzer, for much of the spring and summer. The Agenda of WN January 12 also flagged two other topics that recurred throughout the year: Healthcare and the future of the McGill University Hospital Centre (MUHC/CHUM). Unfortunately the year is ending with the same items on the agenda with the addition of the nasty fight over 'complementarity' of the children's hospitals and questions about the future of the Shriners Hospital, after the hard-fought battle this year to retain it in Montreal. Is it really too much to ask that our government, hospital administrators and instant experts subscribe to the Ujima (collective work and responsibility) principle of Kwanza: to build and maintain our community together and make our sister's and brother's problems our problems and to solve them together?
By mid-February, with guidance from Stephen Blank and Guy Stanley, we were looking at the looming problems of softwood lumber and the very real threat that the U.S. lumber industry was raising an unprecedented constitutional challenge of NAFTA that could unravel the free trade deal completely. By year's end, in the light of the increasingly shrill softwood lumber squabble and the attempt to introduce drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, most around the Wednesday Night table were fully convinced that the Americans would only honor treaties when they are deemed advantageous to U.S. interests.
In early March, with the knowledgeable contributions of our own Judy Geologist (aka Professor Judith Patterson), the debate on the world's oil supply [oilnotes] began to take the prominence that it has since occupied on Wednesday Nights. Even in the face of numerous recommended readings and screenings of The End of Suburbia [endofsuburbia], there is a flight of oil hawks that dismisses the possibility that world oil production has peaked and the era of cheap oil is over.
contributions of our own Judy Geologist (aka Professor Judith Patterson), the debate on the world's oil supply [oilnotes] began to take the prominence that it has since occupied on Wednesday Nights. Even in the face of numerous recommended readings and screenings of The End of Suburbia [endofsuburbia], there is a flight of oil hawks that dismisses the possibility that world oil production has peaked and the era of cheap oil is over.
At about the same time, our Scribe noted: "With the recent developments in Lebanon, also Egypt and even the partial elections in Saudi Arabia, there appears to be a very recent interesting shift in perception by Wednesday Nighters of the legacy being created by Bush the Younger. The pendulum has not completed its return swing and possibly never will, as unanimity is more a myth of dictators than it is reality." . In fact, that pendulum has never completed the return swing among most Wednesday Nighters, despite thoughtful post-Iraq-election advocacy by Emile Fattal.
April brought the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI, aptly termed "The German Shepherd". Wednesday Night wondered about the effect of the new ultra-conservative Pope and deplored his silence on some of the more egregious sex abuse cases in the Church, but was far more interested in the ongoing saga of the Gomery Commission and its effect on political fortunes of the federal parties [Wed1207 report]
In May, amidst the Star Wars craze, Wednesday Nighters, along with all Canadians witnessed - and talked about - the rescue of Princess Belinda from the clutches of Darth Harper, and the near-death status of the Fed Libs. For the many who wearied of the Canadian political scene, there was the run-up to the French and Dutch referenda on the EU Constitution and consternation in the aftermath of the two NO votes, the revelations of the Volcker Inquiry into the UN Food-for-oil programme (with an interesting sidebar on Maurice Strong), Globalization and the encouraging developments for Kimon Valaskakis' School of Athens, along with sporadic reports on the shifting situations in India and China from Robert Travers and Cleo Paskal.
August brought a return to one of our favorite topics, WATER, during an instructive evening with Maggie Catley Carlson [Wed1222] which left many with a sense of hopefulness that it is not too late to protect this valuable resource and use it better throughout the world. Curiously, this Wednesday Night immediately preceded the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina where we witnessed the dreadful destructiveness of waters unleashed when the levees crumbled, and again questioned the vulnerability of the world's oil supplies as prices skyrocketed and oil rigs went missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
While keeping a watchful eye on the fate of New Orleans, the appalling mismanagement of FEMA's relief efforts and the fallout for the Bush Administration, Wednesday Night nonetheless enjoyed a great evening of expert commentary from former Canadian Ambassador Marie Bernard-Meunier and Professor Louis Massicotte on the outcome of the German elections [Wed1231] and now watches that country's developments with far more insight than before.
It seems that almost as soon as that evening ended we were plunged into the Canadian agony, terminating with the election call for January 23rd. This event is testing the collective punditry to the max and so far the calls are for everything from a Liberal majority to a strong Conservative minority, but there are miles to go before we sleep!
In a year that started with the tsunami, Katrina, Rita and their sisters, along with the October earthquake in the Himalayas focused our attention on the UN Climate Change Conference. Despite the stubborn refusal of the Bush Administration to admit the science pointing to the very real phenonmenon, the numbers of Climate Change deniers appear to be diminishing and whether Kyoto is the solution, or individual, municipal and corporate ingenuity will be the major actors, there is some reason to be hopeful that humans are gradually coming to understand that they are the stewards of this marvelous Earth and must safeguard its resources through responsible action. Let us hope that our leaders will apply the same principles to their roles in working for the geopolical safeguards that are equally important for our survival.
PEACE ON EARTH should not simply be a banner in a Christmas pageant.
Diana & David Nicholson
Saturday Dec 24, 2005 ind 12 questions of Christmas
When exactly is Christmas Day? Was there a Star of Bethlehem? Could Santa deliver gifts to all the world's children? What are the chances of a White Christmas? How far has your Christmas dinner travelled? And do reindeer ever have red noses?
Versatile character actor and Emmy Award winner, John Spencer plays Leo McGarry, on the Emmy winning NBC drama “The West Wing.” His work on the show was rewarded with an Emmy Award win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series both in 2002 and five consecutive nominations, including last year’s.
A native of New Jersey, Spencer now resides in Los Angeles and New York. His birthday is December 20.
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Stephen S. Poloz