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Wednesday Night Salon
#1358 12 Mar 2008 Page 2
Introduction
Thursday 20 March 2008 at 8:00 pm Canadian Book Series
Choirs in Canada by Holly Jonas
The Report (Diana's notes )
Wednesday Nighters at work and play
It is not unusual for guests at Wednesday Night nor for established Wednesday Nighters to contribute to society in an extraordinary manner. In addition to the many politicians, teachers and diplomats who have enhanced the intellectual, political, physical and social environment in which we live, such people as Harry Meyerovitch, Brian Morel, Robert Galbraith, John Curtin and Jacques Clément, are two who are in the process of offering to the public the fruits of their fertile brains.
On Thursday, March 20, Holly Jonas is launching an 8-part series “A Magic Carpet Ride in Search of Canada’s Choral Best”. This prime time evening (8pm) radio series on CJMQ FM features the choral directors from all the Canadian provinces and territories about whom she wrote in her recently published book In Their Own Words. For Holly, what is most exciting is that the radio medium allows her to share the music of these conductors and their ensembles with many listeners who may never have heard of them.
Beryl Wajsman, a practicing Lawyer, President of the Institute of Public Affairs of Montreal, Editor of the Suburban, Radio Talk Show host, is about to launch The MétropolitaIn, a bilingual, limited circulation bi-weekly, a worthy successor to Cité Libre. It will bring a variety of contributors together in the classic collegial newsroom rather than in isolation. Guaranteed corporate funding has been secured with assurances of non-intervention in editorial content and sophisticated, limited, targeted circulation will maximize readership. More on this topic next week.
In another contribution to our wellbeing - physical rather than intellectual, Dr. Mark Roper has spearheaded the establishment of the the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex on the site of the former Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Notre Dame de Grace. The complex, a teaching- unit of the McGill University Health Center operating within Medicare, consists of the previous medical and imaging clinics and the Montreal General Hospital department of Family Medicine, and has now expanded to absorb various local medical clinics. It operates during extended hours, seven days a week. Although government funded, its small size enables a dedicated, flexible staff to operate more efficiently in the treatment of urgent, non-emergency primary care patients. One must sometimes draw the distinction
The economy
Urban legend places the origin of the word “buck” to denote dollar, to the practice of trappers in the Far North of taking animal (buck) skins to the Hudson Bay trading post in exchange for a credit, in the form of a small square cut from the buckskin. It is not that great a stretch of the imagination to imagine counterfeiters creating false credit by cutting multiple squares from a single skin or from The Hudson Bay Company from extending credit in anticipation of receiving skins during poor hunting seasons.
If this is true, not much has changed. Students studying Economics learn that credit is just a matter of credit and debit entries in a ledger without necessarily representing any solid monetary value. The practice of the house of cards type of sale of less than solid loans through multiple hands has ultimately led to the financial crunch through which the United States and hence the world, is currently suffering. Fortunately, Canadian banks have been more stringently regulated than those in the United States and our commodity-based economy acts as a buffer but ultimately, we will be hit by the ripple effect. Logic would dictate that the U.S. face the obvious fact that the financial institutions in that country are essentially bankrupt, but politics would dictate otherwise, thus delaying the inevitable. The default decision has been the injection of up to the equivalent of four hundred billion dollars of credit, not to be confused with cash, by European and U.S. central banks into the economy. This news has led to a sudden resurgence of the stock market, but when the reality inevitably sinks in, the market is expected to resume its downward trend as inflation increases, making debt repayment less costly. The banking sector is not expected to recover for some time. The weakening of the U.S. economy is expected to increase the relative value of the Canadian dollar to an estimated $1.10 U.S. Inevitably, the increasing inflation will adversely affect the price of oil. As North America is essentially an urban continent, food must be transported to its destination by air and truck. The ripple effect of rising petroleum prices is already translating into significantly increased cost of food.
Energy and the environment
It is a certainty that the cost of petroleum will continue to rise exponentially and although the petroleum market has thus far proven to be almost impermeable to increasing prices, at one point it will become not only financial feasible but imperative to invent and/or implement hitherto undreamed of changes in our current means of transportation of humans and goods. As a country, Canada has benefited considerably from the soaring price of petroleum at the expense of the environment.
As for Canada, it is said that every four barrels of oil produced from the tar sands requires the equivalent of one barrel of oil from the natural gas required to extract it from the sand.
The obvious solution is nuclear energy and it is probable that two CANDU reactors will be installed shortly to provide the necessary energy.
However, the Canadian government has not only failed to meet Kyoto agreement targets, but appears to be planning to implement placebo effect measures that will lend comfort to the concerned electorate but achieve nothing positive and perhaps, some negative effects. The deadline of 2020 is so far in the future that the current government will certainly not have to account for failure to achieve even minimal progress and the proposal to impose a carbon tax on only new companies not only places an exceptional burden on new competition but exempts, if not encourages, small existing, polluting companies that may have the potential of growing into giant polluting companies. Although European countries have been well ahead of North America in controlling carbon emissions as well as compulsory labelling in the United Kingdom indicating the amount of carbon required in the production of a product, unless a world-wide agreement can be reached for the control of carbon emissions, there is every likelihood that local economics and political dependence on lobbyists will set the agenda. Paradoxically, The Honourable John Baird has made the list of the 245 people most influential young leaders in the world, an event that causes some concern to some Wednesday Nighters as to the future fate of the planet.
Healthcare in Québec
The current trend in the delivery of government funded urgent, non-emergency medical care is government funded, privately provided medical care. The Rockland Clinic has been set up in co-operation with Sacré Coeur Hospital, and more recently, the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex.
The Spitzer affair
One must sometimes draw the distinction between legality and morality. On the surface, (about-to-be former) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s highly publicized night of entertainment seem no more worthy of note than the escapades of former U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt or Bill Clinton. Whether or not that comparison is valid, if public money was not used to support the Governor’s habit, although unlicensed guns may be a constitutional right, prostitution is illegal in the United States of America and therefore, the career of a high-profile Democrat bites the dust.
The Presidential Race
The current U.S. presidential race would make a great film plot, the main elements being support and prejudices on both sides of the gender, race and generation gap. Millions of dollars have been donated, betting on the outcome. Will the articulate, squeaky-clean black candidate win the race and more importantly, if so, how will he be able co cope with the alternative use that the large donors had for the millions that they had donated to his campaign and would his idealism permit him to face that challenge in a realistic manner
Thursday 25 Apr 2007 To day NYT Podcast | Menu
Radio
Like the report of Mark Twain's death, reports of the death of radio –at least FM – are greatly exaggerated.
Real estate
Canadian dollar is expected to decline against its U.S. counterpart.
The economy
See also JACQUES CLEMENT: Pages ON THE ECONOMY
Previous Videos
Notes by Herb Bercovitz OWN
Editor: Diana Thébaud Nicholson OWN
Radio, the long-lasting treasure
intro Wed1358 | Wed1358 slide show
Oil
Note
Wednesday-Night creates charts and follows stocks, including timely related financial news items, in which Wednesday Nighters are interested and in order to demonstrate a service that could eventually be developed and marketed. Wednesday Nighters are invited to participate and help to test the service.
see Wednesday-Night.com Flip charts
QUOTES of the EVENING from recent
Wednesday Nights
2007
Past Quotes Best or All
W-N Links for this W-N
nsnbc Economy Where Next
2008 Notes for this Wed-Night
www.Wednesday-Night.com/Wed1357 page2.asp
Friday 14 March 2008 Credit crunch Plugging holes
Central banks' latest moves to increase liquidity will ease but not solve the credit crunch
Banks and climate change The greening of Wall Street
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