Wednesday Night Salon #963

16 August 2000

PRELUDE

Amid the many returning faces, another happy surprise. Wednesday Night's own diva, Susan Eyton-Jones, is back from Charlottesville, Virginia. The festival experience a great success, both at a professional and personal level (and she has the clippings and photos to prove it!).

THE KURSK DISASTER

Even more than graphic newspaper accounts of war or famine, the drama of one hundred and sixteen young men and boys facing a slow, cold, claustrophobic death aboard a disabled submarine lying at the bottom of the Barents Sea, cannot help but evoke emotions of horror and sympathy. The question arises as to why a rescue mission was not attempted by Britain or the United States over Russian objections, or at very least, why these nations with superior rescue technology did not move their equipment sufficiently close to the disaster to intervene when invited to do so.

Attempts to arrive at an answer only raise further questions. If it were a U.S. Stealth Bomber that was stranded in a remote area of Alaska close to Russian territory, how would the Americans have reacted to Russia's offer of intervention?

Was the Canadian army right in not intervening in the kidnapping of a British diplomat during the F.L.Q. crisis before requested to do so by the government of Québec?

The answer depends on whether you consider the issue to be one of sovereignty or of humanity.

Proposals of a global crisis intervention team prepared to intervene across national boundaries sound good, but considering bureaucratic delays and the wide variety of human crises requiring sophisticated equipment, it would probably not prove to be a realistic option. There are one hundred and sixteen young lives hanging in the balance, a terrible tragedy, but in terms of numbers, United Nations member nations would do far better concentrating their efforts on the elimination of famine, preventable diseases and human conflict.

COUCHICHING

This year's Couchiching conference, of which Wednesday Night's Margaret Lefebvre was Programme Chair, has ended very successfully. Although Health was the theme, the conference focused on the factors improving health rather than how to deal with illness. Costing Canadians about 9 % of GDP, health care in the present context is looked upon as an expense, but not considered are the offsetting savings involved in overcoming the human and material costs of such conditions as obesity, diabetes, hypercholesteremia and hypertension. The presence and active participation at Couchiching of the health care decision makers in the federal as well as the provincial governments augers well for a new more productive approach to human health maintenance in Canada.

Margaret Lefebvre is the new President of the Couchiching Institute - and the first from Québec. Next year, the topic will be Globalisation Revisited. More to follow.

THE ECONOMY

Melanie Lauckner

The threat of increased inflation and over employment appears to have passed. There will be no increase in the discount rate in next week's announcement by the Federal Reserve. Under the surface however, it is only core inflation that is taken into account which ignores fluctuations in food and fuel prices. The increase in oil prices is currently being absorbed by profit margins, but will ultimately work its way through the system. The price of natural gas, a no-cost or low-cost byproduct of oil production, is pegged to the price of oil rather than to the actual cost of production and transmission.

QUOTES of the EVENING:

ON THE SUBMARINE KURSK:

• "Here you have something which is humanly incompatible with the rules of the game."
• "...the state of disrepair of the Russian system ... symptom of the state collapsing and coming apart at the seams."
• "... the incredible brotherhood of the Navy ... why we worry about 116 Russian sailors when we show no concern about children (around the world) dying every second of the day". The Russian Navy would have accepted help, but the politicians would not."
• "It is a rational decision of the Russians to let 116 sailors drown and keep intact, the acoustic signature of their Kursk class nuclear submarines."
• "Two nuclear reactors on board will add up to more than 116 deaths."
• " The leadership in Russia is very similar to that of the Soviet Union."
• "It's a matter of sovereignty. Can you imagine a 'Red Cross' that would have that kind of resources to handle a variety of disasters. It's completely bureaucratic within the present political framework"
  
  ON COUCHICHING AND THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM:
• " There is no science of the individual."
• "We don't have a health care system. We have a disease control system. We do not give a dollar value to health care ... we only give value to disease control."
• "The social network we have is probably the most important factor in keeping us healthy." "Every time somebody has an accident or goes to the hospital, the GDP goes down." ON RISING OIL PRICES:
• "Natural gas bubbles from the ground at no cost at all, ready for use. It's a classic case where the producers have captured the regulators."
• "Sooner or later, people will realize that oil price increases are not temporary. I would not be surprised that things (reactions) will happen within 6 months. Natural gas bubbles out of the ground."
  
  A COMMENT FROM SONIA SINGH In India, the Planning Commission allocated funds for child care - nutrition & health - for 4 year olds.

  However it took a lot of debate from the NGO's to ask for funding from the time a child is weaned. The nutrition level and mental health of children born in India, even to the poor, is at par or not so different from the rest of the world while the child is breast-feeding - it is immediately after that that the sharp drop starts.

  How is the budget to be allocated and controlled? Government funds often land in the wrong hands, how about some advice from Canada/Quebec on managing health resources?

Notes by
Herbert Bercovitz Sculptor Scribe
Very little Editing by Diana Thébaud Nicholson required!

Diana Thébeaud Nicholson

John Ciaccia

Me John Ciaccia

BEST-SELLING BOOKS.

Again we saluted the success of John Ciaccia's book about THE OKA CRISIS, A MIRROR OF THE SOUL Un Miroir de l'Ame, noting that it was number ONE on best-seller list (clich for photos and details)

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