Dear friends,
Come to celebrate, discuss and mingle for this
special occasion that we will duly acknowledge - this is no April’s fool
joke – we are indeed about to celebrate getting over the hump of a full
year of monthly Wednesday West salon gatherings!!! A year ago tomorrow, last April
2nd, a gathering of ten held the first of what they then hoped would
be many. That wish has been fulfilled and our friendly web has attracted so
many fabulous participants who contributed so many knowledgeable and insightful
comments, I now feel not just a year older but also delightfully many years
wiser …
It has been indeed a year full of
developments, not the least of which have been the free-fall of the free market,
the election of a black US president, the failed coup d’etat federally
that saw the exit of Dion and closer to home, some reversals of fortune in
Vancouver city hall. For students of history, this is just a tiny bleep, but
the panic out there seems to indicate history is not on people’s minds. What
to do next is. From the
personal (“To spend or not to spend? Will I still have a job in a month?”)
to the communal (“How can we resolve issues now that there is even less
money? What will happen to the arts? to research? to charity?”), things
are getting re-examined in a completely different lens from the ones used this
time last year.
Certain certainties still exist –
albeit not reassuring. This is tax season after all and as they say: two things
are certain… The personal income
tax concept is also celebrating an anniversary of sort – introduced in 1917 as a temporary measure to fund the 1st
world war effort, it is still alive and well 92 years later. In fact this year
marks the 60th annivesary of it becoming a permanent plague, sorry,
feature as Jan 1st 1949 the War Tax Act was transformed into the Income Tax Act. An
interesting article recently opined that the only reason governements are
interested in doing bailouts is because they stand to lose out on too much
corporate tax revenue (and spend too much on EI).
Interestingly, the
myth of the Chinese word for crisis
as made up of two components signifying danger and opportunity (debunked by many
including Dr. Victor H. Mair, professor of Chinese language and literature at
the University of Pennsylvania - see http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html
) survives as it articulates a powerful metaphor we actually need,
that was not part of our symbolic library from the folk tales, children’s
rhymes, Greek mythology or Brothers Grimm. So we are back to Thomas Homer-Dixon’s
“The upside of down” … and the evidence is out there that
many of the good things that have happened were indeed born in times of past
crises.
The one thing that this
recent crisis highlighted for me is that we are still at odds with the notion
of constant change as a constant that is not only factual but is also desirable.
Our core competency in the 21st century has got to be the capacity
to thrive on rapid massive change. So where is our individual and societal adaptiveness,
flexibility and responsiveness? Where is the notion of having fun and enjoying
the journey? One of my US friends has a 16yr old daughter who on US election
night, came up with “Obamanos!” , the third person plural
imperative of “obamar” – Obama’s name as a spanish verb, that she translated as “to express or inspire exultant hope.” To
me, it would rather mean “going hopefully forward together”, but
her point is well made. It’s a new age that is ripe for new constructs
and my plea is that instead of reacting with fear, we try to put on a more
positive mindset that may discover opportunities, where all we saw was risks.
And last but not
least: there is still a 20$ on the table for anyone able to explain the risks
and opportunities related to the STV (single transferable vote) proposal in a succinct
way that the gathering deems intelligible. So far, many worthy pretenders have
failed the task, but we do not hold that against them as there are double odds
against them: the task itself is hard to
accomplish and the audience has high standards. But let that not discourage other
attempts as we do need to make up our minds on how to vote on this come May
12th!!!
So, don’t stay home - come to think,
discuss, be inspired, and exchange ideas and insights, all you of interested,
interesting, informed and informative folks in town. Description of the
Wednesday night concept and other important logistical details can be found at http://www.wednesday-west.ca/ (click
on “About us” at the top menu – address is always distributed
after you confirm and don’t forget to honor Bacchus with a gift).
Above all, please, RSVP quickly as we are
only one week away. Do let me know if you are thinking of inviting a new
participant as seating is getting tighter. A “yeah” or
“nay” on whether we can expect you and what topics you want to
tackle makes the moderator’s life so much better plus guarantees you a
seat, for the list of attendees has indeed grown considerably since we started!
And it need not but will be said again - we
remain grateful for the wonderful idea that a loving brilliant couple started in
Montreal over 25 years ago (see www.wednesday-night.com
) which inspired us to seed an offspring in (rainy) Vancouver – kudos to
you Diana and David Nicholson - wish you could be here with us next week!
Best regards to all,
Alexandra & James
Andy Nulman 
