Unlikely New Year's Wishes

Seems some pipe-dream wishes might be in order on this, the last day of 2012, for the upcoming 2013!

So here goes:
I wish that Gary Bettman would find a nursing home, plant himself deeply and permanently in one of its suites and leave the administration of the NHL to someone who really knows the purpose, meaning and promise of the game of hockey...and it is not "just about the money"!!

I wish that David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, would receive an invitation from Barack Obama, to conduct a three-day seminar, with weekly follow-ups for one full year, with the president, the four leaders of Congress and all of their spouses, on the long-term health of the United States, including the need to build trust between and among all political leaders, as a model of leadership for the rest of Congress, the states and even for the rest of the world.

I wish that Ban Ki Moon would host a visioning conference, for leaders from the 190 countries who are members of the United Nations, on how to re-structure the UN to better meet the complex and overlapping issues of the world's poverty, disease, terrorism, religious extremes, the environment, and the world's impending food shortages...with a view to specific actions being promised and committed by all participants, in the model of the Clinton Global Initiative, with a firm date for public reporting in one, five, ten and twenty years, so the world can once again have confidence that leaders are interested in more than their careers.

I wish that every newspaper in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, France, Germany, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, China would send fully trained reporters to all world capitals, and begin reporting every day from their perspectives, in digital format that would be accessible to all intenet subscribers...so that we could easily and readily begin to comprehend the facts and the multiple perspectives in a world increasingly complex and inter-dependent.

I wish that Mayor Bloomberg would host an assault weapons amnesty/buy-back in New York city, and encourage all mayors across the United States to do a similar event, with full public disclosure on the recovery of these weapons, their melt-down and the significance of the move.

I wish that all elementary and secondary teachers would be required, prior to certification, to spend a minimum of two semesters in courses designed to discover the history, motivations, learning needs and potential of all male students whom they will face in their classrooms. This initiative would also require the public advertisement from all faculties of education, in all media outlets, as a way to encourage the recruitment of an army of committed male educators to enter the schools, classrooms, principals offices, and administration offices.

I wish that all universities in North America and in Europe would develop and institute courses in male studies, as a complement and a supplement to the multiple female studies courses and departments that have already been established.

I wish that all national and city editors of all daily newspapers would pay more attention to the arts communities in their coverage areas, with a view to reviewing the events offered not merely the dates and times, so that we begin to develop a balance between the deadening parade of economic information with the important creative and prophetic voices in every community.

I wish that all countries and their leaders would learn that an open internet accessible to all, freely, is in the best interests of a global community, through sponsorsed on-line learning opportunities, and that censorship be exercised only on those sites promoting violence, hatred, abuse and political unrest.

I wish that all christian church leaders would re-think all of their institutional claims to be the "only" or the "best" or the "first" or the "primary" faith, in an overt initiative to remove much of the marketing/evangelizing from their self-promotion efforts and begin to lead creative projects that help to integrate all human vulnerabilities into their perspectives...in the manner of a Jedd Apatow in movies.

I wish that all television commercials would declare a war on dumb men and women, in an effort to talk "up" to an educated and enlightened audience, and eliminate all references to comedic insults to their competitors, and to individual human beings.

I wish that Aaron Sorkin would write a docu-drama series about the complexities of religious organizations, the abuse of power by those organizations, and the potential of those organizations to open the eyes, hearts, minds and spirits of people, without infantilizing those people.

I wish that Stephen Harper would call a meeting of all Canadian political leaders, with all First Nations chiefs and leaders, and re-think and re-work the relationship between First Nations people and the rest of the country, using the perspectives, recommendations and urgings of the aboriginal communities.

Happy New Year!