WISHFUL THINKING?

1) We... hope that Israelis and Palestinians will return to serious negotiations toward a sustainable two-state future.

2) This must be the year the world gets serious about nuclear weapons proliferation.

In 2003, North Korea declared that it had begun making nuclear bombs. Iran was discovered to have a secret uranium enrichment plant. Libya acknowledged that it had been trying to start a nuclear weapons program. At year's end, some of Pakistan's top nuclear scientists were being questioned about whether they had helped other countries make crucial technological advances. The regulatory system that kept the nuclear weapons club small for decades is crumbling. The chances of seeing some city somewhere vaporized under a mushroom cloud are mounting.

The world urgently needs as universal a system of inspections and controls as possible. The loophole that allows any country to produce nuclear bomb fuel legally by claiming that it is strictly for power production must be closed and replaced by a centralized system for supplying the fuel for reactors and removing plutonium products.

3) End the global system of agricultural subsidies that allow the richest nations to shut poor farmers out of international markets. The world cannot have one set of rules for trade in manufactured products and another for farm goods, the commodities that are easiest for poor nations to produce and sell. But a lack of American leadership at the World Trade Organization caused the collapse of talks that were aimed at making the system fairer.

4) Deal more forthrightly with AIDS in Africa.
Revised Wishes



DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?

ONE day, a glistening skyscraper will rise over the World Trade Center site, commemorating in its very structure, through the unforgettable dimension of its towering height (1776 feet or 541 meters), the milestone year in which the king lost power.

The king, of course, was Hildibald. And the year 541 was when he was beheaded at a banquet, leading to the elevation of his nephew, Totila, as the new king of the Ostrogoths...

(Yet) all of the effort presumes that 1776 is synonymous with freedom to begin with, when it could be argued that it marks the creation of a slaveholding nation.

As for the implications of the date in New York City, 1776 also marked the beginning of British occupation.

The elevation of 1,789 feet has been suggested as an alternative by at least one person working on the Freedom Tower project: it would commemorate the year the Constitution took effect and George Washington was inaugurated as president, at a site only six blocks from what is now ground zero.

Higher in the sky, 1,865 feet could reflect the true advent of freedom by recalling the year slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment. There are those who might advance 1,945 feet, to record the signing of the United Nations Charter...
NY Times