Dear CCI Friends,
To those of you who have participated directly in our face-to-face diplomacy both across Russia and here in our American cities, we are so grateful to you. Also, many thanks to those of you who have become informal educators, resending CCI’s educational emails to your colleagues, friends and families. We greatly appreciate your notes and support for our joint missions to create a better educated and safer world in the immediate future!
Best Wishes to You for a
Wonderful Creative Year in 2019
upon which we are now embarking!
I wonder if you are deeply grateful, as I am, that our planet has survived this past tumultuous year?
Given the numbers of surrogate war-making threats and incursions in numerous areas of the world, i.e. Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Baltic states and others … we are lucky that none have ignited an all-consuming conflagration. Perhaps parity of nuclear weapons and instant delivery systems maintained the tenuous peace between the two nuclear giants of the world––our nation and Russia. For whatever the reasons, I’m deeply grateful that we have a bit more time ahead to develop beyond the warring mentalities among us.
Traveling around the U.S., I continue to be so impressed with the sheer goodness of ordinary American citizens. This year I visited Rotary clubs, witnessed over a hundred fathers signing up to volunteer at a lower-income school and others volunteering to benefit local disadvantaged children and families. I’ve witnessed men, women and their children raising funds to serve the needs in their communities.