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December 31, 1999

Not Just Another New Year

I have spent the day welcoming in the New Year around the world and at last, it has come here. We spent the day watching crowds, large crowds, in the capital cities of the world celebrate a common joy. Here, tonight, Attila and I stand together saying goodbye to the old year, decade, century, and millennium and hello to the new. We have visually visited the celebrations at the Antarctic, Chatham Island, Sydney, Colombo, Moscow, Athens, Prague, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Reykjavik and many other cities. The experience of following the turn of the millennium slowly around the world would not be possible without the technology that allows me to place this missive within your grasp.

As reports have flooded in from around the world, it has become obvious that there are no immediate, catastrophic effects of the Y2K phenomena. This is good news indeed and has ensured that this New Year's Eve celebration will be just that. I would like to thank all the people who have crossed to the other side, the 21st Century, for testing this out.

In spite of the fact that I have been a little nervous about this particular turning of the New Year, it has been fascinating and interesting. The freed hostages in the Indian Airline's hijacking, Boris Yeltsin's resignation, the signing over of the Panama Canal, the problem of the Y2K "bug": these events are indelibly written into the story of today.

Another story will begin soon, over Saturday morning coffee.