This is an eventful weekend. From a distance, I’m following the festivities surrounding Hungary’s EU membership. Locally, I’m taking part in the 125th anniversary celebrations of my School and look forward to the debate in a couple of hours by alum members of our dozen national championship winning Debate Team on “Resolved: That John Kerry should replace George Bush in the White House.”. (By School I mean the School of Communication, the University is older than that.)
John has already mentioned the significance of this day for the EU, but I had to comment myself given that in the CT crowd, I’m the one most immediately affected by this event. I remember back in the early nineties hearing that perhaps Hungary would join the EU by 2004 or 2005 and thinking that those years seemed so immensely distant they would never come. It is hard to believe that we are finally here.
I started writing a much longer more reflective post on all this, but I have decided to table that for another day. I am happy to remain in celebratory mood for the day and postpone some more critical comments for another time.
Those in Chicagoland should come join in on the School of Communication birthday events this weekend!
{ 7 comments }
maria 05.01.04 at 6:58 pm
I’m actually still feeling pretty directly affected by Hungary’s accession to the EU, but give me another few hours and I’ll have recovered from last night’s celebrations with my favourite magyar mates.
Paris was a lame place to celebrate it all though, and we were all wishing to be at the street parties in Dublin or Budapest.
The most amazing thing about it all is that just over 14 years ago 8 of the 10 new countries were communist dictatorships with basket case economies. Things still seem far from ideal, but it’s miraculous how relatively smooth the transition has been.
Other J School Grumpy 05.01.04 at 7:52 pm
Medilldos in excelsis!
forgetting 05.01.04 at 8:46 pm
Please forgive the following, it doesn’t really relate to EU enlargement…
If anyone is interested in swapping Gmail names, I might be willing. I accidentally got stuck with EUROPE and am experiencing ‘unintentional buyer’s remorse’.
Again, sorry about the spam, never happen again.
Kikuchiyo 05.02.04 at 12:18 pm
Debate…
Which alums were debating? And who debated for the negative– Cori Dauber?
Nicholas Weininger 05.02.04 at 6:53 pm
Some friends and I commemorated the occasion with an Old Europe-New Europe pairing: a Fourme d’Ambert cheese and a 2000 Vesztergombi Szekszardi Cabernet Sauvignon. I am happy to report that the two went very well together. :-)
eszter 05.03.04 at 3:19 pm
Kikuchiyo – here’s the info about the debate:
“‘Resolved: That John Kerry should replace George Bush in the White House.’
This year’s Great Debate features Susan Winkler and Chris Wonnell, both graduates of the class of 1979, and the first of five Northwestern teams to win the Copeland Award, a prestigious debate award created in 1974. Joining them on stage will be 1980 National Debate Tournament Champions Don Dripps and Tom Fulkerson.”
Kikuchiyo 05.04.04 at 11:38 am
Thanks for filling me in on the participants. And, for the record, I didn’t mean to demean Dr. Dauber in any way up there.
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