FRED AND CLARA-LOUISE RIGGS

3920 Lurline Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii 96816

SEASON'S GREETINGS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

As we enter the true millennium starting 2001, we also start a new cycle of life marked by intensified globalization and vastly accelerated communications. The now-ubiquitous Internet will carry this annual message plus several for previous years. If you go to Xmas you will also be able to click on the sites linked below.

To start the new cycle, I decided last Christmas to give Ciel a true holiday by taking a 12 day cruise with her from Tahiti back to Hawaii. We flew to Papeete for a two-day visit, then boarded the Regal Princess on April 25, sailing in turn to Morea, Bora Bora, Christmas Island, and the main Hawaiian islands, reaching Honolulu on May 7. It was a delightful and memorable adventure we will long remember.

On the ocean, even TV could not bring us the daily news and so we escaped into a private world unmarred by the tumultuous crises and violence of world events. Now we are glued to the TV to follow the scary improbabilities of the Florida vote. As this is being written, we are still awaiting the outcome of the legal contests that will, we trust, lead willy-nilly to the proclamation of a new U.S.President! We are also deeply distressed by the tragic events now taking place in Palestine, the Holy Land sacred to Muslims and Jews as well as to Christians. It is not a silent night for Bethlehem. We pray for peace and hope this finds you, personally, happy and in good health.

As for the Riggs family, we have semi-recovered from the disruptions caused by my careless accident and broken leg which immobilized me for most of 1999 -- I was able, at last, to go to Notre Dame University for a conference on constitutional design from Dec. 9-11, an event that marked the beginning of an active year back in circulation. The new year also opened a new stage in our family's life when Wendy found Bruce Hymack in Pensacola and after a period of very romantic correspondence by e-mail, he decided to close out his Floridian life and come to Hawaii to join our family. They have taken over the lower level of our house including Fred's study, providing a good excuse for me to remain anchored in our extra-crowded bedroom with my computer perched on a card table. Bruce has installed his own computer in my former study which I welcome, actually, because he is a computer expert and has also helped me solve some tough problems. We are planning to add a new room over our sun porch and this should enable us, eventually, to restore our full living space. Ciel spearheaded the drive to have these plans put into action. They include turning an old potting shed on our lower terrace into a weather-proof storage room for my papers, one of Wendy's floor looms, and other attic mementos.

Wendy has demonstrated her superb creative ability by designing and making an exquisite stained glass window for the transom over her bathroom. It adds more elegance to their new living quarters. It is wonderful to have both of them sharing our home, helping us in our old age (!) and participating in our enhanced family life. They just chose a beautiful Christmas tree and set it up for us -- we now look forward to decorating it and all the season's festivities. Wendy continues to work at Inkinen as a "head hunter" and finds it a stimulating challenge. Bruce also found a good engineering job as project manager shortly after he arrived here, and is now most busily at work -- plus caring for his new Italian Ducati motorcycle. He has made our family complete.

During the past year I made up for lost travel time by taking several trips, including a fortnight in Europe and a week in South Korea -- plus three congresses. In Europe I gave a lecture on "Exporting Governance?" at Leiden University -- you can find it on my Home Site at Aladin Writing this Leiden paper gave me a chance to update some of my ideas about the "prismatic" model in the light of contemporary globalization, the rise of the INTERNET, and all the torrential changes taking place on our planet. Jan-Michiel Otto and Barbara Oomen were superb hosts and gave me a wonderful canal tour in Amsterdam.. I also visited Rotterdam, and Utrecht, and had a lovely time with Jim Bjorkman and old friends at the Institute for Social Studies in The Hague. On my way to Leiden, I stopped in Paris and enjoyed the hospitality and stimulating conversation of Mattei Dogan, visited UNESCO, Ali Kazancigil, and the ISSC, lunching with Leszek Kosinski, Karl van Meter, and friends at the Sciences Po.

Returning home, I stopped in San Francisco to meet Ciel who flew in from Honolulu so that we could hear our dear friend Franz Grundheber sing Amfortas, in fine voice, at the S.F. Opera production of Parsifal -- it was a rather scary post-modern interpretation that conjoined the quest for the Grail with our bleak hopes for peace in a desiccated world. But we had a great reunion with Franz and his gracious wife, Angelica. Later, we went to Oakland, across the Bay, for a reunion with my nephew, Sam Barakat and Claudia -- their daughter Mira has an operatic voice and gave us a lovely concert. Mary and Fernando DeCruz picked us up to end the day on a high note in their stunning Corte Madre retreat, from which we ferried back to SF across the beautiful Bay.

For the Korean trip, I presented a paper to the Seoul Association for Public Administration in which I grew nostalgic about my first visit there in 1956 and the many many subsequent changes in that fascinating country -- you can find the text at: SAPA . In both Europe and Korea, I enjoyed reunions with Bark Dong-Suh and many other old friends. As for the conferences, I went to Los Angeles for the International Studies Association; Quebec for the International Political Science Association; and Washington, DC for the American Political Science Association. I gave several papers and organized roundtables -- some details are given on my Home page. Gerald and Naomi Caiden entertained me in L.A. and I met many old friends in all these places. I especially appreciated long conversations with Henry Teune, George Graham, Barry Gills and so many others -- it was a wonderful experience

Upon my return home, I had to undergo angioplasty tests that led to the insertion of a new technology stent in one of my heart arteries, and I feel well recovered. After all of that, with great regret, I decided not to attend the Asilomar reunion for alumni of the Kuling American School. I send them all my greetings and deepest regrets for another absence. We were also unable to visit Ciel's sisters, Edith and Amy, or my sisters, Betsy and Edith (and their husbands, Bob and Farouk), but we're in regular contact by phone and they know how much we love and honor them. If you have any reason to come to Hawaii, please give us a call -- we remain entrenched in our home and welcome all visitors. In this holiday season, we send you our love and all best wishes for peace and happiness everywhere. With much much aloha, from Ciel, Wendy, Bruce and myself, Fred

December 2000