Good-bye 2001, hello 2002

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Another year has come and gone. We've met and interviewed many smart and powerful and wonderful people from all walks of life in and around Indian Country this year, and we've done our best bring them home and introduce them to our best friends-our many loyal readers-and we had a great time doing it.

As the holiday season approaches, it's time once again to relay our very best wishes for peace, happiness, success and prosperity to one and all. This year-given the painful memories we all carry after Sept. 11- it feels just a bit more important than usual that we tell you we wish you and your families all the best in the New Year. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, well, what else can we say? Merry Christmas and peace on earth.

Peace on earth. It's more than just something you read on greeting cards this time around, isn't it? May we all be safe from terror and free to enjoy life and all the wonders of creation for many years to come.

The new year looks quite promising on the political front, if our read on the national chief is any indication. For a guy who has been under fire from so many directions during the last 12 months or more, Matthew Coon Come seemed genuinely jolly when we spoke to him this month and, considering we put this issue to bed in late November, we don't think it was the Christmas spirit. He even joked with us about taking him to task for not making himself available to the Native press as often as we'd like. And he good-naturedly kidded us about the information our network of friendly sources have provided us with this year that have made it pretty hard to keep too many secrets for very long in Ottawa.

We suspect he was feeling so good because he knows some things we don't know. We get the feeling that there will be some unusually good news in the new year when the federal budget comes down.

There's still time for our many sources to help us ferret out just exactly what's coming in the next few months and we know we'll learn more at the AFN confederacy meeting in Ottawa. But we just wanted to pass on our suspicions that there's good news on the way.

Recently we've heard from many kind people who just called or wrote or emailed to say, "Keep up the good work!" That means more to us than you might appreciate. So to all of Windspeaker's readers, friends, sources, clients, . . . heck, even our competitors and those who don't like us much, happy holidays from everyone here at AMMSA-the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society-and all the best in the coming year.