Visit Finland Thanks to Rotary

If only I had had a blog when I visited Nepal and West Bengal in 2004 on a Group Study Exchange trip sponsored by the Rotary Foundation.

I hope that Rotary District 7470 sends bloggers to Finland in 2010. What an opportunity would go to waste otherwise, now that Finland has declared universal broadband access a right.

To be eligible you must be between 25 and 40 years old, a full-time professional, either living or working in one of the following New Jersey counties:

• Morris
• Essex
• Warren
• Sussex

(If you're not from those counties, check with your local Rotary club. Many districts participate in the Group Study Exchange program. You could find yourself visiting some other foreign country for an entire month, staying in the homes of Rotary Club members and seeing your host country from the inside out.)

The team going to Finland will go from March 21 to April 21, 2010. You need to get your application in by November 30, so email fgeraghty@verizon.net now.

News pyramid

Here in New Jersey we get play-by-play coverage of the sordid McGreevey custody hearings. Only by accident did I chance upon a brief in the Star-Ledger this morning about Nepal planning to depose its monarch, King Gyanendra.

I've been divorced. I am as titillated as anyone else to see how low Jim 'n' Dina can sink. But that should be the fats and sugars in my news pyramid, to be consumed sparingly.

The mainstay of my news diet, the vegetables and whole grains, should be events that concern 29 million people at a time, even if they live halfway around the world from me and are desperately poor.

Paris 'n' Britney are the trans fats. They clog the arteries of my brains.

For more information about Nepal, please visit the Friends of Nepal-New Jersey website.