Ever since we acquired our new site design more than a year ago now, in the summer of 2009, we have been looking for pages to fill out the bar just beneath the masthead. We started with just “Home,” “About,” and “Links.” Then thanks to a welcome good-news message from Vancouver, late this past spring, we added “Democratic reform in Canada.”Â  Fresh gurgling in our own home-province waters this summer led to “Ontario tonight.” And a crucial (maybe) municipal election in Ontario’s capital city three weeks ago brought a “Streetcar Named Rob Ford.”

Last week we finally added “Zzzzzzzzzzzzz” – with just enough “z”s to fill the bar completely, at last. Its official subject is “Links to recent news for those who really cannot get to sleep.” Our first entries went unannounced on any other parts of the site.  And while the page did nonetheless draw quite a lot of traffic, a little too much of it was what our California webmasters call “malevolent” (whatever that may really mean?).

So .. we have decided it is time to formally introduce the last beneath-the-masthead page (or whatever a better term might be) on the current counterweights incarnation. Like “Ontario tonight” and a “Streetcar named Rob Ford,” it will continue to be updated, intermittently, as time goes by. This week’s Zzzzzzzzzzzzz page update, at the end of five days of mostly beautiful autumn weather in our northern mid-western-north-eastern North American hometown is called “NOVEMBER 12, 2010 : THIS WEEK IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE.”

It includes brief reports and related links on five subjects of key current interest (well, sort of): (1) WORLD ECONOMY – WHAT ME WORRY? ; (2) BURMESE DAYS ; (3) US HEALTH CARE : 49% WANT ‘OBAMACARE’ OR MORE, 42% WANT LESS –  DOES THAT MEAN 42% WINS? ;  (4) JUSTIN TRUDEAU’S CAR CAREER (AND “CONSERVATIVES AGAINST FANTINO”!) ; and (5) WOMAN MARRIES HERSELF IN TAIWAN. We hope that all this will help some readers achieve deeper sleep – while also shedding a littler further light on the events which alter and illuminate our increasingly complicated time. And you can CLICK HERE if you have politely read all the way to this point, without clicking anywhere else!