[WSIS CS-Plenary] * APC Tribute to Chris Nicol *

[mclauglm at po.muohio.edu]

Chris was one of the first persons to acquaint me with the WSIS 
process, as I'd never been part of a UN summit before, and my 
organization has been somewhat small and isolated over the years. 
After each prepcom during Phase 1, I'd return to the US, singing the 
praises of Chris Nicol to members of my organization because he was 
smart, politically-progressively oriented to global equity, funny, 
helpful, understanding, and able to write a good press release on top 
of that. Within the past year, I was told, by a cancer survivor, that 
Chris had cancer, and I am a cancer survivor myself. I only could 
hope that he would be able to survive as we did, but his illness was 
more aggressive. He is no longer suffering. It is for us to be sad 
now. But, even though I didn't know him very well, I will miss him 
tremendously. My condolences to Chris's partner, family, and APC.

I still think of Chris in the context of the last time that I saw 
him. We had a continuous joke about my inability to do the "two cheek 
kissing form of greeting" that is not so common in the US. He 
surmised that, eventually, I would master the greeting. This hasn't 
occurred, but I will work on it, thanks to Chris.

All best wishes,

Lisa

-- 
Lisa McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Mass Communication & Women's Studies
Editor, Feminist Media Studies
Director of Graduate Studies, M.A. Program in Mass Communication
Union for Democratic Communications Representative,
World Summit on the Information Society

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