Greetings!

I have an idea for a blog. Each week, I'd like to have a panel of prominent local people in various fields comment on a series of five or six suggested issues. Panelists would be free to comment on any or all of the subjects.

I would try to get as large a number of knowledgeable panelists as possible. I would approach national and provincial politicians; city councillors and the mayor; prominent business people and union representatives; people from the schools, the University, the College, vocational schools -- professors, teachers, administrators; people active in various community charities and activities; doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs.

Each week -- say, Friday afternoon -- I would e-mail each of the panelists with the issues for that week. I might start with three questions or issues of interest to the city, one for the province, one national issue, and one international. The panelists would be free to respond to one or more of the topics, or to none at all; with a large panel, I would hope that each subject would get at least some responses, which could range from a couple of lines to several paragraphs.

In this scenario, I would allow the weekend plus Monday for panelists to respond. Monday evening, I would publish the contributions I had received. They would remain for a week, while the general public could comment. I would edit the comments, deleting anything offensive and sorting good comments into an "Editor's Choice" section. I would also invite general readers, as well as panelists, to make suggestions for future topics for discussion. After a week, those posts and comments would be archived, and a new set of replies from the panelists would replace them.

Most blogs have one or more articles, each on a different topic, with comments (which are mostly pretty useless). My idea is that if the topic is, for instance, the shortage of family doctors or long lines in the hospital waiting room, I would hope to get numerous responses from people directly involved and with some knowledge of the subject -- hospital administrators, doctors, nurses.

Okay, so the chances of this actually happening range from slim to bupkis. It's just a thought.