Looking Forward to 2010

Before we get too far into the year, I thought I’d capture some of my hopes for 2010. I don’t do any kind of formal New Year’s resolution, but I do think about the future. With thanks to my boycat Galway who I happened to catch in this great pose, here are some of the things on my list:

• Let 2010 be the Year of Cooperation between all levels of government including village, town, city, county, region, state and national jurisdictions. They should learn to play well with each other, consolidate services where possible, and think about what is truly best for their constituents in these trying economic times.


• Let 2010 be the Year of Accountability. I’m less interested in what we call this year (twenty-ten, two-thousand-ten, two-oh-one-oh, or whatever the other options are) than I am in hoping that this is finally the year that people become accountable for themselves, and act accordingly, whether it’s professionally or personally.


• Let 2010 be the Year of Not Defining Beauty by Dress Size. We need to focus less on how big a person is, and more on whether or not we’re healthy. There is a difference between the two, even if we’ve managed to convince ourselves that ‘healthy’ and ‘skinny’ are synonyms.


• Let 2010 be the Year of Fiscal Responsibility. We cannot continue to spend our tax dollars the way we do. There have to be politicians out there who can see the bigger picture and help us find our way back to some level of sanity.


• Let 2010 be the Year of Politicians Finding Ethics. That we need this is a no-brainer. If we have folks with the brains or the stomachs to fix it is a whole ’nother question.


• Let 2010 be the Year of The Demise of Reality TV. OK, we can keep American Idol, The Amazing Race, and maybe Survivor, but the rest of it has got to go.


• Let 2010 be the Year the Red Sox Regain the World Series title. I just never get sick of asking for that one.

We'll be talking about these again down the road, I'm sure. What’s on your list?