It’s important to know she despised Saddam, yet has found fresh laments, in spite of that.

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions—they’re always so narrow and boring. I’d rather advance some bigger goals.

When I was a young fellow, and my father was teaching me how to swing a bat, he’d tell me I shouldn’t aim to hit the ball, I should try to swing through it. When he was teaching me how to play football, he’d tell me I shouldn’t aim for the lineman’s chest, I should set the goal of running straight through the guy and a hundred yards downfield. (Of course, there were other words of wisdom from my father, like “you’re a born nerd, boy, and I don’t know why we’re wastin’ time with the sports”). The point still stands, though: if you’re trying to go from here to there, don’t set your sights on there—make your goal an unreachable point far, far beyond there. Never settle for a small piece, always go for everything…and be glad of whatever you can get.

In that spirit, then, here’s what I’d dream of seeing in the next year.

• Every penny spent on this pointless war ought to be immediately redirected out of Halliburton’s hands and straight to social services. Universal healthcare, first thing. Everything else gets poured into education—we need more and better schools at every level, and more teachers, and the teachers need to be paid what they’re worth. Every child born ought to be able to expect to get the same medical care as any other, and every child ought to be able to get the level of education he desires and can handle, not just what her family can afford. If our government can suck up tons of cash and shovel it at a disgraceful foreign expedition, they ought to be able to do the same with something that really matters. And we can pay for it by taxing the bloated and grossly over-pampered rich.
• Let religion expire. I want to see a world where religion is a quirk, the hobby of eccentrics, rather than a prerequisite for high office. Creationism should be the punchline to a joke instead of the focus of serious debate. Let all the churches and synagogues and mosques close, and then reopen, repurposed as centers for secular charities or the arts. Televangelists should be bankrupt (we’ll keep them off the streets with our expanded social services, though), and the more honest preachers should be looking for legitimate work—something other than trading a false authority for handouts from the deluded and fearful. Maybe they can go back to school and learn something useful.
• Let’s get specific: GW Bush, Dick Cheney, and the whole corrupt lot should be impeached, convicted of gross negligence tantamount to treason, and sent to prison for the rest of their lives. The entire Republican party should wither away in shame and disappear. The Democrats should reorganize and stand up for real principles: return to their roots as the party of labor and the working class, for civil rights and equality. Because we do need competing ideas, the other party with some power should be the Greens, who fight for the environment and sustainability. It would be such a joy to be able to go to the polling place and instead of choosing between Evil Greedy Grandpa and Bland Dithering Bureaucrat, I could actually face the pleasant dilemma of having to weigh agendas that matter in a positive way.
• In a development for the long term, lets pull people back into developed enclaves and allow large swathes of the country revert to wilderness; I want plains with herds of bison, I want old growth forests standing pristine and unthreatened, I want sections of coastline where the marine life is allowed to teem untouched. We should treat life as something worth preserving, not to be sacrificed for mere human convenience.
• Those human enclaves? Let them be fed with sustainable agricultural practices and fueled with renewable energy. Tie them together with efficient mass transit and free, open communications technologies.

That’s my dream for this new year. I want all of that, and heck, I want ponies for everyone, too.

OK, I’ll compromise: if we can’t swing the ponies, I won’t cry too much. If it takes two years, rather than one, I’ll cope, anxiously.

But let’s please start aiming much, much higher, and let’s all have a wonderfully progressive new year.

From the AP today:

Poll: Americans see gloom, doom in 2007

WASHINGTON - Another terrorist attack, a warmer planet, death and destruction from a natural disaster. These are among Americans’ grim predictions for the United States in 2007.

Only a minority of people think the U.S. will go to war with Iran or North Korea over those countries’ nuclear ambitions. An overwhelming majority of those surveyed think Congress will raise the federal minimum wage. One-third see hope for a cure to cancer.

These are among the findings of an Associated Press-AOL News poll that asked people in the U.S. to contemplate what 2007 holds for the country.

(snip)

Meanwhile, that same AP also published this today:

AP Poll: Americans Optimistic for 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — The news from Iraq and other national headlines may be grim, but in Greenville, N.C., John Given has a new baby and his first home, and life is good.

So, too, for Sandra Trowbridge in tiny Magnet Cove, Ark. The situation in Iraq makes her feel pessimistic about the state of the nation, but at home, at least, all is well. Even if nothing special has happened to her family, she says, “we still love each other,” and that’s enough.

And so it goes for most Americans. An AP-AOL News Poll finds that while most Americans said 2006 was a bad year for the country, three-fourths thought it had been a good one for them and their families.

“In a time of war, so little has been asked of us as citizens,” said Given, who teaches ancient Greek at East Carolina University. “We haven’t had to sacrifice anything. We’ve been allowed to live our lives very, very well.”

Looking ahead, optimism reigns.

Seventy-two percent of Americans feel good about what 2007 will bring for the country, and an even larger 89 percent are optimistic about the new year for themselves and their families, according to the poll.

(snip)

The latter comes from an Ipsos poll conducted for AP-AOL from Dec 12-14. The former came from exactly the same poll.

I conducted a poll on Dec 31, discussing this with a random sample of 1,000 of my multiple personalities. The poll indicated that:

1) The funnies findings in both articles were these, from the gloom & doomers:

_25 percent anticipate the second coming of Jesus Christ.

_19 percent think scientists are likely to find evidence of extraterrestrial life.

2) 65% of me believe Jesus Christ qualifies as an extraterrestrial, and hopes he arrives in time to multiply a fish and a bit of bread dough into bagels and lox for everyone.

3) 97% of me thinks AP is goofing on us. But its impact will be negligible because we’re all sufficiently goofy already.

4) 105% of me believes some AP editors have dipped into the New Year’s champagne a bit early.

My poll has no margin of error. But its Mommy dresses it funny.