Every year the sun comes up on a new world on Jan. 1. People traditionally crowd every one of those first days by resolving to do everything from losing weight to taking up sky diving.
We also couldn't resist offering up some light and some serious New Year's resolutions we'd like to recommend for 2006.
Mother Nature: To attend anger management classes. Enough with the hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and such.
President George W. Bush: To do something both Republicans and Democrats may appreciate: Take up the study of syntax—the way words go together in phrases and sentences—in order to quit mangling our native tongue.
Jerome County Commissioners: To stop the sell-out of Idaho's air, wild fisheries, trout farms, the South-central Idaho tourist industry, and people's lungs by rejecting construction of a private coal-fired power plant that would generate millions in property taxes.
Idaho Legislature: To stop siting of dirty coal-fired power plants in the state by adopting restrictive emissions rules.
The Environmental Protection Agency: To get out of the office, take a few deep breathes and figure out why allowing industries to dirty pristine air in the name of reducing pollution is a dumb policy.
Wood River's performing artists: To let the shows go on, and on, and on.
Blaine County Commissioners and other county elected officials: (Same as last five years.) To hire an administrator to allow them to manage the big picture and to leave the micro-management to others.
Wood River Elk: To learn the song "Thanks for the Memories," to be sung as they are trucked to winter range free of subdivisions.
Scooter Libby: To reflect on why he never paid attention to his kindergarten teacher's sign for "zip your lip."
National Security Agency: To require employees to read the biographies of President Richard M. Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and the U.S. Constitution. Make passing unannounced pop quizzes on the legality of spying on American citizens a continuing condition of employment.
Idaho's U.S. Sen. Larry Craig: To spend the rest of his life counting salmon in his sleep now that he's killed the 20-year-old Fish Passage Center at the behest of the hydropower industry.
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne: As titular guardian of unparalleled natural grandeur, to abandon partisan loyalty and oppose any effort by the Bush administration to turn the state's cherished public lands over to industrial exploitation.
Politicians reducing civil liberties in the war on terror: To heed Benjamin Franklin's ageless wisdom: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling: To assign a deputy in late afternoons to block the right traffic lane on state Highway 75 from Elkhorn Road south to stop impatient drivers from butting into the slow line of cars.
U.S. Military and Intelligence Services: (Same as last two years.) To find Osama Bin Laden.
Blaine County Recreation District: To rule that to ski on the dog trails you must bring a dog. (Why take a perfectly good walk without a dog?)
Ketchum Historical Society: To recognize the old church, once Louie's restaurant, with a plaque commemorating it as the town's "Most moved building."
Developers: To plan an affordable housing village and to set aside just one penthouse for multi-millionaires.
Department of Homeland Security: To install a help booth at the base of Trail Creek Road and to inspect every vehicle to be sure it has two spare tires with air in them, a jack, the right size lug wrench, and food and water for a day or two.
Idaho Department of Commerce: To lobby for a new Idaho quarter stamped with the image of the Dalai Lama and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne hugging each other.
Wood River Mayors and City Council Members: To resolve not to remake the wheel by taking one work-study trip a year to learn firsthand how other mountain resort communities in the region are handling growth.
Hailey Police Department: To write a lot more traffic tickets to drivers who speed through town and treat pedestrians in crosswalks like they are invisible.
Ketchum City Council: To make sure the city's new downtown study never gathers dust on the shelves in City Hall.
National media: To revitalize foreign news bureaus and grow a new spine.
Valley residents and part-time residents: To support local businesses, nonprofit groups and service providers to preserve the spirit, vitality and convenience that makes this an interesting place to live.
