Friday, January 2, 2009

Resolve: the New Year should be better


 The Sun Valley area will not only be digging out of the deep snow that fell the end of that year, but also from the deep distress left by the Crash of 2008 and eight long years of the Bush Administration, whose policies left federal government operations in tatters.

     A few good New Year’s resolutions carried out in 2009 ought to help right things. A few we’d like to see fulfilled include:

     Hailey and Sun Valley: To quit fighting and to work out a formula to pay fair shares of the emergency dispatch services received by both cities.

     North Blaine County and South Blaine County residents and elected officials: to quit behaving as though they reside in separate counties.

     Idaho Legislature: to remedy the legal situation that left cities and counties with few ways to spur development of affordable housing in areas where working families have been priced out.

     Idaho Legislature: To remember that BlaineCounty is not an enemy of the state and that the need for legislation targeted to help tourism is not a sin.

     Ketchum, Sun Valley and Blaine County: to refuse to give up the fight for workforce housing in order to ensure that working residents can continue to live in the WoodRiverValley.

     Ketchum: to demonstrate to its citizens how it has changed operations in the Police Department to ensure that chain-of-custody snafus don’t blow criminal cases out of the courts.

     Ketchum developers: to get a new hotel built, running and advertised in order to bring in guests who will infuse new life into the local economy.

     Friends of wolves and foes of wolves: to work out ways to quit howling at one another and achieve détente.

     Securities and Exchange Commission: to regulate, regulate, regulate and to boil the dishonesty and outright criminal dealings out of the nation’s stock market.

     Home buyers and investors: to repeat every day until they breathe their last breath: If it’s too good to be true, it’s not true.

     Environmental Protection Agency: to require all political appointees and employees in this agency to pass an annual quiz to find out if they understand the meaning of the words “environmental” and “protection.” The batch exiting this month never figured it out.

     Departing Vice President Dick Cheney: to volunteer to undergo waterboarding and then to weigh in one last time on whether or not it’s torture.

     Outgoing President George W. Bush: to keep the promise he made to keep his mouth shut and let a new president govern.

     President-elect Barack Obama: to keep his campaign promises and to roll back the most damaging midnight regulations put in place by the outgoing adminstration.

     Car buyers: to remember that gas cost more than $4 a gallon earlier this year and that it could happen again as the pumping abilities of the world’s oil wells decline.

     Anonymous web bloggers: to be civil, to use facts instead of falsehoods, and to raise the level of discourse instead of wasting perfectly good bandwith on trash.

     Bureau of Land Management: to remove the “For Sale” sign on pristine and historically significant public lands and to quit selling them off to the highest corporate bidder.

     U.S. Senators and Congressmen: to raise taxes on gasoline high enough to ensure that development of alternative energy and transportation will not falter and leave Americans dependent on foreign oil.

     All Americans: to curb our appetites for junk food, cut our calories and increase our workouts in order to drive down healthcare costs over our lifetimes.

     Babyboomers: to face the fact that the party is over and retirement won’t be what they expected—or arrive as soon.

     Gen Xers and Millennials: To ponder whether it’s possible to be too connected and to resolve to power down once in a while and listen to the silence.

     Hillary Clinton supporters: to quit blaming Barack Obama for the loss of the presidential nomination and to start blaming an old-school campaignocracy that refused to change.

     48 Straight: to revive the now-defunct 48 straight hours of skiing/boarding competitions and musical merriment when the national economy improves.

     Whiskey Jacques’ bar: to remember the valley misses the bands, the beer and the dancing and wants you back.

     Mother Nature: to bring on the snow without so much suspense, and keep the microbursts, mudslides and life-threatening forest fires out of the WoodRiverValley.

    

    

    




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