New Year's Wishes, Revised

Last year at this time, we offered three wishes for the new year that seemed both critically important and eminently doable. Alas, none of them came true. A few updates seem in order.

When looking at foreign affairs in January 2003, we presciently concluded that the two biggest trouble spots — Iraq and North Korea — posed too large a challenge for our wish-making capacities. So we settled on offering hopes that Israel would start dismantling its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. While that didn't happen, Ariel Sharon's government does at least seem to be facing up to the fact that hanging on to the occupied territories indefinitely would mean turning Israel into a country in which Jews were a minority, imposing their political will on a disenfranchised Palestinian majority.

We continue to hope that Israelis and Palestinians will return to serious negotiations toward a sustainable two-state future. But looking at other terrifying realities on the international scene, we add a second wish. This must be the year the world gets serious about nuclear weapons proliferation.

In 2003, North Korea declared that it had begun making nuclear bombs. Iran was discovered to have a secret uranium enrichment plant. Libya acknowledged that it had been trying to start a nuclear weapons program. At year's end, some of Pakistan's top nuclear scientists were being questioned about whether they had helped other countries make crucial technological advances. The regulatory system that kept the nuclear weapons club small for decades is crumbling. The chances of seeing some city somewhere vaporized under a mushroom cloud are mounting.

The world urgently needs as universal a system of inspections and controls as possible. The loophole that allows any country to produce nuclear bomb fuel legally by claiming that it is strictly for power production must be closed and replaced by a centralized system for supplying the fuel for reactors and removing plutonium products.

Last January we also wished for an end to the global system of agricultural subsidies that allow the richest nations to shut poor farmers out of international markets. During the year, we traveled the world, talking to impoverished men and women who grow cotton in Burkina Faso, catfish in Vietnam and corn in the Philippines, and came back more convinced of the importance of this issue. The world cannot have one set of rules for trade in manufactured products and another for farm goods, the commodities that are easiest for poor nations to produce and sell. But a lack of American leadership at the World Trade Organization caused the collapse of talks that were aimed at making the system fairer.

For the new year this wish still stands, but we can narrow it. We hope that the United States will regain its credibility on issues of trade by eliminating its two most egregious protectionist practices: those relating to cotton and sugar. Consumers and taxpayers pay billions to prop up these commodities, creating an oversupply, which is dumped on international markets at prices below the cost of production. Farmers in other countries that can grow sugar and cotton more cheaply know that the game has been rigged against them. Average Americans simply have no idea how much international resentment these programs have caused.

Improving automobile fuel economy standards — or at the very least, requiring S.U.V.'s to be as efficient as regular cars — topped our domestic wish list in 2003. It is perhaps even more important now, when American dependence on foreign oil is such an enormous national security issue. It is madness that the government fails to push carmakers toward standards they could easily reach with off-the-shelf technology. But both Congress and the administration bristle at the mere idea.

Worse, Congress would take any attempt to even bring up fuel efficiency as an invitation to resurrect its dreadful energy bill. In 21st-century America, energy legislation has become a synonym for pork for lawmakers and corporate welfare for the oil, gas and coal industries. Even the tiniest concession on automobile standards would wind up smothered in ridiculous tax breaks and giveaways.

Rather than take another trip down that lane, we have set our sights lower. We hope that Congress acts to shore up the nation's electric power grid. A bill sponsored by Representative John Dingell of Michigan would impose operating standards on the electric power industry and help prevent the sloppy behavior that caused last August's blackout. If our legislators can't make us energy-independent, they can at least see that the lights stay on.

Our second domestic wish involves the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush's much-publicized initiative to raise educational standards in public schools. We hope the administration will do an about-face and start forcing states to get serious about the requirement that a "highly qualified teacher" be in every classroom by 2006. The administration's desire to hold schools accountable, particularly when it comes to minority performance, is exactly the right priority. But there has always been a danger that the program will be too much about testing and too little about teaching. That's bound to be the case as long as the federal government lets states ignore the quality of teachers.

In a presidential election year, the natural, ultimate political wish is that the voters demonstrate to the competing politicians that a huge campaign treasury is no match for fresh ideas courageously focused on the nation's true challenges, not on its constituents' prejudices. That there will be no Bob Jones University moments of gutter politicking this time. That Election Day itself will not be sullied by the kind of doubt-ravaged, long-count vote tally that led to the sorry spectacle of democracy-by-litigation four years ago.

Here in New York, if we had one holiday present we could have given Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it would have been a solution to the city's endless and ever-expanding trash problem. Mr. Bloomberg came up with what sounded like a great plan for getting rid of the city's garbage, which has really had nowhere to go locally since the gigantic city landfill in Staten Island was closed. But it turned out that the transfer stations and barges Mr. Bloomberg had envisioned were going to cost much more and take far longer to put in place than he had supposed.

But the city's heart yearns for the rebuilding of ground zero, and our greatest wish for the new year is a dignified and steady march toward the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan. Happily, this is one place where ambitious dreaming seems likely to meet up with reality. So far, progress has been better than most of us could have imagined. The Freedom Tower's design stands ready, and we hope that the money to build it becomes available. That means Larry Silverstein, the developer, and the companies that insured the World Trade Center he was leasing will have to compromise. There is a lot of room between Mr. Silverstein's demand for $7 billion and the insurance companies' offer of $3.5 billion. It's time for them to find it.

The city, and the world, will never feel that plans are in place until a decision is made on the emotional centerpiece of ground zero: the memorial. Meddling by people like former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani have not helped as jurors have searched for the best design. But New Yorkers could probably not hope for better jurors to make this important decision. We hope they make it quickly and start this still-hopeful new year off right.

An amazing demonstration by the NY Times showing how out of touch it is with the major concerns of Americans. Contrast their statement with an op-ed by Powell today: Comments on Powell's "What We Will Do in 2004".

Meanwhile, according to the NY Times: In a presidential election year, the natural, ultimate political wish is that the voters demonstrate to the competing politicians that a huge campaign treasury is no match for fresh ideas courageously focused on the nation's true challenges, not on its constituents' prejudices.

[But the Times editorial contained no fresh ideas -- and nothing about their "fresh idea" pet project to curb political speech under the campaign finance reform ruse.]

That there will be no Bob Jones University moments of gutter politicking this time.

[But the Times was responsible for much of the gutter politicking by trying to pin a prejudiced-against-Catholics label on presidential candidate Bush for merely having gone there.]

That Election Day itself will not be sullied by the kind of doubt-ravaged, long-count vote tally that led to the sorry spectacle of democracy-by-litigation four years ago.

[But the Times has nary a word about Gore initiating the litigation or trying to ban military absentee ballots, or about voter fraud -- i.e., voting by the dead, the moved, the double-dippers, the precinct captains, the recounters, etc. -- or the endless audits by the media that all had the same result: BUSH WINS.]

Note also the Times offers no substantive editorial comment regarding the Iraq war or post-war successes (like the capture of Saddam), or the surging economy and declining deficit driven by (temporary) tax cuts, or Medicare (and prescription drug) reform (though more reforms are needed), all apparently conceded as lost causes for Democrats. Advantage, Bush.

Well, if that isn't about the most revealing editorial these jerks have ever published.

Iran and North Korea, which threaten to nuke the world, are insoluble, so they should be left alone. But we can all jump on Israel, instead.

Sure, that will definitely help. Let the villains go because we're afraid of them, but jump on a suitable victim.

As for New York City, my wish is that Bloomberg would be forced to disband the smoking police. I don't smoke myself, but I feel considerable pity and anger on behalf of those who do.

Interesting how Bloomberg's policy duplicates that of the editorial board. There's no hope in dealing with the really major problems, so lets jump on a few designated politically incorrect victims instead.

"The world urgently needs as universal a system of inspections and controls as possible."

Yes, let's continue with the ineffectual procedures of the fist-shaking U.N.

"an end to the global system of agricultural subsidies that allow the richest nations to shut poor farmers..."

And let us beat our swords into plowshares and let pompous dictators continue to fill mass graves with the bodies of their opposers or let proven terrorist leaders form plan and build their own nuclear weapons programs.

"... we have set our sights lower. We hope that Congress acts to shore up the nation's electric power grid."

Neither rain nor snow nor high winds nor felled trees nor lightning strikes nor floods nor hail nor fires at electrical substations so much as even caused my lights to flicker this past year. But God forbid we even try to tap some of the vast natural resources that lie below our soil to improve our domestic energy position.

"But there has always been a danger that the program will be too much about testing and too little about teaching."

Isn't a child's first and foremost teacher his/her parent? How's that for a novel idea in education!

"That Election Day itself will not be sullied by the kind of doubt-ravaged, long-count vote tally that led to the sorry spectacle of democracy-by-litigation four years ago."

Just say let's elect a Democrat and get it over with.

"...and our greatest wish for the new year is a dignified and steady march toward the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan."

Do I finish in agreement? Let's raise the symbol of who we are, high and again proud, that we are the Greatest Nation and we will never be cowed!

And for reasons that I have yet to discover, Virginia gave New York a contract for garbage dumping here, meaning that there are NYC garbage trucks crossing the Wilson Bridge, on their way to our landfills, which are going to fill up - and some have, causing the trash companies here in No.VA to have to travel further and I am now paying triple what I was for trash removal 8 years ago. As cost increases go, you can see the exorbitant increase in this essential cost of living! How driving 100 miles to dump their trash is economical, I fail to understand, but it must be - I've counted 30 trucks in one grouping, crossing the bridge. Heaven (and Richmond) only know how many more of them there are, every day, of every week!

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