For fear you will fault me for not having yet published any resolutions for the New Year 2008, here now is my list.

You will be edified, I trust, to see how sweeping a character reformation I have planned for this, the newly arrived year. Even though other people tend to keep such resolves in the breach rather than the observance, I pledge to give them the force of solemn vows.

1. Never again badmouth my readers, even one who writes “If I say your column stinks, I am not saying you stink.” Nice distinction!
2. Appreciate more deeply the distinction just made between self and column. I do not lose identity completely, even when a column gets roundly panned.
3. Render thanks that I will not have to switch to Lifebuoy soap.  Investigate computer deodorants.
4. Find time to read every word of every letter, even if it runs to 8 pages in single-spaced handwritten script like the one quoted above. It will be important to remind myself that nothing is more important than giving full attention to each response, whatever its logic.
5. Ration the times I allow myself for looking at the Countdown Clock on my desk that calculates the days, hours, minutes, and seconds left for W. to occupy the White House. This restraint may even inspire indulgence toward an administration that some zealots are calling (intemperately, of course) the worst in American history.
6. Develop more respect for the rationale of candidates who drop out of the race while piously alleging: “I want to spend more time with my family.” They can remind me that, at least once in a great  while, it may be good for me to stay at home rather than always to be found hanging around local bars.
7. Affirm the value for the public weal of a presidential campaign that goes on for more months than anyone can count on several hands. This will help me to develop greater respect for the political leaders who grace us with perpetual campaigning.
8. Determine to save all the emails I send out in the course of the year. This I propose, not just for the literary merit that almost all of them carry, but also for a secret project. That will make me the first person in history to have my collected emails published in book form, a project for which I expect to win the National Book Award.
9. Start using the valuable new vocabulary that has recently emerged from technology and other sources. As the New York Times has reported, such words as “gorno” (referring to a movie that combines gore and porn); “lolcat” (meaning a humorous picture of a cat on the Internet along with a large ungrammatical caption); and “drama-price,” (a verb that means lowering the price of a house to make it more attractive to potential buyers). Surely you will agree that such additions will enrich our daily speech.
10. Reconcile myself to waterboarding and other forms of torture endorsed by the  United States government. Despite the scruples of John McCain and other nitpickers, the wise men at the top in Washington have continued to endorse these practices as essential to our national security. If we knew what they know, we would agree with them, right?
11. Pronounce as highly desirable the salaries and bonuses of the top dogs on Wall Street and in corporations across America. Even if they are paid thousand of times as much as the average worker, it is good for the country, and some of their payments may even trickle down to us ordinary folks. Remind myself of this frequently and don’t grouse about the good fortune of others.
12. Stop complaining about airline food; instead down it with pleasure. What is wrong with a pretzel diet when you are traveling half-way across the country? Remember that hotshot chefs are addressing this issue by concocting picnic lunches available to any passenger with a trust fund.
13. Join others in hailing the impending demise of newspapers in this country. Investigative reporting be damned; who will miss it? Who cares if government officials on the federal, state, county, and municipal level are indulging in skullduggery, or whether utilities and other corporations are cheating customers?  We will all be better off to assume the best and let those snooping reporters go away and get real jobs.
14. Sign up for a more upbeat religion than has been mine up to now. I need an evangelist who will tell me all about the gospel of success. I want to be with that number, not of the pious who expect things to go bad, but rather with the millions of people who know by their wealth that God loves them. I’ve had altogether too much of religion that talks as if sin and evil were still a force in the world.

Richard Griffin