On this fifth day of the new year, we’re still looking back and marveling over the crazy 2013 we managed to survive.
The Hatfields and the McCoys continued to feud … or was that the Democrats and Republicans? The dollar continued to shrink faster than a supermodel after gastric bypass surgery. The word “pope” can be found in the same news stories as the slang term “swagger.” The Life After People series - the History Channel dramatization of left-brainers’ predictions about how conditions on Earth would deteriorate if all the population were to disappear - had a real spinoff: Life After Government Shutdown. Meanwhile, Real Housewives of New Jersey spawned its own spinoff: Real Felons of New Jersey. And real visions of Kimye (Kim Kardashian and her boo and baby daddy, Kanye West) didn’t just dance into our heads; they were stuffed into small holes drilled into our heads. And is Paris Jackson doing any better?
Yes, once again we are gleaning our list of New Year’s resolutions from the previous year’s headlines. Instead of presenting these as “suggested” resolutions, I urge us all to gather and recite these in unison.
Ready? Here goes.
We the people resolve not to twerk, swing on wrecking balls in our birthday suits, or cut our once-decent hair into little flippety dos that make us look like punk rockers trying to remake a 1960s beach movie. We also resolve not to perform, or otherwise be seen in, black-and-white vertical stripe suits, however more slimming vertical stripes are purported to be.
We resolve to do what we can to comfort and aid any of our fellow men who fall prey to natural disasters, war or random acts of violence … which come all too easily and often these days, and may not always happen to somebody else.
We resolve not to idolize or deify anybody on this earth and to realize that even the most admirable among us may have their dark sides/ moments. And although we resolve to regard all our children as royal babies, we also resolve to raise them to become royally behaving citizens. Meanwhile, we ourselves resolve to grow older with grace, and if we are to get famous, we resolve to get famous for noble and dignified reasons.
We resolve to watch what we say, but stand up for what we believe in … after carefully counting the cost in both cases.
We resolve to get it in our thick skulls that we can’t take two contradictory paths. (Be a politician or a pinup porn boy slash-sexter? Nah.) We resolve to make our moving plans before blowing the whistle on the U.S. government.
We resolve not to get roped into watching another movie like Sharknado, no matter how many Tweets it gets … especially since long before Sharknado we knew the myriad eye-rolling content packed into the other hastily-thrown-together, lead-actor-earned-maybe five-grand pieces of dung shown on the Syfy Channel. (Dino Croc or Piranhaconda, anyone? What about Sharktopus, the movie that will forever keep Eric Roberts from being referred to as a “distinguished” thespian?)
We resolve to not even try new restaurants - or new government websites - until we’re reasonably sure all the bugs are worked out.
We resolve to start letter-writing campaigns, social-media campaigns, flash mob campaigns, or whatever types of campaigns it may take to advocate for TV shows with real heroes again. Better yet, we resolve to turn off the TV more and get a life.
We resolve to look for the positive news that may not be headlines but will work to restore our faith, like the pay-it-forward trend that hit coffee and sandwich shops in Canada and the United States. Like the guy who shined shoes for a living but donated $202,000 in tips to a children’s hospital. Like the girl who went from would-be Taliban victim to activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Yeah, stuff like that.
Best yet, we resolve to help make some positive news. And, while we’re at it, start a new slang term: breaking good.
Lose weight, stop smoking and email: hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style, Pages 47 on 01/05/2014