From the Managing Editor:
New year's resolutions

Calendars, New Year’s Days, and even time itself are all manmade contrivances, but they do offer us a mental break, a new beginning. With all the divisive behavior and hard words that have been spoken over the last few months, such a new start is most welcome. And this is where New Year’s resolutions come in. Individually and collectively we desperately need to resolve to find ways to work cooperatively in the coming year. Yes, there are always going to be differences of opinion when it comes to government, politics, and social policies, but we need to find a way to overcome the stubborn “will to win” that seems to pervade our interactions judicially, legislatively, and personally.

In the final analysis we are one people, one Mississippi. We will rise or fall together, and we will vastly improve our chances for success if we agree to disagree but also agree that stalemate and obstinacy will get us nowhere. Senate and House, Governor and Legislature, Democrats and Republicans should resolve to fairly debate points of view but when the dust settles and the smoke clears to allow majority rule to allow us to proceed. Even if a chosen path later in hindsight turns out to have been ill-advised, moving forward is still preferable to stagnation.

Another resolution I wish we could all make is to try sincerely to believe in each other. Every four years when we choose our President, after the race is over and victory has been conceded, there is much speechifying about working together to keep America great. But especially in the last two elections, those positive sentiments have rung hollow. The resentment in 2000 over the Florida vote fiasco essentially gave us four years of hostility between many Democrats and Republicans. George W. Bush began with an uphill battle to unify our country, and his efforts in Iraq have, for better or worse, only served to prolong and even exacerbate that fight. Now that he is definitely going to be our leader for four more years, however, and also because he now has no re-election motivations, it is this writer’s hope that our nation will stop feeling the need to fight every step of the way. No one could expect the Democratic Party to roll over and simply write President Bush a blank check, but likewise for any politician, or even any average-Joe citizen, to have a knee-jerk negative response to every proposal that comes down the pike would be wrong. Despite obvious feelings to the contrary that many people have adopted, Republicans, even conservative Republicans, can sometimes propose truly worthwhile ideas – emancipation under Lincoln and winning the Cold War under Reagan come to mind. And even liberal Democrats have occasionally managed to produce valuable programs – Roosevelt’s New Deal and LBJ’s Civil Rights Act both seem to have pushed the country forward, albeit kicking and screaming.

So, as we move into 2005, it is to hoped that although there will be disagreement, we will remember that not every politician is in the pocket of a special interest group and that not every proposal is tainted by a desire to soak or pad the rich or the poor. Dr. Robert Elliott, the eminent physician and scientist who sponsors a wonderful scholarship program at Delta State, has a favorite quote about “Attitude” that is worth considering. As we look forward to this New Year, I hope that we will all try to remember how vital our attitudes are in determining our future and resolve to remain as positive as possible.

ATTITUDE by CHARLES SWINDOLL

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church…a home. The remarkable thing is, we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our Attitudes.

Best wishes for a happy and productive New Year to all our readers. DBJ

Joe Meek
DBJ Managing Editor

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