Editorial: New year hopes

Last year didn’t end on a high note, but we hope 2013 will be a peaceful and productive year for the world, the nation, Kansas — and you.

Holiday celebrations across our land may have been a bit subdued this year, as families joyfully recognized their own good fortune while acknowledging that a vicious murder of 20 young children has settled disturbingly in our collective consciousness. That horrible crime puts a patina of guilt on our own good fortune to be able to share an unscathed holiday with family and friends.

Here’s hoping Santa and his helpers, who include us all, brought these gifts:

  • No mass murders in the year to come. A boring year for first-responders throughout the nation.
  • Leadership in the nation’s capital, with the president and Congress actually thinking in terms of what’s best for the United States of America. Enough of the partisanship! Enough of thinking only of the next election, the big donor.
  • A state government that’s similarly focused on taking care of its citizens, even if that includes working with Washington. Enough of my-way-or-the-highway.
  • Swift and successful completion of the next round of ambitious street improvement projects in Lawrence. We need them!
  • An NCAA championship basketball team for the Kansas University Jayhawks. Nothing lifts spirits in Lawrence quite like that!
  • And a winning season for the Jayhawk football team. Can’t have too many of those!
  • Good friends. Can’t have too many of those, either!
  • Happy graduations and commencements for our students in the educational institutions throughout our county. And successful and happy lives for all those graduates.
  • An end to the conflicts around the globe. Safe return of our troops.
  • For us at the J-W, and for media companies everywhere, a solution to the economic tide that, with changes in technology, threatens to wash away the Fourth Estate and the important role it can play as a source of community information, and as the community watchdog.
  • For you and yours, what’s in your hearts. (Batteries included, if necessary!)
  • Happy New Year!