Shake up that Etch A Sketch. A new year dawns – and so does hope that the world can move beyond the blunders, disappointments and nasty predicaments of 2012.
Some of our hopes for 2013:
• The drawdown of U.S. troops – including Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers – continues on course in Afghanistan. The bleeding ends.
• The Seahawks win the Super Bowl in February.
• Gov. Jay Inslee proves better at finding money for public schools than his campaign rhetoric suggested.
• Washington’s pot smokers obey the law that legalized marijuana – especially the parts about licensed sales, and keeping the drug out of sight and away from minors.
• Randy Dorn, the state superintendent of public schools, gives up the idea of suing the voters to stop charter schools.
• Lawmakers figure out that they can’t keep starving higher education without squeezing Washington’s economic future.
• The state figures out how to fund the extension of Highway 167 from Puyallup to the Port of Tacoma, and the construction of the cross-base highway from Frederickson to Interstate 5.
• Tacoma’s municipal unions join T.C. Broadnax’s effort to control city spending and preserve public services.
• Republicans start treating climate change as a scientific issue, not a partisan sledgehammer.
• After getting booted by the voters, former Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam fades into deserved obscurity.
• Afghans and Americans see unmistakable justice done for the appalling massacre of 16 Afghan villagers in March.
• Police solve the disappearance of Susan Powell, whose husband, Josh, murdered their two small boys and killed himself in February.
• Iran is persuaded or peacefully coerced into giving up its menacing nuclear program.
• America figures out how to make psychiatric treatment as easy to come by as a gun.
• Lawmakers, federal and state, expand background checks and take other reasonable measures to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the severely disturbed.
• Palestinians grow disenchanted with Hamas after recognizing that the terror regime can’t win them an inch of territory or a day of peace.
• Israel stops goading Palestinians with new West Bank settlements.
• Republicans acknowledge that Congress can’t write a responsible budget without new taxes; Democrats acknowledge that Congress can’t write a responsible budget without serious cuts in entitlements.
• To sequestrations, fiscal cliffs, unsustainable tax breaks, runaway spending and $1 trillion deficits, lawmakers of both parties say, “Never again.”
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