With each New Year come the same cookie-cutter resolutions: lose weight, get a dream job, be nice to people, make more money, learn a language, get organized, etc.
I have decided that, noble though they may be, these resolutions are also officially boring; so this year I’m getting a bit more creative. After all, I’ve already taken up running, keep dreaming about the job, am fairly nice to everyone save dictators and tyrants, have a pathetic income ceiling as a journalist, did the language thing this past year, and have come to realize that over 150 pairs of shoes can only get so organized without being given a room of their own.
So bring it on, 2007: I’m ready with the best resolutions ever!
‐ Throw a party when Castro dies. That is, after all, the only acceptable Communist party, right? Bring your own cigars (but, in the spirit of California, take them out on the porch). I and other party guests will conclude the fiesta by bracing for the whole week that Raul Castro will last in power.
‐ Do a dramatic oral reading of Jimmy Carter’s new book at a Bay Area coffeehouse. After all, great works of fiction deserve such flair, care, and attention. And there is no danger that anyone there will be so flabbergasted by the absurdity of the book that he will choke on his organic peanuts.
‐ Vacation in Afghanistan. Yahoo Travel now lists eight hotels in Kabul; those rated are between four and five stars. Bargain! They even list customer reviews. Yes, after the big, bad coalition liberation, Afghanistan has apparently worked its way up to concierge service and minibars. Meanwhile, Mullah Omar is still cowering in some fetid cave. And although the Taliban are still trying to raise hell, that just means I might not have to separate work from vacation (write-off!).
‐ Launch the campaigns for John Bolton for president and Donald Rumsfeld for the next American Idol. Lord knows if Rummy can carry a tune, but he sure fits the title! Will also get Kofi Annan to volunteer on the Bolton campaign — hey, now that he needs a job.
‐ Serve Hebrew National hot dogs to anti-Israel protesters. This is the year that I have finally had it with all of the demonstrators who claim they’re not anti-Semitic, not anti-Israel, just against the Israeli leadership, as they stomp on and burn the Israeli flag, call Israelis Nazis, and praise Hezbollah and Hamas as saviors of humanity. This past year we frighteningly saw some people embrace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial conference as a legitimate tool for questioning the existence of Israel. “Anti-Israel” is far too often a cover for “anti-Semitic,” and in the interest of “never again” (remember that, United Nations?) I intend to annoy the Israel-bashers as much as possible this year.
‐ Lobby the international community to place sanctions on the sale of Rogaine to Kim Jong Il. After all, luxury products should be banned as punishment for his little “look at me” test missile firings, and I can’t bear to look at Kim’s coif anymore.
‐ Become a U.N. Good Policy Ambassador. Considering that U.N. Goodwill Ambassador has become the hot new fallback career for celebrities (unseating the fragrance launch or handbag designs), there has to be a spot for someone intent on being more than window dressing at Turtle Bay. The Good Policy Ambassador can help ensure that human-rights-abusing nations don’t sit on the Human Rights Commission, that the U.N. starts to give a rip about genocide, and that Iran’s regime is faced with some punishment besides stern language for its nuclear development. The Good Policy Ambassador will avoid photo ops that involve kissing up to tyrants, while still maintaining good hair days like Angelina Jolie. The Good Policy Ambassador will also hose Hugo Chavez with sulfur next time he takes the podium at the General Assembly.
‐ Pimp Dennis Kucinich’s ride. I feel compelled to give the guy a bit of a boost in his quest for the Democratic nomination. And since the cover of Rolling Stone is probably out for Denny the Demmy, I believe that Kucinich should instead employ an all-female crack bodyguard squad like Moammar Gadhafi, undergo a makeover from the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy quintet, and join Justin Timberlake in a new duet of “SexyBack.”
‐ Grab other conservative pundits for a weekend of headline-grabbing partying in the manner of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton. I shall be Lohan, pre-gothic hair dye, because unlike Britney, I remember to put on unmentionables. The New York Daily News will catch up with the squad of conservavixens and christen the GOP the “Republican Par-TAY!”
‐ Hugo Chavez will call me a capitalist tart. This is a carryover from one of this past year’s resolutions, something that came up while joking around with my good friend Gay Patriot West. If Hugo issues a personal rant in your direction, it’s a clear-cut sign that you are doing good work. And if he wants to grab you in a creepy red-shirted bear hug, you have really, really gone astray in life. Perhaps it’s asking for a bit much to hope that Chavez uses such precise phraseology in his denunciation, but it shouldn’t be such a stretch once he has read the aforementioned N.Y. Daily News story.
So there you have it — ten juicy New Year’s resolutions fit for a highly ebullient and slightly irreverent columnist.
Most single people would also submit a New Year’s resolution to find true love. Fair enough. However, I am of the belief that true love can be found while taunting Hugo Chavez, among those special fellas who also believe in the value of a hard day’s work tormenting tyrants, mocking Jimmy Carter and reminding anti-Semitic lefties how utterly lame they are.
Because after a year of enduring the sight of Chavez snuggling with Cindy Sheehan, there really has to be a morning after.
— Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She blogs at GOP Vixen .