Some of my resolutions for 2021

For what it’s worth, here are my public affairs resolutions for 2021:

I will take the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as I can get it.

I will continue to wear masks as much as possible in public, wash hands and maintain distance as long as is necessary, which is likely to be long after the shots.

I will continue to treat the pandemic the same as I would an invasion by a foreign power

Would COVID-deniers stand on London streets defending their rights during the Nazi bombing in World War II? I don’t think so.

How can they see mounting death rates, overtaxed ICUs and friends contracting COVID-19, and say their rights are more important than the health and survival of all of us, including themselves?

I will remember that President Donald Trump received 75 million votes, more than any other candidate except Joe Biden, who beat him, has ever received in an election. This does not generate any respect for Trump in me, but it means that the concerns and grievances of his supporters need attention.

I will view Biden’s presidency with healthy skepticism, which every president deserves from all of us. I hope my media colleagues will stop treating Biden as some kind of savior from the Trump disaster. He is perhaps more human than his predecessor, but he is still subject to human error and the compromises of principle that come with power.

I will continue to regard Hunter Biden with some caution and not defend him unquestionably just because he was, perhaps unjustifiably, a key Trump target. There is no question that Hunter capitalized in questionable fashion on his father’s titles and prestige, and that alone makes him worthy of continued hard scrutiny.

Despite the last four years, I will keep or restore a sense of humor, which has been compromised as I have watched a madman and his minions threaten my country’s Constitution, disregard history and protocols, and threaten democracy itself.

More to the personal level, I will attempt to view new ideas with some acceptance and tolerance, even though my first instinct is to reject many of them, just because they are new and because I went and got old

For starters, I like the music of Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, even though most current pop leaves me cold, even if it’s good. One step at a time, I suppose.

I will remember that nobody’s good old days were really as great as they think they were, even compared to now when things are so … different.

I will continue to fight the ravages of age, even as I acknowledge that I am indeed as old as that guy whose face I see in the mirror. No, 70 is not the new 35, but I see many of my peers enjoying life well into their senior years due to advances in the knowledge of how to stay healthy.

That doesn’t mean pretending to be younger, though. My back and my knees give me away every time.

Steve Hansen writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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