Resolutions

Resolutions? Nothing serious. I'd like to keep Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. I'd like to read more political biographies. I'd like to lose 1.3 pounds. I have suddenly found myself at the age at which I need to exercise more but doing so leaves me achy, as if my joints are separating. It becomes a Catch-22 of New Year's resolutions. To feel better, you must work out, but you can't because it hurts. January, huh? Our purgatory of self-improvement. Adding to my predicament is that my Sunday touch football league, formerly made up of overweight litigators, TV types and scrawny scribes, now includes a crew member from the rapper band LMFAO.

BEIRUT - Two days into a fragile truce, and the question many are asking is, when is a cease-fire no longer a cease-fire? On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's 13-month uprising, mass protests returned to the streets and in some places were met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. In other towns, soldiers and security forces stationed nearby allowed protesters to gather, but the very presence of armed government forces was a violation of the plan.

By now, everyone should have made a few New Year's resolutions and broken at least half. So be it. Merely acknowledging a flaw or two is healthy. The New Year is a good time to reflect and recharge, to look into the mirror for ways to improve. And there's plenty of need for improvement in Sacramento. So I've conjured up some pledges I'd like to hear people — mainly politicians — make for 2012. Never mind that I've attempted this in the past and largely been ignored.

BEIRUT - Just hours into a cease-fire between the Syrian government and the opposition, the truce was already on shaky ground as more than a dozen people were reported killed and there was no sign that government tanks and heavy weapons had been withdrawn from contested areas. A draft resolution for a United Nations advance monitoring mission could be voted on as early as Friday in an effort to end unrest in the 13-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Diplomats who met Thursday said a force as large as 200 could eventually be sent to Syria if both sides pledge to honor the peace plan.

With the economy still in the dumper and many of us feeling poorer, it's no surprise that many Americans have resolved to clean up their finances in this new year. The trick is to set reasonable goals. Make those resolutions too difficult and you're sure to break them. Like dieters who vow to eat nothing but carrot sticks, spendthrifts who swear to pinch every penny are doomed to failure. A better approach is to start with a few things that are so easy to fix that you'll stick with the program.

The controversy that has followed Michael Jackson, in life and in death, reached the halls of Congress on Thursday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said she saw no point to scheduling a vote on a resolution honoring the pop icon. Senior lawmakers had feared the resolution would set off an ugly debate that could hurt Congress' image and upset the Jackson family. They were probably right, given that Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.

Since I have never had much success in keeping New Year's resolutions, I resolved not to make any for 2002. But by resolving not to make any resolutions I have already broken my New Year resolution. Shucks. V. Fred Rayser Yucca Valley

Faced with a caucus that has grown increasingly restless over American military efforts in Libya, House Republican leaders have scheduled votes Friday on two resolutions critical of U.S. involvement in the nation’s internal conflict. The first, brought forth by Speaker John A. Boehner, would rebuke President Obama for failing to make clear the U.S. mission in Libya and for allegedly violating the War Powers Act in committing U.S. power to support the NATO-led mission. But it would set no timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces.

If the New Year's resolutions you made with firm resolve on Jan. 1 have bitten the dust, psychologist Donald Dossey isn't surprised. By the end of February, 95% of us have broken our New Year's resolutions, Dossey said, because we don't know how to make them in the first place.

Happy New Year? Heaven knows, some people need one day every year to make resolutions, whether they think so or not. David Stern -- So I said a woman will make the NBA in 10 years. What's wrong with that? Me -- One year at the U.S. Olympic camp in Colorado Springs, people were saying the women's team lost a pickup game to the men's handball team. Stern -- You know how I get in interviews. That's why the entire front row at my news conferences is reserved for my people, so I can tell I said the wrong thing if they get a look of horror.

Saying President Obama and the United Nations are not doing enough to stop the bloodshed in Syria, leading Senate hawks have proposed supplying Syrian rebels with weapons and support in the first congressional move toward ending the Assad regime. The senators made it clear Wednesday they were not calling for the authorization of U.S. military intervention as they pressed to send munitions and aid to the Syrian rebels as they battle President Bashar Aassad. “How can you sit on the sidelines in Syria and not take a stand?

After last year's season finale of "The Killing" generated howls of indignation, the show's blindsided creative team began worriedly plotting to win back their audience. What if the show's central mystery was answered — something implicitly promised in its first season promotional campaign "Who killed Rosie Larsen?" — in the opening episode of the new season, which begins April 1? After lengthy discussions, executives at AMC and the show's production company, Fox Television Studios, ultimately decided against the highly unusual step, according to a person familiar with those talks who was not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Kenneth Price, a prolific Los Angeles artist whose work with glazed and painted clay transformed traditional ceramics while also expanding orthodox definitions of American and European sculpture, died early Friday at his home and studio in Taos, N.M. He was 77. Price had struggled with tongue and throat cancer for several years, his food intake restricted to liquids supplied through a feeding tube. Despite his infirmity, he continued to produce challenging new work and to mount critically acclaimed exhibitions at galleries in Los Angeles, New York and Europe.

A day after the collapse of a United Nations plan for Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that the situation on the ground could degenerate into "a brutal civil war. " The head of the Arab League, meanwhile, said Arab states would continue to work toward a peaceful resolution of the crisis. A Syrian opposition movement that had its hopes dashed in New York was attempting to regroup. There was general agreement on one point: The conflict in Syria could drag on for a long time.

  A United Nations resolution that Washington and its allies called the best chance to stop Syria from sliding into full-fledged civil war went down to defeat, dashing hopes for a political settlement as death tolls soar in the strategically situated Arab nation. Security Council vetoes by superpowers Russia and China on Saturday doomed the measure, which condemned a Syrian crackdown on dissent and backed an Arab League plan calling on President Bashar Assad to cede power.

As diplomats attempted to craft a compromise, Russia remained firm Wednesday in its pledge to veto any U.N. Security Council resolution that could open the door for international military intervention in Syria. Meanwhile, fighting raged anew in the troubled Middle East nation, with nearly 70 additional deaths reported by opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose bloody crackdown on street protests has led to calls from the Arab League and Western powers for him to step aside.

Congressional opponents of the war in Afghanistan forced a debate Wednesday on the floor of the House of Representatives on a resolution to bring U.S. forces home and end the 8-year-old conflict. The measure ended up losing, 356 to 65, a margin that had been expected. Nonetheless, antiwar lawmakers welcomed the debate as a chance to express pent-up frustration with the continued troop buildup in Afghanistan, and to express their view that the original mission of U.S. forces, defeating Al Qaeda, had been lost.

Two and a half years after lawmakers fell short in their effort to pass a resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide, sponsors of the long-debated measure are launching a new bid to bring the issue before the House. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee and backs the resolution, plans to bring it before his panel Thursday. It will come before the House "only if the votes are there to pass it," Berman said. "Once we pass it out of committee, we're going to try to get those votes."

Resolutions? Nothing serious. I'd like to keep Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. I'd like to read more political biographies. I'd like to lose 1.3 pounds. I have suddenly found myself at the age at which I need to exercise more but doing so leaves me achy, as if my joints are separating. It becomes a Catch-22 of New Year's resolutions. To feel better, you must work out, but you can't because it hurts. January, huh? Our purgatory of self-improvement. Adding to my predicament is that my Sunday touch football league, formerly made up of overweight litigators, TV types and scrawny scribes, now includes a crew member from the rapper band LMFAO.

By now, everyone should have made a few New Year's resolutions and broken at least half. So be it. Merely acknowledging a flaw or two is healthy. The New Year is a good time to reflect and recharge, to look into the mirror for ways to improve. And there's plenty of need for improvement in Sacramento. So I've conjured up some pledges I'd like to hear people — mainly politicians — make for 2012. Never mind that I've attempted this in the past and largely been ignored.