We are just three days away from ripping down the old calendar and putting up the new. Fresh, white, unblemished pages full of promise inspire us to make the usual resolutions and cherish the usual hopes for self-improvement and a better world.

Nothing wrong with that! These are universal hopes that by the nature of humans and of chance always seem to fall short, but they keep us going.

The new year will surely bring some changes. Gloucester County goes forward with a greatly reshaped county board and a new commonwealth’s attorney and school board member. Mathews County has the same supervisors and school board members, but a new sheriff, new commonwealth’s attorney and new commissioner of the revenue will most likely make alterations to the way things have been done in the past, both in terms of style and substance.

No one can escape the great contest looming on the national scene. Indeed, the 2012 Presidential election, still 10+ months away, seems to have been go...