When the clock strikes midnight on Thursday going into Friday, a collective sigh of relief should descend over us all. The dawn of a new year is here and it could not have come at a better time.

For those who had a banner year in 2009, congratulations, you are one of the few.

Sean P. Murphy is Web editor. He can be reached at smurphy@vicksburgpost.com

As we enter 2010, the crooks in Congress are nearing completion of the health care overhaul, we are in two overseas wars and unemployment is still in double digits. Conquering grand problems, especially with those we have put in power, seems a near impossibility.

There are many small things we can all strive to master as we head into 2010.

• Call the upcoming year what it is — twenty-ten. Enough of the two thousand and ten nonsense. We never said one thousand, nine hundred and ninety six, so why should we start with 20. It’s twenty-ten. Period.

• Everyone can learn the difference between further and farther. If you hear it on the TV news, the likelihood is the talking head used the wrong form.

Farther is distance, as in Gulfport is farther south than Hattiesburg. Further refers to degree, as in high school honors classes are further advanced than general math.

• Everyone should have to spend a few hours watching Peyton Manning play quarterback. These eyes have never seen anyone with a command of the game like Peyton. It’s as if he is playing the game in his head and he is two plays ahead of everyone else on the field. Watching Manning play quarterback would be like watching Michelangelo paint.

• Everyone should be banned from watching cable news for the first week of the year. No Beck or Hardball, Olbermann or O’Reilly, Greta or AC 360 for one week. They are there to divide, and divide they do. Cleanse the system — and move forward.

Following this small list of goals will not undo the job losses, or knock down the national debt, but they are easy to accomplish and it feels so nice to accomplish something. Start the year off with a few victories, albeit minuscule ones.

In the process, you will realize Manning can throw a football farther than you can, cable news has divided us further than at any time in my lifetime, and Saints still have a fighting chance at winning the twenty-ten Super Bowl.

Cheers to twenty-ten — and good riddance to twenty-oh-nine.