Opinion: For 2010 -- ladies and gentlemen of power and fortune, please man up!

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In 2009, the calendar was book-ended by a couple of men displaying heroic resolve and courage:

In January, pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger landed that plane in the Hudson River with no loss of life.

And in December, that Flying Dutchman, Jasper Schuringa, the Netherlands filmmaker, leaped across fellow passengers to put out a potentially catastrophic fire during the alleged terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.

Call me a dreamer, but here’s hoping that 2010 brings us displays of courage to match theirs: moral bravery, political and social, in Washington and in the capitals of the states and the world, by men and women standing up to incivility and stupidity and cupidity, to the loony, ginned-up ‘conspiracies’ and the loud-mouthed tub-thumpers who profit handsomely from promulgating them, to the pressures and allures of both mob-ocracy and corporate checkbook intimidation … well, the list goes on. Let’s just cast it as the political spin on the Scottish supplication, and deliver us from ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the boardrooms and caucus rooms.

-- Patt Morrison