About this time last year, I wrote a column listing some hopes for the coming new year of 2009. 

Regrettably, precious few of my hopes for peace have come true. Certainly not my wishes for a settlement between the Palestinians and Israel, or for peace among and within African nations.

My heartfelt desire for an end to the economic crisis in this country has been only partly fulfilled. Unemployment continues to oppress much of our American workforce with no notable improvement in sight.

Barack Obama and members of his administration have indeed sometimes turned “yes, we can” into “yes, we have” but it has required very tough slogging on their part.

My hopes for Republicans to achieve a renewal of spirit have certainly been dashed. And the impact of Maine’s two Republican  senators, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, has proven largely ineffectual.

Thanks to huge subsidies from the federal government, the Detroit automakers now show signs of life.

In another sector of the economy, though,  many newspapers continue their slide downhill, further imperiling investigative reporting and other journalistic services needed by citizens nationwide.

Sarah Palin has not claimed the obscurity she richly deserves but has used her new book to spread her politics of ignorance and false populism. I have not read the book because I am waiting for the English translation. (For this joke, thank you David Letterman.)

Tom Brady did recover well from his injury but, probably thanks to weaknesses in his team, he does not show to quite the same advantage as before.

But enough attention to the hopes of 2009; I now turn instead to 2010 with new ones. I stand ready to be surprised by good things that have seemed impossible up to now.

This is the year when American combat in Iraq finally comes to an end. Let’s hope that the fighting actually stops and that a national election succeeds in establishing real peace.

About our efforts in Afghanistan it is easy to feel skeptical; apparently more than half of us Americans do.  However, Obama has laid out his strategy and is committing many troops and much money to the cause of holding off Al Qaeda and the Taliban. We must hope that it works.

As for threats to the world from climate change because of greenhouse gases and other factors, my hope is for the United States Senate finally to ratify the treaty that pledges us to do our share.

More broadly, I would like to see members of Congress serve our citizens with altogether more concern for the common good and much much less for their corporate donors.

New American diplomacy has brought the junta in Burma to talk with us. My hope is that this year Aung San Suu Kyi  will finally be released from her long house confinement and will retake her place in the life of her nation.

Could this be the year when the United States enters into a decent relationship with Cuba? For too long, our boycotts and negative attitudes toward this island nation have damaged both Cubans and Americans.

I grieve for the nearly one billion people of the world who lack access to safe drinking water. Two and a half billion do not have adequate sanitation. As a result, diseases and malnutrition ravage these populations. Changing this appalling situation would make the year 2010 truly historical.

As a gerontologist, I continue to long for that magical year when scientists learn how to stop Alzheimer’s disease. Probably it won’t happen this year, but hope should not exclude the possibility.

On a spiritual note, I wish the leader of my church, the Bishop of Rome, would not propose his fellow popes for sainthood. Instead, I would like to see him choose laypeople who are deserving of the honor. And I want them to be dead for a good long time before they are chosen.

For friends and extended family members who face the challenges of life-threatening disease, I wish blessings and loving support from those around them.

For residents of nursing homes, I hope for an improvement in living conditions. Scandalously, federal inspectors continue to find violations in the rules that are supposed to make life more humane for some of our oldest people.

For the wife of Tiger Woods and his two children, I hope for healing from what they have suffered. For him, I wish a change of life that will enable him to honor his commitments to his family.

With NYTimes columnist Frank Rich, I regret our “being fooled by leaders in all sectors of American life” about what is real. May the new decade bring about more resistance from us to the myths of the celebrity culture.

Turning to the green fields of Fenway, I hope for the addition of John Lackey to the Red Sox pitching rotation to fill what was lacking. May his new team go on to topple the Yankees from their throne.