The end of the year, the decade, passed fitfully, at times stressfully, with no pause for reflection, and no Resolution for the New Year except the fairly vague intention of being more Resolute. What to be resolute about? That was still the question.

And then this article by Errol Morris in the New York Times came across the network this morning, the hook being a quote from Walt Disney (”I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing — that It Was All Started By A Mouse.“) as its headline. I’d already seen the link a couple of times when Howard Green from Disney Studios called to invite me to a tribute for Walt’s recently-departed nephew, Roy Disney, on Sunday at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.   Suddenly the universe was in my ear bigtime, whispering that I had to click on the link to the Morris article. Something was there to be discovered….

The article itself is a photo essay and dialogue with photojournalist Ben Curtis about the forensics of war photography, the context of image vs. imagemaker, the technological challenges and dangers that come with altering photos to create propaganda or enhance a certain point of view. The kind of stuff in which Morris specializes. After I got the context, I began skimming. But I kept coming back to a photo by Curtis that led off the article:

In seeing the photo, I found what had been missing over the holidays. I might have decided to be resolute, I was still waffling on a theme, what, exactly I’d be resolute about. This photo resolved that. I wrote the following Comment on the Morris piece:

Errol

As our old friend Onosko, who worked at the House of Mouse for many years, might have said, you’re making it more complicated than it is. Focusing on the cosmetic level of communication–the toy itself, the shards of glass, the smoke, the interaction between imagemaker and image–is a fascinating narrative, and yields neverending complexity, but this complexity obscures meaning instead of bringing it to light. How Mickey got there is not nearly as important as the meta and emotional levels of the communication: War’s awfulest tragedies are its children.

Until we begin thinking of children first–begin with the Mice!, that what Walt would’ve done–War will be an adult theme park where children get crippled, grow old and perish before their time.

And so, finally, thanks to Howard and Errol and Ben, I have it — my New Year’s theme — the thing I can be Resolute about:  Be Nice to the Mice.

Hit it, Kid!