I Could be Even More Thankful

I've got food, clothing, shelter, health and love, which puts me in the top percentile of the human race. If I wasn't thankful I'd be an ungrateful Grinch.

But, spoiled American that I am, I can imagine an even better world. I could be even more thankful.

I'm thankful for all the fabulous entertainments our culture produces for my amusement, especially the movies.

I'd be even more thankful if the next time I encounter the shopworn phrase "You're not in Kansas anymore" it wasn't in a movie, but on the "Welcome to Missouri" sign on I 70.

I'd be more thankful if movie directors didn't imitate one another so slavishly, and not just on clichéd phrases, but entire scenes.

I'm thankful for beautiful women on screen, but I'd be even more thankful if I didn't have to watch them brushing their teeth in every film. Apparently some director once thought it was cute to have an A-list actress foaming Crest out of her lips like a rabid dog, and now they kick you out of the guild if you don't do your version of oral hygiene in your movie, apropos of nothing.

It could be worse, though. That first director might have had a fetish for plucking nose hair.

I'm thankful that pot-smoking, hippie pitcher, Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants won his second straight Cy Young award. I'm thankful his apology for having a marijuana pipe in his car was generally accepted and the incident didn't deny him his due. I'm thankful he didn't cut his hair to prove he was going to be a good boy from now on.

But I'd be even more thankful if a kid who can clip the wings off a gnat from 60 feet, six inches with a 96 mph fastball could chose his form of relaxation without having to apologize to anyone.

While we're on the subject of sports, I'm thankful the German track and field association finally restored Gretel Bergmann's 1936 high jump record, a mere 53 years after writing her off the books and booting her from the Olympic team for being Jewish.

I'd be more thankful if they could have gotten around to it before she was 95, but better late than never. I'm sure her family's descendants, now living in the Fatherland, will be proud. Oh, wait".

I'm thankful a little oxygen is being injected into the global warming debate. We needed to let the skeptics breathe easier by taking some of the ideology out of the question. I'm thankful we won't have to lose the entire liberal, progressive program if the global warming science goes shaky.

I'd be even more thankful if we realize that many other temperatures are at record highs, like nationalism, religious hatreds and economic melt-downs. The world still needs solid, progressive ideas, even if it isn't actually on point of boiling over.

I'm thankful that the Democrats are now in power. I'd be more thankful if they knew it.

I'm thankful for the quality of my political opponents. Sarah Palin is now the face of the Republican party. Rush Limbaugh is its voice. Glen Beck is its conscience. Put them together an you have one-and-a-half brains, four breasts, six faces, a dozen egos and zero souls. And less than no threat to a president I still admire.

But I'd be even more thankful if the party of Lincoln remembered which side of the Civil War it fought on, and why.

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