Giving Thanks

Well, you may have noticed that this blog is prone to fits and starts. A look at the blog archive will show 2007 to be, by far, the most productive in terms of outright blog postings, with nearly ten times (!) the posts I got around to in all of 2006. Still, it has been quiet around here of late, and there is a good reason for that: Employment. Being unemployed does wonders for my ability to post timely criticism on national and world events. I cannot fathom how a blog like CQ could have been kept up by one person holding down a full time job. I suppose it helps if the blog becomes your only true hobby and all consuming passion. For me that could never be, so this one man dog & pony show will continue to rev up and down as fortunes wax and wane. That's okay as this is a blog after all. Just consider it a "bloggy" blog and it will help you deal with my absences.

Anyway...in the spirit of those dumb classroom exercises where my Catholic grade school teachers had us come up with what we were thankful for, I figured The Iconic Midwest should give it a go as an adult (of a sort.)

I'm thankful for the loyal readers of this blog - some old friends, others I've never met - who check it out just to see what I'm up to. The answer is almost always "Not too much." but you still check and that is the important part.

I'm thankful for my blog friends, particularly the gangs at The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Blue Crab Boulevard, and Stubborn Facts. The IMW have always been humbled by the good company we keep.

I'm thankful to Andrew Sullivan for quoting, in a positive vein no less, one of my efforts earlier this year.

I'm thankful for the improved play of the St. Louis Blues.

I'm thankful that my inner muse was sufficient to get me to write:

It says something about our society that even after all of this time the internet can still give so many folks the screaming heebie jeebies. You cannot swing a nice four-letter expletive around without hitting a main stream media lament about the state of American discourse. The culprits, we are told, are various bloggers of the left and right, anonymous commentors with dubious language skills, and assorted other evil doers who add to the near certain ruination of our fine republic. For the most part, bloggers react to such criticism by stomping their feet and shouting, “You don’t understand me! You’ve never loved me and you never will! I hate you!” If there was an internet equivalent of running up to their room and slamming the door, I’m sure they would add that as well.

Yes, I still chuckle at my own writing. Sue me. :-)

I'm thankful that I'll get the chance to do it all over again next year.