We should be thankful?

Dimitri C. Michalakis

We should be grateful. As we go to press the people of the Philippines are reeling from a super typhoon (super–the new word in our weather future) that has devastated the country and killed thousands.

The people of Syria may never find peace again.

The Middle East will never find peace.

China will devour the world.

Germany will devour Europe—again—and your ancestral home may soon be hosting naked Germans sunbathing.

The people of Greece will endure a near future as bleak as their grandparents suffered in the aftermath of the last world war.

America, for the foreseeable future (and perhaps forever—we fought a civil war over it 150 years ago and we are still fighting) will increasingly be a divided country and with the echo chamber of the blogosphere may never be the united states again.

Justin Bieber will never again regain his innocence (and the bounce in his hair) and Miley Cyrus will soon be replaced by some other new Madonna (as she replaced Lady Gaga) but her tongue will forever rival Mick Jagger’s.

Our kids will continue to drink more than us, medicate more than us, and will never know privacy because they are the Twilight generation forever linked together in the Zone of social networking.

Our churches will attract the faithful (sometimes putting on a peacock show) while our schools (started with such promise) will wither and die and become inner-city relics.

Will our kids remember to speak Greek at all?

So what are we grateful for?

We do not live in the Philippines.

Our kids make a lot more money than us and seem to be able to juggle more things in their lives (via social networking and the multifariousness of their virtual presence) than we could ever imagine possible—they virtually teletransport themselves everywhere—does that word still exist or am I dating myself—I don’t even know anymore?

The coasts will vanish but we will not be around—and perhaps not our kids and grandkids and great grandkids.

The Sun will vaporize the Earth but we will not be around.

For now there is DVR and Breaking Bad on demand.

There are podcasts for anytime.

There are happy and funny and frivolous e-mails you can send instantaneously to relatives in Greece instead of long, lugubrious letters that took months and always made you cry.

Greece will, as it always has, find some way to bounce back because the Greeks are mankind’s rubber ball and the primordial navigators of history who will always find a safe port.

America will survive in some fashion because the backwaters of the American continent will always be refreshed by the fresh stream of new immigrants.

Hang in there and be grateful for what we have.

Happy Thanksgiving.