Is it 2018 yet?

There doesn't seem to be a lot to be thankful for this year. Or as one of my smart Facebook friends (sorry I can't recall which one) put it,

"2017 is the kind of year that makes you yearn for 2016."

That says it all.

Of course there are the usual bromides. We have our health. We have a roof over our head. We have a two kids in overpriced colleges. We have a turkey that's going to sit on our new Traeger smoker for a good 6 hours tomorrow and vault me into the BBQ Hall of Fame.

But it's also hard not to see the awful direction this country is headed in.

Just a few months ago, Tiki torch carrying Neo Nazis roved our streets and shouted "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us." Geez, where have we heard that before? And instead of calling them out for this, our dim, witless, clay-brained president decided it would be wiser to cherry pick a few good apples in the bunch and call them "very fine people."

And because of his fragile ego and skin thinner than a self conscious 16 year old girl at the junior prom, we now find ourselves closer and closer to a nuclear winter.

And that's just the tip of a sooty, millennium old iceberg that's melting due to global warming and rising sea levels throughout the world.

There's our new increased reliance on coal.

The withdrawal from global trade agreements.

The wealth redistribution to America's top 1%.

The destruction of Truth.

The attack on social services, like education and healthcare.

And the willful ignorance about Russian infiltration and the outright commandeering of our elections.

That's not to say there's nothing to be thankful for.

There is...