My daughter has been a frequent co-contributer to this blog, mostly behind the scenes in the form of ideas, inspiration and occasionally comments.  But several times she has also appeared in the form of blogs I have reposted, with understandable fatherly pride.  The responses have been amazing as she is a gifted writer.

This is no exception,  and may be her finest post to date.  She sent me this in response to the vitriolic comments over a blog I posted yesterday mocking the attempts to create an Obama Federal holiday.   I am immensely proud of her, not because she shares some of my conservative values, because she is unafraid to make her beliefs known. 

Enjoy ~ LSU

Once more, this now-eighteen year old has to just shake her head at what a group of grown adults can babble and scrabble about.

As I sat down to write, I originally aimed my focus at denouncing those who have posted some strange gibberish under my dad’s post about Obama-day. But after a few days that have left me emotionally exhausted (Including losing one of my co-workers to a heart attack) and drained, I decided to write something else, and to, perhaps, give someone out there a view into the mind of at least one of America’s youth.

It has been five or six months since I joined the world of the adults and left being a child behind with my high school memories. And one of the first thoughts that crosses my mind, as it did so many times when I watched my peers gape at the T.V. and be swayed by pretty words on the news reports, was that sometimes, I’m ashamed of what my generation is becoming.

Going through high school, my friends and I always joked that we were Generation X/Y. The kids born of 1990, at the tail-end of X, and at the front end of what we called Generation Y, or rather, ‘Why?’, because it was the question that we heard the younger kids and teenagers spouting most often. We always joked that we were a special generation, one that was only a year long, because everyone older then us that we knew smoked and drank, while those younger then us consumed their beings in drugs and sexual acts.

“Have a cookie. You’ll feel right as rain.”

–The Oracle

That’s the Oracle’s answer to Neo in “the Matrix after telling him he is not ‘The One’.

In one of my moments of disconnected thinking, I realized we are all slaves to cookies, particularly this time of year.  You know what I am talking about:  The Girl Scouts.

One of my daughters was a Girl Scout and we sold those damn cookies for her every year.  And every year the pitch was and is the same:  Support the girls, buy the damn cookies. 

And we did.  We bought them for ourselves and plugged our friends, family, co workers and strangers on the street to buy more.

For some it was a dire competition.  The troop leader one year used her husband to drive her daughter’s sales through the roof, to get the grand prize:  A stuffed animal.  Cheaper to go buy the damn stuffed deer.  And the child learned nothing except that when your father is a Flight Engineer on a military cargo plane, he knows lots of people who will buy cookies.

We do love them.  Sure, occasionally the kind they sell changes, but we still love em, and we all have a favorite.  And every year we buy the sales pitch and buy the cookies.

We don’t need them mind you.  Particularly me, a slightly overweight guy with high blood pressure and lousy cholesterol.

But we love them.  They taste good, and they make us feel good, even if there is a price to pay (both now and later).

We love that we support the girls, even though in reality the Girl Scout troop only gets about 50¢ a box (it varies, historically it ranges from about 45¢ to $1).  Maybe you didn’t know that.  That $4 box of cookies get heavily eaten away by many groups and levels before the money trickles down to the actual GS troop.

But even so, that paltry 50¢ adds up when it is several hundred boxes sold.  So yes, it does help the troop to plan activities. 

I should have mentioned that I am on vacation this week, and celebrating my birthday early as well. (I’ll show pictures of my presents later)

While I wasn’t able to make a fun trip like last year, this year is still a chance to unwind and recharge, which is what vacation is all about.

While I am sunning myself under these grey cloudy Washington skies, I am reading a lot, and making plans for the direction of my blog.

I want to add a book review semi weekly, some in depth commentary on the 2008 election madness and a regular Global Warming update with the Idiot of the Week award.

I want to continue the cartoon roundups, and I certainly do not plan to ignore the War on terror.  You did know the surge is working didn’t you?

I also want to try and make some commentary on the local radio shows, and other local news.

And finally, I am going to revisit some local stories and try my hand at interviews and maybe even a podcast.

My blog has always been a work in progress, and this week offers a new chance to improve it.  Feel free to drop suggestions in my comments. 

I have really struggled this year with time management and keeping the commentary flowing.  The news bits I cut and paste and the cartoon round ups are easy, but the personal comments and reflections take longer.

They are all satisfying, as is the positive feed back I get, but it is a chore some days. Fortunately, the world seems determined to give me plenty to write about. 

So stay with me as I make a few site updates this week, and continue my quest to make common sense mean something tangible in a chaotic world.

And a thanks to all who come here regularly.  Without you I am nothing.

The news from Utah has been bleak, as the fourth hole drilled to find the missing miners gave poor indications of their survival.  That couple with the unstable mountain that has claimed the lives of three rescuers has all but removed hope, not just of rescuing them, but of finding them at all.

Hope All but Extinguished at Utah Mine

Six coal miners caught in a cave-in may never be found and could forever be lost to the still-quivering mountain, officials conceded Sunday, abandoning the optimism they’ve maintained publicly for nearly two weeks.

Air readings from a fourth hole drilled more than 1,500 feet into the mountainside found insufficient oxygen to support life, and the latest efforts to signal the men were again met by silence.

“It’s likely these miners may not be found,” said Rob Moore, vice president of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine.

The news marked a shift in tone in mine officials’ assessments of the chances the men would be rescued, hopes they had maintained even after three rescuers were killed and six more hurt Thursday in another “bump” inside the mountain.

My prayers to them and their families.

As I thought about the miners I have to wonder what type of person would choose such a scary job.  I readily admit that there is no way i would ever do such work, I don’t have even close to enough nerve to do so.

But the miners are like many of us, we do the jobs we can to make a living.  Indeed, there are many jobs like mining that are almost hereditary in nature, as each generation follows in the footsteps of the preceding.

I am sure some of the people working in this nations mines never considered doing anything else.

I cannot fathom it, but then again, watching Dirty Jobs on TV provides me with a lot of jobs I would shudder and decline to do.