It's Black Friday, the day after the day that culminates in the consumption of millions of turkeys. The tryptophan is coursing with extreme liberality through the American body politic. We're all feeling the temporary high that comes with rounder stomachs and the breakdown of our various defense mechanisms. Cynicism is woefully out of place when you're surrounded by family and friends, some of whom you actually care about.

In other words, even I'm feeling uncharacteristically grateful this year. What do I have to be thankful for you ask? Aren't we facing the collapse of the world financial system? Isn't the newspaper business going to hell in a handbasket? Sure, but I'm grateful for having received a few of life's sweet lemon drops along the way. It doesn't mean I'll always feel grateful.

But for now, I'm grateful for my wife and three sons. Years of living with me has systematically lowered their expectations of what I'm capable of to the point where it is now impossible for me to disappoint them. I'm grateful that they don't expect me to go to the mall at 4 in the morning on Black Friday to wait in line for the privilege of buying an expensive television.

I'm grateful for the eternal loyalty of my faithful dog, Leila, who greets me with a friendly wag of her tail and unconditional love every day as long as I toss her a bacon snack. Unlike the wife and kids, Leila never gets mad at me (or at least she's smart enough to not let it show).

I'm grateful that my 80-something grandmother has lived long enough to see the election of a "colored president," as she calls Barack Obama. Her great-grandmother was a slave and she still has vivid memories of her stories about "the bad old days."

I'm grateful that my two-year phone contract has expired and that I'm now free to purchase either an iPhone or a BlackBerry Storm. I'm tired of living in the technological dark ages with a phone that was cutting edge for only a week. I want to throw my money at something that will prove to be obsolete in four months once the next generation of cell phones debuts. I'll only have 20 months left on my new contract to stew over my bad timing.

I'm grateful that I got over my literary snobbery and started reading genre fiction by Greg Isles, Robert B. Parker and Robert Goddard this year. Novels by these gentlemen have provided me with more thrills and chills than just about anything on TV or at the movies this year. I never imagined that I'd become hooked on Westerns and mystery thrillers at my age.

While I cannot exult over anyone's suffering, I must admit to being grateful that Ann Coulter's jaw is literally wired shut -- the result of a broken jaw, as the New York Post reported this week. Her latest book attacking "liberalism" and "the cult of Obama," as she calls it, is about to debut. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I'm also grateful that Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC's "Hardball," isn't well known enough in Pennsylvania for him to take on Sen. Arlen Specter in 2010.

I'm grateful that a Port Authority work stoppage has been averted and that labor won't suffer a black eye in the region from such an ugly and senseless action. I'm grateful that I had an excuse to get a new bike in anticipation of the strike, anyway. I'll be especially grateful if no one runs me over as I'm pedalling to work one morning.

Most of all, I'm grateful for you, dear reader. No matter how much I abuse you, you keep coming back for more. We're co-dependents in this thing. It's kinda pathetic, isn't it?

As I write this, terrible events are unfolding halfway around the world in Mumbai. Young men with little sense of the sacredness of life are hard at work slaughtering innocents on the altar of political expediency. They believe God will reward them for being such high-minded butchers. So they kill with abandon rather than tolerate another second of obscurity and helplessness.

After inflicting unspeakable grief on dozens of families, most of the young terrorists will die at the hands of India's security forces -- young men like themselves driven to fury by the sight of so many fellow citizens and tourists murdered. The cycle of violence will not wane until the last killer in Mumbai is either dead or in custody. The outline of their well-coordinated conspiracy will be unraveled in the coming days and weeks and many arrests will be made, fueling another round of retaliation and murder.

The rituals for the dead will soon commence throughout India and around the world. The families of the victims will gather to express their grief. The mothers of the killers will shed their tears in inconsolable isolation. Few mothers want their children to grow up to be terrorists. What mother could be proud that her child has broken the hearts of so many other mothers? Still, their loss, while mitigated by shame at having given birth to such murderous children, will be just as deep.