Thanks to brave men and women
Fighting extreme weather events
Made worse by climate change
Mega disasters with little precedents.

Thanks to front-line workers
Toiling to serve majority of us
For meager non-living wages
Many without legal status.

Thanks to the judiciary*
Trying best to defend democracy
Against brutal assault by
Thugs and peddlers of conspiracy
(* US and worldwide)

Thanks to the Spanish women’s soccer team
For standing up to misogyny
Representing women all over
Fighting men’s false sense of superiority.

Thanks to politicians with principles**
Willing to sacrifice power and privilege
Taking part in unpopular causes
Against those clearly sacrilege
(** Yes, there are a few, really!)

Thanks to workers rising up
In industries far and wide
Long exploited and looted by oligarchs
whose greed doesn’t subside!

Thanks to politicians supporting
Living wage laws across the land
Dignity of work must be rewarded
They deserve accolades, not reprimand.

Halfhearted thanks to AI mavens
Sounding alarm against AI’s ill effects
While continuing to add capabilities
Increasing the threat in all aspects.

Big thanks to NASA and JPL
For making impossible possible, again and again
Giving flight to next generation’s imagination
Exploration is in humanities grain.

Let’s give a hand to ISRO – India’s NASA
ISRO knows and practices the art of “jugaad”
Shoestring budget, giant accomplishments
ISRO rover’s moon landing not a canard.

Special thanks to climate scientists
Making clarion call one after other
Sadly, words falling on deaf ears
Planet Earth lurching towards disaster.

The thank you list won’t be complete without acknowledging friends and family, without whom, life will be a drudgery.

I am certain I have omitted many deserving people and organizations who deserve our thanks.  To them the omission is not a sign of disrespect. I didn’t want to write a tome!
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I am tempted to prepare a similar list of people and organizations who deserve condemnation, but then I won’t have time left for anything else!