America seems to have an abundance of angry individuals these days. I’m not one of them, except when my cable cuts out during The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But, I’ve noticed infusions of anger when it comes to politics or driving. It would be nice if it stayed in politics, because those guys in D.C. mostly deserve it. But, it has spilled out onto us common folk in the rest of the country, ramped up by the current occupant of the White House. The left dislikes him because he lies habitually, degrades woman and minorities, and compromises our national security, while the right likes him because he lies habitually, degrades woman and minorities, and compromises our national security. Just kidding! I believe our president tells the truth, occasionally. Those of us indies in the middle, neither left nor right, get abuse from both sides. We can’t win.
If you want to see an example of anger while driving, try cruising along any expressway at a comfortable 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. Not that I ever would do that, it’s just an example (hear me, officers?). Inevitably you’ll end up with a driver six inches behind on your bumper with a clenched jaw and gritted teeth, the driver, not the bumper, who would rather be doing 90. He or she, usually a he, will whip around and cut you off at the first opportunity only to be replaced by the next 90-miles-per-hour-clenched-jaw-gritted-teeth boob.
Social media has helped stir the anger pot, which enables the average human to be angry with anyone else in the world if that anyone happens to have an electronic device capable of receiving hostile messages. Twitter has become the popular choice for spewing hostility. Say you happen to be miffed with someone in the Kremlin. You can tweet, “Your mother wears combat boots!!!” Add as many exclamation points as you like so the Russian recipient knows you’re really, really miffed! You’ll probably get a tweet back saying, “How did you know?” which will take the wind out of your angry sails, but give you the opportunity to tweet back something even nastier. Try “Lenin was a sissy!” and see what you get from the KGB.
You can tweet mean things to Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell if you so desire, all from the comfort of your La-Z-Boy. You can even tweet The Donald himself, but you may not get a response from any of them because of the many thousands of mean tweets lined up ahead of yours, but at least you can get your two cents worth in quickly before Iran starts firing its nuclear weapons in our direction, which reminds me: It might be time to finally burn my draft card.
What a nice segue into a final bit of semi-shameless self-promotion. I’ve been especially fortunate to be included as one of the guest authors in a new anthology from the Military Writers Guild called, Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War, published by Midwest Press, LLC. For some reason known only to a higher power, I was included among 60 professional and best selling authors. If any of you have read my book, “The Militarized Zone: What Did You Do in the Army, Grandpa?”, you have a pretty good feel for my particular war. The new anthology is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Anderson’s Bookshops, Books-A-Million, military and civilian libraries, in both print and eBook versions. I even managed to squeeze in a plug for The Voice in my biography at the end of my essay. How’s that for semi-shameless self-promotion?