a bit more anger management

Anger is sometimes appropriate and natural...its just generally not productive.

At the anti-war rally in DC this week, a friend of mine was in the midst of the crowd as they moved along a street. While the demonstrators numbered around 100000, there was a counter demonstration which many hardly noticed: a few hundred scattered in pockets. My friend witnessed a confrontation between a 50-something Viet Nam vet marching against the war and a placard carrying pro-bush 20-something. The frustration of the man who had been through the whole bloody stupidity of the Viet Nam war was palpable when he could not change the mind of the idiot kid, who one assumes was doing what he supposed to be the right thing even as he was drowning in his own chauvinistic illogic. It became a 5 minute shouting match and probably no one escaped anger nor changed any minds nor felt particularly good about their behavior afterwards. My friend was struck by the futile and ironic state of working for peace while being angry...it was such a human moment.

The worst outcomes and the worst tricks an angry mind plays on us come about when we mistake the strength of our anger for the strength of our logic.


Did any old timers like me who where in college in the late 60's watch the CSPAN coverage of the anti-war protests in California? You may have had the same odd rush of, [perhaps remembered], excitement and the thrill at seeing the strength of our numbers but mixed with a sad exasperation: "did we fix nothing in the 60's? Did our nation learn nothing?".

note: the executioner has had spotty attendence and apologizes for this ... a crush of calendar and weather driven chores has kept me working late and far from my keyboard. I will beback.