Anger management.

Monday, August 10th, 2020

I was thinking about all the anger escaping through fissures public and private throughout 2020 America, and I looked back quickly to see exactly when I talked about anger (specifically that word, although frustration, that’s a good one too.)

On April 20, 1999, I wrote about the NAB, the Cotton Mill fire in Cabbagetown, and I used the a-word obliquely in reaction to some reader mail (hey, back when I had readers) about Kosovo. Kosovo!

Then on June 22, 1999, I wrote about a documentary that discussed the origins of Apple’s Steve Jobs, who (they asserted) turned his anger over being adopted into the energy to create a company that is beyond huge, 21 years after that was written.

On March 15, 2006, I wrote about the Writers’ Guild frustration and, yes, anger (quoting them) about the microscopic cut they got from Disney from a digital download of a movie or TV show. Funny, I was hearing a similar story and complaint from musicians who are getting a pittance from streaming services like Spotify. What goes around.

And then on June 9 of this troubled year, I talked about voting in this year’s pandemic-overlaid Georgia Primary:

We have a fair amount of confidence that our votes counted […] we also have a fair amount of anger that many of our neighbors had to stand in line for hours, and some probably still couldn’t do what our country, our state, our county, our city has asserted is one of our highest civic responsibilities.

I guess I’m amazed after decades of typing stuff into this website-blog-thingie, I haven’t broken out the a-word more frequently. But maybe that’s just my perspective from where we are in this year.