Rage

A humorous article on controlling anger and stress(actual speech transcript)
by David Leonhardt
Has anybody here ever been stuck in traffic for a frustratingly long time? Put up your hand if you have.
Oooh! Don't you just hate that? And some people don't mind showing us how much they hate it. We call it "road rage".
Has anybody ever waited in a ticket lineup or a checkout lineup for a frustratingly long time? Let me see those hands.
Believe it or not, some people don't like that either. We call it "lineup rage".
Has anybody ever been stuck waiting in a doctor's office for a frustratingly long time? Let me see those hands.
And then you see somebody suddenly jump up and tear his hair out and scream, "Let me out. I've been here three hours. Three days. Three months!" Well, I really should apologize. I didn't mean to scare your kids. I was just demonstrating "waiting room rage".
Let me tell you a story about the Lwungwa River Valley - that's in Africa, you know. The dry season there gets very dry. My throat is getting dry just thinking about it. The Lwangwa River stops rushing. It slows to a trickle. Finally, it stops flowing. And all that are left are pools of water, here and there.
One by one, the animals head to higher ground. To forest cover. To other water holes. Anywhere they can find food or drink. Just like we will all do later. Did I say all the animals? Not all. Not the hippos.
The hippos stay in their river at it slows to a stream. They stay in the stream as it turns into pools. They stay in the pools as they shrink into puddles. As the puddles shrink, the hippos get more crowded. As the hippos get more crowded, they get surly. Cranky. Grumpy. They gnash their teeth. They poke at each other. They pick fights. It's river rage!
Has anyone ever come face to face with a raging hippopotamus? Don't be shy. Go ahead, put up your hands. Sure, when we're young - I'm sure you all remember this as I do - we're taught that hippos are slow, cute, and cuddly. They might even be pink or purple and do those happy little dances in tutus like in Fantasia.
But in the real world, hippos have teeth the size of your head. They can run faster than anyone in this room. And they weight upwards of 5,000 pounds. I mean, they are BIG! If you're ever at a cocktail party and a hippopotamus starts, you know, flirting with you, whatever you do, do not let him sit on your lap.
Rage is all the rage these days
Rage is all the rage these days. Road rage. Lineup rage. Waiting-room rage. Even river rage. You may also have heard of parking lot rage, elevator rage and airplane rage. What gives? Is the world getting angrier or just more crowded?
Both. It's a fact that as our space and time grow increasingly crowded, our stress levels rise.
When it comes to space, we are cramming more people into more crowded cities, elevators, airplanes, stores. Our patience diminishes. Our good will diminishes. Our tolerance diminishes. Has anyone noticed they place the chairs at conferences - you noticed! -- so close together that even skinny people get to know each other well. My theory is that the hotels are trying to develop their own niche rage market: conference seating rage.
Let's look at our schedules. What are we trying to do? We're trying to see how many items we can squeeze onto our "to do" list, and how many activities we can cram into a day. And the stress, where does it go? Right up there, exactly.
I want to share this one little thought with you. We are in the process of moving, so we actually have two homes. Stress that builds in my stacked concrete box apartment they call a condo, I can't get rid of. It sticks. I can't shake it off. It won't go. It sticks. When I'm at my farm house just a few miles south of here, surrounded by grass and trees, it's amazing how quickly I can just excommunicate the stress. Can I say that? Excommunicate? Why not?
OK. What have we learned today? Three lessons, so please take note.
Number one, don't let your space get too crowded.
Number two, don't let your schedule get too crowded.
Number three, and this is the most important of all, don't ever, ever let a hippopotamus sit on your lap.


So, this to me was very funny and maybe a little inciteful, only because I have rage issues. The smallest things can set me off, to where I want to just "gnash" my teeth around and "poke" at other people to get them to leave me alone (or get out of my space). Well, maybe not that extreme.
David Leonhardt uses several relevant examples of rage and how they have most assuredly affected us all at some point in our lives. His aim however is not in just describing these issues and reassuring the reader that he also suffers from rage; it is to inform that there is a way to personally "grow" from these interactions. Whether it be in traffic, in line or in a waiting room, one should never allow rage to entirely overwhelm oneself.
The tone of this paper is vastly humorous, but serves the topic well in comprehension of this serious habit. It is far too important that someone know they have an anger management issue and receive help than to let it consume them and hurt those surrounding. But to make light of this notion, David introduces the natural hippopotamus story. By going off on a side tangent (one of the fallacies of argument, I might add) about hippos, it may serve to deter the reader from constantly reading about things that anger. The parody of "slow, cute, and cuddly" hippos actually being capable of malicious acts, sends home a solid message that anyone can have rage issues at any time! And to better oneself, realization of this fact should be met with either self help books, classes, or cocktail parties with flirtatious hippos.
By posing the humorous question of whether the world is getting more angry or just more crowded, the author is alluding to the issue of time management and stress. Whether it be in the work place (office chairs) or just every day accounts (schedules), people now today are much busier and less willing or able to just RELAX. But in this ever growing, crowded society, there will be numerous events that trigger anger within someone. And the key in dominating this problem, is to realize that the only one who can control controversial issues and events is oneself. And this needs to happen through the realization that one's life can never be overrun by the hectic and/or crowded events occuring. David does a wonderful job of relaying this message through examples, jokes, and even the slight tangents related to the hippos.

Top 10 Campaign

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_c6921tBK4

The humorous demeanour of Hillary Clinton in this short comedic excerpt from David Letterman's Late Show is refreshing to see during a campaign year. She keeps the mood light with jokes about future plans if she is elected president. Though these plans would not be very convincing for most, they show a lighter side to the campaigning individual (which I would guess helps her win votes in the long run).
I think the main scheme behind her appearance was to show citizens that she appears as ordinary as the next person. She comments on several 'every day' occurrences that could be changed (either for better or worse). She develops these ideas through Letterman's nightly Top 10 List (which is widely known and probably watched more than a general campaign, on average). I know that I would rather watch Letterman's List over any given campaign night in a heartbeat!
I don't see any type of arrangement with her list, but she hits on several points that are always important to the normal citizen. She touches on entertainment with the comments about "The View" and "Lost." She plays on the assumption that everyone hates taxes and would love not to have to file them. Later in her countdown, she touches on a real political issue with a previous vice president and the one she would have if elected. And to conclude some of her ideas, she plays on her own gender and procedures she would take over that of a male president.
The only thing that bothered me about this piece was that throughout the entire time Hillary was trying to joke about her campaign ideas, she never smiled. She did not seem to enjoy the topics she was discussing. To me, this was not very convincing on her part of the entire. With the list of the top 10 campaign ideas, she appeared to be using somewhat of a slippery slope fallacy. If she were elected president, then she would assure that this, this and that were to occur. If the list would have been somewhat plausible, I do not feel she would have carried the messages as forcibly and/or earnestly as she could have. This and her posture held me in skepticism about her potential as president of the United States, to be quite honest.