Getting angry

Several of my most confidential advisors have suggested that I would be more effective in bringing more fun to the world if I were more angry about the lack thereof.

I'm not really a very angry person. And it always seemed to me that anger and fun really don't belong together. And, even if getting angry would help, I'm not sure if I could get angry about more than one thing at a time. I mean, I wouldn't want to dilute my anger.

There's lots of stuff I could get angry about, so much stuff I just don't know where to begin. So, I made a list. And then I arranged it alphabetically. And then I added more stuff and took out even more. And I was left with this:

• AIDS, SARS, and all those acronyms that kill people
• Batteries that aren't included
• Bullies
• Child abuse
• Corruption
• Cruelty
• Fascism
• Food that tastes good but is still bad for you
• Genocide
• Global warming
• Homelessness
• Hospital closings
• Hunger
• Illiteracy
• Ignorance
• Intolerance
• Death
• Disease
• New Operating Systems that don't work with my software
• Nuclear proliferation
• Overpriced medicine
• Pain
• Playground closings
• Poverty
• Prisons
• Prudery
• Racism
• Spam
• Spousal abuse
• Stupidity
• Terrorism
• Tests
• Torture
• Toys that break almost the moment you get them out of the box
• TV sets that are bigger than mine
• Violence
• War

I'm still not happy with the list. I was going to ask you to add more items, or suggest alternatives, or at least to help me pick the one or two most angry-worthy items. On the other hand, maybe angry about all this funlessness isn't really what I need to get. Maybe, if I can choose to be angry, I can just as easily choose to be funny. Not that I can afford to ignore all these anger-making things. But, just maybe, if bringing more fun into the world is what I'm about, humor is the more powerful messenger.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith