#!@&*$?

…in which Uncle Duke grumbles, snorts and dribbles down his chin.

I’m a pretty angry dude. Though you wouldn’t necessarily know it. We’ve all been trained to mask it pretty well. But the fact is that I’m pissed off a good portion of the time. I mean, I’m not going to shoot anybody. It’s more like a low-grade fever, chronic but persistent. It doesn’t get much worse, but it doesn’t get any better. I try to be tolerant, but there are levels of stupidity and arrogance that just can’t be ignored.

Here is an example. Every day on my way to and from work, I pass through a long stretch of Missouri River bottomland. It is hard not to notice that there is a significant amount of construction underway. They are doing a lot of earthwork, building a series of dikes and levies, roads, infrastructure, etc. And they are constructing businesses, warehouses, offices, ball fields over a wide expanse of ancient flood plain. Excuse me. My memory is a little hazy, but wasn’t it 1993 when that whole area was under water---a lot of water? Is anyone paying attention here?

I suppose it can be argued that the levies weren’t high enough. I’m sure they would say that that is currently being corrected. But even if they could make them high enough (which I bloody doubt---Over time, the River wins), I thought the lesson was that there are naturally occurring flood plains which are necessary to dissipate the impact of periodic high water. You don’t have to be an engineer to understand the meaning of a bottleneck. Anybody who drives Highway 40 knows that. Hey? Who’s in charge here? I’m personally rooting for the River Gods to deposit the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle down in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the real crime here is that that land is some of the richest farmland in the World. It is rich, it is deep and it is fertile. And we are stripping it away and pouring tons of concrete into it and laying acres of asphalt on top of it. The World population continues to explode, and we are putting car dealerships on top of rich, black loam. This is the definition, as far as I’m concerned, of short-term profits and short-term thinking. And it hacks me off. Twice a day. Every day.

Litter makes me livid. There is no reason why I have to look at other people’s trash. Individual liberties do not extend to indiscriminate and wholesale littering. It says to me: “My momentary convenience is more important than the good of the whole.” It is passive-aggressive, it is offensive, it is arrogant, it pisses me off. I want it to stop! NOW!

Similarly, cigarette butts make me mad. I have no quarrel with smokers themselves. Personally, I think the Smoke Police have gone way too far. But most smokers seem to think that cigarettes disappear when they leave their hand. They stomp them out and they think they just vaporize or something. Campgrounds and picnic areas are littered with thousands of little brown filter thingies. People who wouldn’t think of throwing trash out the window will willy-nilly flick their butts out. The worst is the ashtrays full of butts dumped in curbs at exit ramp stoplights. AAAARRGH!

You know we can settle this whole tobacco lawsuit thing in a hurry. No money needs to change hands. But tobacco executives (and their lawyers) have to personally pick up all the butts scattered across America---every last one. Then we’ll call it even.

I’m not exactly sure why, but Mercedes-Benz SUV’s really yank my chain. I think it has to do with the fact that so few people really need 4-wheel drive vehicles. And those that do don’t make any real money and couldn’t begin to afford a Mercedes. So this vehicle shouts at me: Useless and Extravagant---and Proud of It! This vehicle says: Look at me FLAUNT IT! more than any other---with the possible exception of the Humvee. Hey, don’t get me started on those stupid symbols of macho excess.

This is not a class thing, by the way. Although it’s true the upper crust makes me mad, so does the lower class. And I don’t really care for the middle class all that much. The truth is that we live in a culture in which those who produce our food and those who educate our children are some of our least respected members. This is dumb and this is blind. And it roasts my beans.

Bottled water makes me mad. I’m not sure when this trend really became the norm, but no one appears to drink tap water anymore. It’s a fashion thing. My own kids would no more take a drink from the kitchen sink tap than they would drink out of the toilet bowl. But I’ve seen the reports. Bottled water is no safer on the whole than the water coming out of the garden hose. But it is fashionable to order designer water. It used to be you could tell where you were in the world by the water. A little iron here, a little manganese there, a touch of fluoride. You could triangulate your position pretty well. The water was distinctive. Now if people taste anything from the Periodic Table, they act like they’re drinking donkey urine. Give me a break!

The petrochemical industry has had more to do with the pollution of our waters than any other. So, here’s an idea. Let’s make hundreds of millions of tons more plastic every year, with all the resultant particulates and pollutants that wind up back in our water supplies, and then put “pure” water into them. We can all carry around little plastic reusable water bottles that are never reused and which eventually wind up in great mountains of see-through trash somewhere. Then we can make more plastic bottles and try like hell to get all the little complex hydrocarbons out of our water sources. Does anyone still know the meaning of “cause and effect”? Hello?

Pro football cheerleaders make me mad. Or rather they baffle me and make me think I’m living in a very stupid movie. White go-go boots? What is this---the Middle Ages? Real-life Barbies, made up within an inch of their lives. I haven’t seen big hair like that since Farrah Faucett. If men used that much hair spray, they wouldn’t need Viagra. And every team has them. This is the norm. I mean really, I like cleavage as much as the next guy, but where the heck is the Feminist Action Committee when you need them.

Martha Stewart makes me mad. Prim and fashionable, a purveyor of an impossible life style that all women everywhere are doomed to fall short of. Hugh Hefner used to make me mad---the icon of shallow, pretentious male lives. Now he is just a rather sad figure, a skinny old guy living in a mansion and looking at pictures of naked girls young enough to be his granddaughters.

And I suppose that’s the point really, that it’s all kind of sad. A friend of mine notices all these same things that I do---only he doesn’t get mad. He feels bad for those living empty, shortsighted lives. He doesn’t steam and snort and want to strangle. He takes the long view, which is more forgiving and therefore more peaceful. I fear I am not smart enough for that. I wish I were. I aspire to be wise, but for now I stew. And it ticks me off that I have to wait.