PEOPLE IT'S OKAY TO HATE

We're always striving in this toubled world to cut down on the unreasonable hatred that exists between people. It makes no sense and is rooted in fear. It makes us less of a human being to harbor hatred, harming the hater more than the hated. People are people the world over and are pretty much the same - the good, the bad and the indifferent. Maybe we don't all think alike or want the same things out of life, but by and large, people are fine, they're pretty decent and we should just let each other be. That said, there are some people worthy of our withering scorn. They are not from any one particular ethnic goup or single nation, but sprinkled thoughout all of humanity just to annoy the crap out of the rest of us. If you feel a pressing need to hate someody, channel your hate properly. Try these people:

People who say it's okay to kill for God. What? Everybody knows that murder is for crimes of passion or personal gain! Leave God out of this. We're fine with murder, there's plenty enough of them going on all the time and for very specific reasons. We sure don't need a new excuse.

People who never lose any socks. Seems like a small thing to hate somebody over until you check your own sock drawer and realize how unnatural it is not to have a dozen or more unmatched pairs. There's something very wrong with someone who doesn't lose a sock here and there. The suspicion here is that they are aliens come to live among us.

People who make up new names for obvious stuff, like a spiffy new name makes a huge problem okay all of a sudden. Here's a flash for our Spin Doctors: "Semi-automomus regions" are chunks of a country's territory taken over by some bloodthirsty warlord from an ineffectual government. "Society's most vulnerable" are what they always were: the dirt poor, the sick, the elderly and the children. "Strategic reconfiguration" is still a retreat and "Supply side economics" never meant anything in the first place, it was always a flimsy excuse to let the super-wealthy keep calling the shots forever. Well, the "supplies" in the supply side never seem to get to "society's most vulnerable," do they?

People who get all their Christmas shopping done by October. These uber-organized control freaks are not just happy to be more efficient than the average bear, but they feel the need to boast about it at every opportunity. And not only brag shamelessly, but they take every opportunity to put the rest of us down for not being like them. Shun these humorless robots.

Phony journalists. Is reading the news from a script in front of a camera anything you or I can't do with a little practice? Of course not, but that doesn't make us journalists either. No, the journalists would be the people who actually go out and find out what's going in and write the scripts for the hairdo people on TV news, often at great risk to themselves. And journalists are the people who write newspapers, reporters who follow a very stringent code of conduct and accountability. At least that's what the dictionary says.

People who smile the whole time they are speaking, no matter what the subject matter. See above, and hate them passionately.

Cell phone addicts. "I've got to take this!" "I have to make a call!" Why? You're not Captain Kirk or the president answering the call to avert some huge calamity. Besides, you're already having a conversation, one with a real person right in front of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Do you need to escape or feel especially important? Just say so and walk away, don't use your cell phone as an excuse. It's odd how a form of communication becomes a tool for disengagement from living, breathing flesh and blood. And if you start playing some dumb-ass video game on your cell phone when you're in the company of others, it is permissible for them to administer two quick slaps to snap you out of it.

In-your-facers. We all know some of these annoying fools. They believe in something strongly, or so they'd have you think. But that's not enough for them, they have to initiate the conversation about whatever it is that drives them and get in your face and demand you agree with them. Whether it's religion, politics, morals, music, food or culture, these people are so damned insecure they spend their lives challenging people and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At every opportunity, they make sure the subject come up, and the only remedy you have is to tell them the truth, that you don't really think all that much about them or their damned pet peeve. We're fine with our own set of beliefs and principles, thank you very much, and don't feel any pressing need to advertise our way of thinking and convert others. Besides, with that approach, you'll never find out what anybody else has to say, but maybe that's the whole point of in-your-facers.

Opera singers. Not real opera singers, they're okay as far as that caterwauling drama is concerned, but the people who's oft-repeated mantra is "me-me-me-me!" It's always all about them, all for them and me and me and me and me and blah-blah and double blah. Usually these are people who have "found themselves." Unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves find very little else afterwards. They cannot bear to have the focus taken off their boring little concerns. Unlike their In-your-face cousins, they don't have any one overriding theme, but are perhaps even more tedious with the breathtakingly broad dullness of their selfishness. Nothing about them is not fascinating to them. Sorry, but we don't care what you ate for breakfast, who you gave a piece of your mind to (they must have strayed from the topic of you) or that you had a headache yesterday. You're giving us a headache now and we hate you.

There, that felt better, didn't it? We all know it's wrong to hate, but inside of all of us there it is, one of our emotions, as valid and real as any of the others that drive our lives. To deany that it exists within us is crazy and dishonest. Can you deny the love you feel? It's flip side is hatred, an emotion that can rule us if we allow it to. The trick is to channel it where it belongs, where it makes sense. It's a good thing to hate injustice, cruelty and oppression. You can even hate lima beans, a very sensible and logical target for your pent-up rage. But to hate whole groups of people who never did anything to you but exist is a real waste of a powerful emotion, so very unsatisfying. The people to hate are out there and you don't need to seek them out. They'll find you, and they'll annoy the crap out of you. It's okay to hate them for eating chunks of your life with nothing to show for it but irritation. Kill for peace.

We're always striving in this toubled world to cut own on the unreasonable hatred that exists between people. It makes no sense and is rooted in fear. It makes us less of a human being to harbor hatred, harming the hater more than the hated. People are people the world over and are prety much the same - the good, the bad and the indifferent. Maybe we don't all think alike or want the same things out of life, but by and large, people are fine, they're pretty decent and we should just let each other be. That said, there are some people worthy of our withering scorn. They are not from any one particular ethnic goup or single nation, but sprinkled thoughout all of humanity just to annoy the crap out of the rest of us. If you feel a pressing need to hate someody, channel your hate properly. Try these people:

People who say it's okay to kill for God. What? Everybody knows that murder is for crimes of passion or personal gain! Leave God out of this. We're fine with murder, there's plenty enough of them going on all the time and for very specific reasons. We sure don't need a new excuse.

People who never lose any socks. Seems like a small thing to hate somebody over until you check your own sock drawer and realize how unnatural it is not to have a dozen or more unmatched pairs. There's something very wrong with someone who doesn't lose a sock here and there. The suspicion here is that they are aliens come to live among us.

People who make up new names for obvious stuff, like a spiffy new name makes a huge problem okay all of a sudden. Here's a flash for our Spin Doctors: "Semi-automomus regions" are chunks of a country's territory taken over by some bloodthirsty warlord from an ineffectual government. "Society's most vulnerable" are what they always were: the dirt poor, the sick, the elderly and the children. "Strategic reconfiguration" is still a retreat and "Supply side economics" never meant anything in the first place, it was always a flimsy excuse to let the super-wealthy keep calling the shots forever. Well, the "supplies" in the supply side never seem to get to "society's most vulnerable," do they?

People who get all their Christmas shopping done by October. These uber-organized control freaks are not just happy to be more efficient than the average bear, but they feel the need to boast about it at every opportunity. And not only brag shamelessly, but they take every opportunity to put the rest of us down for not being like them. Shun these humorless robots.

Phony journalists. Is reading the news from a script in front of a camera anything you or I can't do with a little practice? Of course not, but that doesn't make us journalists either. No, the journalists would be the people who actually go out and find out what's going in and write the scripts for the hairdo people on TV news, often at great risk to themselves. And journalists are the people who write newspapers, reporters who follow a very stringent code of conduct and accountability. At least that's what the dictionary says.

People who smile the whole time they are speaking, no matter what the subject matter. See above, and hate them passionately.

Cell phone addicts. "I've got to take this!" "I have to make a call!" Why? You're not Captain Kirk or the president answering the call to avert some huge calamity. Besides, you're already having a conversation, one with a real person right in front of you. Does that make you uncomfortable? Do you need to escape or feel especially important? Just say so and walk away, don't use your cell phone as an excuse. It's odd how a form of communication becomes a tool for disengagement from living, breathing flesh and blood. And if you start playing some dumb-ass video game on your cell phone when you're in the company of others, it is permissible for them to administer two quick slaps to snap you out of it.

In-your-facers. We all know some of these annoying fools. They believe in something strongly, or so they'd have you think. But that's not enough for them, they have to initiate the conversation about whatever it is that drives them and get in your face and demand you agree with them. Whether it's religion, politics, morals, music, food or culture, these people are so damned insecure they spend their lives challenging people and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At every opportunity, they make sure the subject come up, and the only remedy you have is to tell them the truth, that you don't really think all that much about them or their damned pet peeve. We're fine with our own set of beliefs and principles, thank you very much, and don't feel any pressing need to advertise our way of thinking and convert others. Besides, with that approach, you'll never find out what anybody else has to say, but maybe that's the whole point of in-your-facers.

Opera singers. Not real opera singers, they're okay as far as that caterwauling drama is concerned, but the people who's oft-repeated mantra is "me-me-me-me!" It's always all about them, all for them and me and me and me and me and blah-blah and double blah. Usually these are people who have "found themselves." Unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves find very little else afterwards. They cannot bear to have the focus taken off their boring little concerns. Unlike their In-your-face cousins, they don't have any one overriding theme, but are perhaps even more tedious with the breathtakingly broad dullness of their selfishness. Nothing about them is not fascinating to them. Sorry, but we don't care what you ate for breakfast, who you gave a piece of your mind to (they must have strayed from the topic of you) or that you had a headache yesterday. You're giving us a headache now and we hate you.

There, that felt better, didn't it? We all know it's wrong to hate, but inside of all of us there it is, one of our emotions, as valid and real as any of the others that drive our lives. To deany that it exists within us is crazy and dishonest. Can you deny the love you feel? It's flip side is hatred, an emotion that can rule us if we allow it to. The trick is to channel it where it belongs, where it makes sense. It's a good thing to hate injustice, cruelty and oppression. You can even hate lima beans, a very sensible and logical target for your pent-up rage. But to hate whole groups of people who never did anything to you but exist is a real waste of a powerful emotion, so very unsatisfying. The people to hate are out there and you don't need to seek them out. They'll find you, and they'll annoy the crap out of you. It's okay to hate them for eating chunks of your life with nothing to show for it but irritation. Kill for peace.