"From Anger:" A New Law

Back in my earliest days, in the young layer of the so-called "black” community of Washington, D.C. in the 1930's and '40s, we had many slang expressions going around, some of which seem to have gotten no farther than the District Line before they went out of use.  One that has probably suffered that fate is nevertheless still a strong part of my own language memory bank, which I am trying my best to maintain.

When someone was deemed sadly deficient in something definitely necessary, like ordinary common sense, or in the way that he conducted himself, or even in merely his appearance or his clothing, he was said to be "from hunger."   The reason I've retained that expression this long is because I always thought that for slang, "from hunger" is especially elegant, subtle, and telling.

Now, in the early spring of this much later year of 2016, I am hereby bringing to the world's attention a law of human nature that I am certain is irrefutable, because among all the intellectuals of the planet, from the scruffiest of participants in Gawker comment sections on upward, I've never heard of anyone else talking about it.   Therefore I'm also going to be so presumptuous and outright arrogant as to bestow on this principle my own name and call it "Gardner's Law."   Or maybe Gardner's 11th Law, because of course there are already many others.

This law states that, with the possible exception of Jealousy, Anger is the worst of the many sins in which humans indulge themselves profusely.   Therefore one should never do or say anything when he is angry, because then, under that pall of the psyche, he will invariably do or say something stupid and regrettable.

I have had many years and therefore many opportunities to watch this law being tested out by all sorts of unsuspecting individuals, and I can say without fear of refutation that it holds up, and it’s not my or this law’s fault that quality of conscience is in such short supply.

The other day, after he had won another string of Republican primaries, a segment was broadcast on the dish showing D.J. Trump once more patting himself not only on his back but also on all his other curious body parts, while crowing that he was winning because he had one message and that was Anger, and it was triumphing over all.  And when in that report's text section, that horrible word "Anger" was repeated in five or six lines straight, it popped into my head that this man ought to be described as being "from anger."   The Republican Party should therefore be renamed "the Anger Party," because that is really what they have nastied themselves into being, in the last three or four decades.

And what a truly pitiful situation the U.S. is in now, when such a repellent candidate and a repulsive political party are still considered to be perfectly acceptable by such a large slice of the American population, namely the "Wissies – my most recently coined name for the apparent legions of white supremacists.

Therefore I see myself as being in a battle with Donald J., a contest to see,  in the nominating process or in the general election, whether the validity of my law will be borne out once again.  I like my chances.