Good evening neighbors, and happy holidays! Judging by the flood of sale papers and retailer emails I have received this week, it appears that the famous Capitalist holiday of Christmas is upon us. Seriously, I jest. 

Have you noticed what has gone on this week in politics? What about in the last 2 months? Or even since January? 2011's year in review will be quite eventful. Hopefully these events have not escaped a deeper examination. 

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog here entitled: Our Country is Broke because our Politics Are Broken. If you read it, you took note of my lament over the wholesale state of our politics. Private jets are so 2006; if you want to mingle with the upper crust these days, you have to own yourself a politician.

While our politicians have been making back-room deals to secure their financial futures, what have we the people walked away with? Our elders have lost their retirements. Our hardest working citizens can no longer send their children to college. Many of us cannot afford food. Many of us don't know where our next meal is going to come from. If you do not count yourself among the aformentioned ranks, consider yourself lucky, well prepared, or both. 

What you should also consider yourself is part of the majority. The first thing that came to my mind as I began to recollect this year's political landscape is this: everybody is pretty damn pissed off!

I would have chosen to use better language for that thought, but its as true as I can give it without profanity. Mind you, I don't say this without consideration of perspective. As the world received its seven billionth resident this week, can the historians among us recall a time when so many people in the world were so angry?

I'm not talking Occupy Wall St. angry; rather I'm talking suicide bomber, kids shooting each other on the street angry. Check the news on any continent, and people are angry. Ok, excepting Antarctica. But my point is accepted, right? 

Conservative or Liberal, you have to admit that for some reason people are really agitated and expressing elevated levels of anxiety. Ok, if you don't admit it, please tell me it made you take some pause. Why are so many human beings so damn angry about the hand they are being dealt?

Surely, it is quite impractical to label all of these malcontents as lazy, looking for a handout, slackers. Can you take a step back to think objectively... has your life gotten better or worse in the last ten years -- regardless of who is in office. Perhaps it's time for us to be angry?