Have you ever watched an elected official on television and gotten so mad that you could throw a shoe at him? Have you ever disagreed so strongly with an elected official that you wanted to shout out “You Lie!” at them? Have you ever felt so strongly about an awards show that you wished you could rush up on the stage and try to tell everyone why your favorite musician is so much better? Have you ever watched a sporting match and wanted to give the referee a piece of your mind? Have you ever wanted something so badly, you could kill for it? Have you ever wanted to just scream, WTF?

Today will be a long day of meetings. It is five thirty in the morning as I arrive at the local train station. On the radio, NPR is doing a tribute to Mary Travers, who just died of leukemia. Earlier this year, Irv Stohlberg, a noted local politician and good friend, died of leukemia. Another friend is currently fighting a difficult battle with leukemia and all of this, together with the beauty of Peter, Paul and Mary’s music puts me into a pensive mood.

The sky is turning from the dark of night to the deep dark blue of early morning. Across the street from the train station is the New Haven Police Department. The area is lit up brighter than day with portable lights and white or blue camera trucks and their crew crowd the area.

Even here you see the pecking order. Closest to the steps to the police station is a CNN truck. It is flanked by trucks from NBC and CBS news. Then are the affiliate trucks up from New York, further out are trucks from the Connecticut affiliates, and off to the side is a truck from a local news outlet.

Burly men are going through the motions of setting up tripods and running wires. Attractive young women talk dispassionately near the trucks about the segment they will soon be taping. They are all waiting to go live with the latest breaking news in the case of Annie Le, the graduate student who was murdered a week and a half ago. If it bleeds, it leads.

Mary Travers voice, singing, “It’s by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to be so in love with you and so alone” rattles in my mind. I think of Jonathan Widawsky, the fiancé of the murdered graduate student. What must he be going through his mind right now? What about the murderer? What led him to kill Annie? What must he be feeling right now? Did he ever read Crime and Punishment? Did he want something so badly, he killed for it? I fight back a tear for all of this, for the friends of the victim, even for the killer, and perhaps especially for everyone who covers this as just another story, something to boost the ratings.

Yet all of this causes me to take a step back. Are there more outbursts these days, or have things gotten that much worse? If they have gotten worse, why is it? Is there something more stressful about living in this Post 9/11 world struggling through an economic meltdown? Have we simply lost our ability to moderate our emotions and the ability to react appropriately in difficult times? If so, why is it? Has the loss of inhibition as we anonymously scream at one another online added to the problem? Have the cable news shows which have replaced informed discourse with pundits yelling at one another added to the problem?

I leave the media circus as I head to the train. I just want to scream, WTF?! Yet I know that it wouldn’t do any good, and would perhaps just add to the problem.