Impatience Leads To Rage On Sidewalks, Too

Since leaving New York a few years ago, I'm a lot calmer when walking down the street.

Dawdling tourists with fanny packs used to drive me nuts, especially when I was late (the usual situation) on my way to meetings. Sure, there are plenty of tourists tramping around Washington, too, but the sidewalks are wider and somehow or other the throngs of slowpokes here don't affect me the way they used to.

So it was with a twinge of neurotic nostalgia that I read the Wall Street Journal story by Shirley Wang, an old colleague of mine, about people who get infuriated by slow walkers. Transportation rage isn't limited to drivers.

Believe it or not, there are scientists who study "sidewalk rage," and one has even come up with a 15-question Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to quantify the problem.

 

So ask yourself, honestly, if you regularly engage in this sampling of bad pedestrian behaviors, adapted from Dr. Leon James' full list:

  1. Have denigrating thoughts about other pedestrians.
  2. Act in a hostile manner (staring, presenting a mean face, moving faster or closer than expected).
  3. Fail to yield to another pedestrian when it's the polite thing to do.
  4. Walk by a slower moving pedestrian and cut back too soon.
  5. Mutter at other pedestrians.

You don't have to tell us how you scored, but Dr. James, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, copped to the Journal about his own issues dealing with the tourists hogging the sidewalk. His wife called him out as an aggressive walker, and he does his best now "to walk around people rather than into them."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/02/15/133776116/impatience-leads-to-rage-on-sidewalks-too?ft=1&f=1007

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Alan Simpson: Cut Entitlements, Defense; Not Aid To Poor

Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator, said the real fiscal threats are entitlements and defense spending, which should be cut, not programs for low-income Americans. He singled out a defense department health insurance program that costs taxpayers $53 billion annually.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/02/16/133801977/alan-simpson-cut-entitlements-defense-dont-touch-help-to-poor?ft=1&f=1003

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Imitators Of Egyptian Protesters May Be Disappointed

Following the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, protests have ignited across the Arab world. But while regimes may have reason to be nervous, it's still not certain that more leaders will fall.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/15/133774910/imitators-of-egyptian-protesters-may-be-disappointed?ft=1&f=1057

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1 U.S. Immigration Agent Killed, 1 Hurt In Mexico

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed and another wounded in the line of duty Tuesday while driving through northern Mexico, a Mexican official said.

The two agents were driving in the northern state of San Luis Potosi when they were stopped at what appeared to be a military checkpoint, said the official, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. After they stopped, someone opened fire on them, the official said.

The agents were assigned to the ICE Attache office in Mexico's capital were attacked by unknown assailants while driving between Mexico City and the northern city of Monterrey, according an ICE statement.

Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan spoke with ICE chief John Morton to express Mexico's condolences to ICE, according to a spokesman.

Sarukhan told Morton that Mexican authorities will work together with U.S. investigators, using every resource available to track down and apprehend the perpetrators of the attack.

Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence from warring drug cartels and a crackdown on organized crime, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked. But the U.S. government has increasingly become concerned about the safety of its employees in Mexico amid the escalating violence.

In March, a U.S. employee of the consulate, her husband and a Mexican tied to the American consulate were killed when drug gang members fired on their cars as they left a children's party in Ciudad Juarez, the city across from El Paso, Texas.

The U.S. State Department has taken several measures over the past year to protect consulate employees and their families. It has at times authorized the departure of relatives of U.S. government employees in northern Mexican cities.

In July, it temporarily closed the consulate in Ciudad Juarez after receiving unspecified threats.

ICE, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government, enforced immigration laws and is responsible for arresting, detaining and deporting people who are in the U.S. illegally. It also investigates drug cases in the U.S. and Mexico and other types of trafficking.

It was created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and has more than 20,000 employees in offices in all 50 states and 47 foreign countries.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/16/133790593/two-u-s-immigration-agents-shot-in-mexico?ft=1&f=1004

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