Annie got her gun

You probably spent the weekend worrying about the imminent collapse of American democracy, the millions whose access to health care is hanging by a thread, that Delaware-size iceberg that broke off Antarctica, the North Korean missile program, or some such trivia.  Maybe you spent it trying not to think about them.  The real news was being generated aboard a Delta flight from New York to Florida.  Ann Coulter didn't get the seat she wanted.  She spent hours studying the plane's design and selected her seat and paid an additional thirty dollars to get extra room for her equine legs -- in coach -- and then some functionary moved her bony ass over by the window and gave her aisle seat to this woman who is clearly non-Aryan --


and who moreover is "dachshund-legged" according to Coulter.  (This is a small taste of the noted author's Twitter rant, which went on for at least fifteen Tweets before I stopped reading.  The flight attendant was compared to Stanley Milgram, Nurse Ratchet [sic] and the East German Stasi, among others.)  You'd think she was dragged off the plane bleeding.

As an example of pissy entitlement opening itself to ridicule, I can't imagine a more exhilarating way to start the week.  The overworked term "snowflake" seems just right here.  But it also made me think about how I would have responded.  Should you lose your shit over a couple of inches of legroom?  If it's that important, there's always first class.  And it's New York to Florida, not across the Pacific.  Yeah, I would have been annoyed.  Probably I would already be pre-annoyed (to borrow from airline jargon) by the whole grim airport experience. 

This is why I do not use social media.  Apart from yelling (which is more or less a federal crime on a plane), it's the easiest way to vent your spleen.  Unfortunately, it's impossible to undo.  The woman who told so many others to quit complaining about their victimization is now a punchline for whining about a seat on a plane, and she has nobody else to blame.  If she had had to stop and think about it, take a deep breath, compose a letter or even a blog post, she wouldn't look like such a monumental ass now.  The social media, and in particular Twitter, with its 140 characters grab-your-phone-and-hit-send ethos, reveals us at our least thoughtful and most choleric.  Many more people would think better of Trump if not for his idiotic Tweets.  All right, some people.  What I'm saying is, not every thought that bubbles up in your head has to be digitized at once and for all time.

At least Coulter can spell, mostly.