You know, my local news often annoys me a bit.

This week, there's a story about "suspected road-rage retaliation." Apparently some guy was driving fast, passed a woman (who then flipped him off...that part of the story was left out in the earlier versions). It is assumed that the guy then followed the woman home and threw a brick through her (parked) car's windshield.

1. I hope this doesn't encourage foolish people to copycat.
2. This is just another reason why I don't make any kind of gestures towards people who are driving recklessly. If I really truly think someone is a threat, I may pull over and call the police, but I never show a reaction to the driver.
3. It's also possible it wasn't the driver but the news stories are all slanted like "There's a crazy guy driving stupidly out there looking for windshields to bash in"

And then they had the woman on the local news. I don't know if they pressured her to do it, or if she figured it could contribute to the guy being caught, or if it was one of those "hey, 15 minutes of fame!" things.

But they lit her face REALLY BADLY - from underneath, which automatically made her look worse. And I guess she decided - or someone told her - the way to be was to "look tough."

Instead, she looked like a fishwife. And she snarled at the camera, "Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned!"

Congreve: you're doin' it wrong.

(And yeah, I looked it up to be sure. I thought it was Shakespeare at first).

Anyway, it was a very unflattering portrayal. I don't know if it was purely news-editing done badly, if it was partly the woman wanting to look "tough" and coming off looking witchy, or some combination thereof.

But I don't know. This is one of those times where I squirm a bit and think, "No good can come of this." Because if it's really a somewhat-unhinged person with a weird grudge against her, her going on TV will only make things worse.

I'm just waiting to see if "reported incidents" of road rage go up as a result of this story.