Mayhem at the Mall / with Muzak

Discerning observers of American culture, or more accurately the bizarre mutation American culture is in the process of degenerating into, cannot but be aware of the recent surge in what the media calls "yet another shooting incident at the mall".  One a week, always at a different mall, seems to be the norm, and taking into account that there are like a billion malls in the U.S., this trend is likely to continue for quite some time - assuming the rules continue to apply, one attack per week, no mall can be hit more than once,  approximately 20, 000 000 years.

Meanwhile, who even knew there were rules about this? Is there perhaps an online handbook?

Procedures and Restrictions for Random Gun Violence at American Malls

At first glance it seems logical:  heavily armed psychopath with vague grudge and major Mommy/Daddy issues seeks large audience in confined space upon which to inflict his special brand of insanity. Except it's no longer particularly special. You might think that the would-be maniac murderer with even a smidgen of intelligence could figure out that the whole mall thing is already passe, that he is merely enabling at this point the perpetuation of a fairly blatant cliche.  Ho-hum.  Not much glamour in that.

Or is there perhaps more going on here....

Are Malls Natural Magnets For Monsters?

Malls burst onto the American landscape in the early 60's, at a time when, counterculture hijinks notwithstanding, Big Business was working out the details of what has been referred to as the 'commodification'  of the American psyche; basically turning all aspects of life into a product and reducing one's existential choices to the bare minimum: consume or be consumed.

"The real world - assuming such a thing ever existed - was subtly manipulated in a simulation of the real, in which all priorities were preordained, one's presumed needs could be readily met and the natural inclination to question was subsumed in a never-ending deluge of eye-catching gadgetry."

Of course, back in the good old days of blissful consumerism, the only monsters in malls were zombies, and then mostly in the movies. The modern descendants of these undead mall trawlers tend to be living, large and overweight, plodding through malls the size of small cities, with brain-cell-destroying music humming in their heads, eyes fixed on the next big, juicy sale. Instead of feeding on each other, they feast on fast food while buying all the useless (though apparently essential) junk they can carry.

Let's face it, even without lurking lunatic killers, malls are scary places.

And yet, despite the ongoing spate of 'shooting incidents' people continue flocking to the malls.

This can perhaps be explained as a function of the rapidly shrinking attention span of the general public, combined with a chronic deterioration of short and long-term memory.
  A young woman questioned outside a mall immediately after 'yet another incident' told her interviewer,    "Like I could never imagine nothing like this ever happening here."

(in case you're wondering, the interviewer did not point out the obvious no-no of the double negative)

Or it might be that people, sensing the slow-motion demise of their consumptive souls, actively seek out these danger sites, willing to risk death in a effort to feel ... something ... anything, really.


 And how long before the malls pick up on this trend, sniff out a new source of potential profit?

Today Only!

Between 10 A.M. and 12 Noon, Psycho Shooter on premises

Come early for a good hiding place

Survivors of the impending carnage entitled to a 5% discount on all subsequent purchases

Fortunately (or not) for the rest of us, the news media never tires of these events, managing each time to achieve unprecedented levels of near-hysterical fervor in their reporting. CNN apparently has a team of roving correspondents capable, in theory at least, of getting to any major mall within five minutes after the shooting starts.

At which point the interviewing begins.

CNN:  So you heard the shots.

Slightly Addled Eyewitness:  Uh, yeah, I guess.

CNN: What did you think?

S.A.E:  Like I thought it was you know like a joke. Like maybe kids playing with guns.

CNN: Is there a large law enforcement presence?

S.A.E. 2:  A what?

CNN:  How many police do you see?

S.A.E. 2:  Oh yeah, there's like a million cops. And a helicopter too, up in the air, like flying around. 

So what may be glean from all this?

1) People who frequent malls are generally not very bright.

2) More importantly, it turns out that the Mega-malls of the modern era are the near perfect venues for Americans to indulge in their two favorite pastimes:   Shopping & Shooting. 

Good morning, shoppers

Incidents of psycho-shooters terrorizing malls have reached near-epidemic proportions

Should you have to suffer the anxiety of wondering if you'll be the next random victim?

Why not purchase a handgun, shotgun or semi-automatic rifle today at one of our mall gun shops?

The first one hundred rounds are free!

You owe it to yourself and your family.

Gain some peace of mind.  Shop armed!

Defeat Of The Wackadoodles

One good thing to presumably come out of the most recent US political dance with mindless absurdity is that the voting public will wake up to the utterly vapid (though no less dangerous) nature of the so-called Tea Party.

Def:  a group of  primarily white, mostly unattractive, evangelical-fueled, self-serving hypocrites, who employ magical (i.e. delusional) thinking to promote a standard (i.e. imbecilic) Christian fundamentalist political agenda.

Ex:  The Affordable Care Act must be repealed because Obama is a radical Muslim, Leninist, Satan-worshiping Socialist intent upon robbing us of all our God-given liberties. Just ask Sarah Palin. Or, if you find her intellectual prowess intimidating, Michelle Bachman.

And this is one of the more tepid claims from the lunatic, Born-Again fringe. 

Note: Sarah did take time out from her campaign to hunt and kill for "sport" everything in Alaska walking on anything more than two legs (because the Constitution says she can), showing up at a conservative rally to remind the faithful that Obamacare "Death Panels" are already busy sifting through potential candidates for early eradication.

"Yeah, but that will just be the poor, gays, Muslims and illegal immigrants, right?"
"One can always hope, but I wouldn't count on it."

But then hold on a minute ... the morons who voted these people into office remain morons - once a moron, always a moron - strenuously impervious to the hard facts, easily swayed by the manipulative bible-thumping fanatics. What are the chances they will be able to figure out the whole Tea Party sham?

Take Earl Shuck, recently laid off from his job at the toxic waste disposal plant, living in a trailer in western Kentucky with his wife and eleven kids, all of whom suffer from some sort of physical and/or mental illness, possibly the result of proximity to numerous toxic waste dump sites. Even if he could afford it, Earl wouldn't be able to find a health insurance plan accepting those with pre-existing conditions. Yet Earl continues to vehemently oppose the Affordable Care Act.

"What precisely is your issue with Obamacare, Earl?"
"It aims to steal away my freedom, plain and simple."
"Your freedom to do what, exactly?"
"My freedom to, uh, well, you know ..."
"You mean the freedom to be able to pray to Jesus each night with a fully loaded .9mm under your pillow?"
"Hey, some liberal homo-sexual could bust in here in the middle of the night hell-bent on engaging in immoral, ungodly acts . No way he's leaving alive."
"And the AK 47 standing next to the front door?"
"Something wild walks by outside, I got an obligation to blow its head off. The Bible says so, don't it?"

Have the walking dead secretly infiltrated the Tea Party?
It would sort of make sense, as zombies, by definition, have no need for health insurance.

Amazing what people who read the Bible can find lurking therein.
One Christian conservative talk show host recently claimed that Obamacare is clearly alluded to in the Book of Revelations, as one more ominous precursor to the End of Days.

Talk about delusional.

At least the Catholics confine their opposition to the issue of health insurance covering the cost of birth control. Because the single most important requirement of good Catholics is to procreate lots more good Catholics. I mean, imagine sex without having to feel nervous, guilty and depressed at the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy. It's crazy. Under those conditions a person could almost enjoy it, which would most likely constitute a sin, no doubt prompting a new round of nervous, guilty depression.

Ain't religion great?


 So anyway,  this Tea Party politician dies and goes to heaven. The angel manning the gate tells him he can't get in without health insurance.
He doesn't quite get it, being dead and all, but he says, "No problem. I've got a trunk load of cash, courtesy of my dim-witted constituency. I'll just buy some."
"No can do," the angel tells him. "You can't buy insurance with a pre-existing condition."
"What pre-existing condition?" the guy wants to know. "Aside from being deceased, I'm as healthy as a horse."
"You're human," the angel says. "If that's not a disease, what is?"
"So there's nothing I can do?"
"Sorry. If you had died a month ago, before the Heavenly Affordable Care Act had been repealed, you'd already be well on your way to eternal paradise."
"Shit!"


* For a slightly more serious, somewhat less 'fictionalized' take on fundamentalist religion and politics, we recommend Amanda Marcotte, who regularly takes aim at the Christian Right on Salon.com












 

Fall Ball

Back by popular demand - and thanks to both of you for asking -  a few thoughts on the "Great American Pastime."

No, not the pathological American obsession with accumulating weaponry - because, let's face it, the more guns we own, the freer we are. Hey, who needs health insurance when we've got an arsenal in the basement?
 I refer to the other G.A.P.  Major League Baseball! Defying time, possibly gravity, three and a half hour games, the threat of actually falling into a coma while watching, the great plays (which usually occur right after you've left the TV room to pee), the nearly supernatural consistency of umpire incompetence, the sheer annoying magic of it all.

It's October, the one month of the season that makes the previous six somehow bearable. That's right, I'm talking MLB Playoffs. Baseball pundits are quick to point out that anything can happen, which generally translates into the top teams mysteriously choking and some upstart Wildcard entry managing to sneak into the World Series.

(The Detroit Tigers, who should be the best team in baseball, but never quite are. Last year in the W.S. they were swept by the S.F. Giants, a team so far underwater in the standings this year that several of the players heads reportedly exploded from the pressure. How long these now headless team members will be on the D.L. is unknown)

 Forget the bookmaker odds, bet on the long shot, the dark horse, the team that defies the criteria of the upscale marketing demons.
Basically, it pays to root for guys who don't fit the standard profile. Not all that easy, since baseball, along with everything else, has been mostly homogenized, filtered down into a single blurry image of what the giant corporations running the planet have taught us not to only expect, but crave.

Case in point: Both  Miami Marlins' and Tampa Bay Rays' fans - all 237 of them, collectively, on average - apparently feel not the slightest bit of self-referential, irony-laced discomfort watching a game in stadiums named after brands of orange juice.

Still, there are glimmers of the iconoclastic. The Pittsburgh Pirates are back in the playoffs for the first time since your grandmother was in grade school. They're a wild, rough-around-the-edges bunch, who play really well, almost in spite of themselves, in a town in mostly rural western Pennsylvania, of all places.  They also have really cool uniforms.
All they have to do is get past the Cincinnati Reds in a one game punch out, which I'm predicting they will do. Today.

Of course, I'm also the guy who predicted that the entire Tea Party - along with Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian - would be abducted by aliens and transported to an intergalactic penal colony. 
 Just wishful thinking, I guess.

*Highlight of the post season so far:  The elimination of the Texas Rangers. Not sure why, but I have a visceral hatred for this team. It could be the two obsequious twits who announce their games, or the preponderance of all-white, overweight dumbbells in the stands, or possibly Nolan Ryan's fleshy scowl, or the fact that he drags George Bush along with him to the stadium, who sits there looking confused, wondering what time the Dallas Cowboys' game is supposed to start.
 Sayonara, Texas.

 Anyway, this is how I see it all playing out:

National League:
Pittsburgh beats Cincinnati, goes on to play St: Louis, beats them.
L.A. Dodgers beat Atlanta (a good though ultimately boring team)
Pittsburgh beats L.A. for National League Championship.
American League:
Cleveland beats Tampa Bay, goes on the play Boston, beats them.
Detroit beats Oakland.
Cleveland beats Detroit for American League Championship.

Cleveland / Pittsburgh play in World Series.

The odds against this particular outcome, by the way, are astronomically high.
A Detroit / L.A. or  Boston / St. Louis World Series are statistically much more likely.

But then as they say, in the Baseball Post Season anything can happen.

A Fictional Dog Don't Hunt

A reader writes in the ask, Do all dog breeds bark and equal amount?

 First of all, it's a really dumb question. Secondly, do you perhaps mistake me for the Dog Whisperer?

Oh, what the hell?

In fact, several breeds of dog tend not to bark much at all; Chow chows, Akitas, Mastiffs, Bulldogs and Boston Terriers highlight this category. Retrievers (pardon my incredulous laughter) also have a reputation as non-barkers, unless, of course, they happen to be insane. The bark of an unhinged Retriever can shake loose the fillings in your teeth. Prolonged Retriever barking has been known to provoke acts of sheer desperation in humans, including nail biting, excessive drinking, cutting oneself with razor blades and, in extreme cases, actually leaving the house to go jogging.

(By coincidence, Chows, Bulldogs and Mastiffs are among those breeds considered the least intelligent. Unlike Border Collies, universally acknowledged as the smartest dog breed, which don't so much bark as speak several languages)

Not to be confused with the so-called barking breeds, who will literally bark at the drop of an imaginary hat. In this group Beagles, Yorkshire Terriers, Chihuahuas and Toy Poodles are the most notorious offenders.

(In all fairness, dogs that are so small as to hardly qualify as actual dogs - the so-called barking rodent breeds - often bark defensively as a warning to their owners, who can neither see them nor particularly care if they step on them.)

Another question frequently asked by people who perhaps spend too much time around dogs:

Why Do Dogs Bark At Nothing?

Again, canine insanity may be a factor here. 

What dog owner has never inquired of his or her dog,  "What are you barking at?"

There is no record of any dog ever having answered this question.

Those savvy of canine physiology will be quick to point out that 'nothing' to a human is very likely 'something' to a dog. Lest we forget, dogs hear things we can't hear, smell things we can't smell (thankfully) and most likely know things we don't know.

Think of it this way: Your dog has to listen to you blabber on all day long, mostly about idiotic nonsense.  Barking about nothing is merely its way of emulating your apparent stupidity.

A related FAQ from dog owners:  Why is my dog smarter than me?

Possible responses:  You live in either Alabama or east Texas;  you spend more than 30 hours a week in a Walmart; your long term proximity to an excessive barking breed has had a deleterious effect on your already cell-depleted brain.  Basically, if you have to ask the question, there's very little chance you'll understand any of the possible forthcoming answers.

It's akin to the query:  Why is it that I continue to vote Republican when all Republican politicians are clearly self-serving morons?

Short answer:  It takes one to know one, although it's never too late to shift that fat rump of yours to the left.

Recently, according to a minimally reliable online news service, a man living in Indiana (recently relocated from east Texas) called 911 to report that his dog, a strong willed Shepard, had stolen his car and driven it to a nearby 7-11.
The police operator politely expressed her skepticism, then reminded the caller that tying up police lines with fatuous emergencies is a criminal offense.

The man replied:  "Hey, did you just call me fat? Look lady, this is as much of a crazy mystery to me as it is to you. The 7-11 in question doesn't even sell dog food."
 
Another version of this story is that the man called a 7-11 to report a dog repeatedly calling 911.

The 7-11 store manager told him:  "Well, if the dog can operate a cash register, doesn't mind wearing a stupid uniform and is willing to work for below minimum wage, have him come in for an interview."

A final thought:  Over time our dogs become us, and vice versa.
 

Continental Drift

Recently had the experience of being wrapped in a somehow aerodynamically feasible, pressurized metal tube, way too far off the ground, hurtling through space at 2/3 the speed of sound, for a lot more hours than one would prefer, sitting in a seat with a highly complex control system, capable of something just short of an infinite number of positional options; finding just the right set of seating variables, thereby achieving maximum comfort, requires no small amount of luck, some fairly intricate mathematics, and even if you're smart enough to figure it out, it can easily take longer than the full duration of your flight.

Not that there should be any confusion about this. Notwithstanding the occasional pangs of misplaced guilt for the people inhumanly crowded into the strictly non-adjustable seats in the back, Business Class is really the only way to go. It at least offers the possibility of completing your journey without suffering either some sort of physical paralysis or serious mental breakdown. And yet there is the lingering sense of being systematically 'killed' with Business Class kindness. I mean, how cheerful-smiling-friendly can these flight attendants be? How often can they inquire into your well-being, ply you with snacks, engage you in conversation in a way suggesting they actually care about anything you have to say?

 To the point that you find yourself becoming slightly suspicious.  To the point you're compelled to ask.

Excuse me, but are you by any chance the member of some happy, smiley face cult?

If it would make your flight any more satisfying, I certainly could be.

No, don't go to any extra trouble on my account.

In that case, is there anything I can get you? Another drink? Something from our so-elaborate-as-to-be-virtually-incomprehensible menu?  One of our comfy, hypoallergenic, made-entirely-from-recycled-plastic-water-bottles lounging jackets?

A lounging jacket?

It's also quite stylish.

Would you perhaps have an operational manual for this chair?

Let me go and query the Captain on that. 

*(So how many flight attendants does it require to screw in a light bulb?
Four.  One to push the cart, a second to smile reassuringly at the bulb, a third to unscrew the bad one and screw in the new one, and a forth to go on the P.A., informing passengers that while changing a light bulb in flight is not exactly routine, neither does it in any way constitute what might be construed as an emergency situation.)

The highlight of my in-flight service was being asked by a tall, Finnish flight steward if I would like him to tuck me in with a blanket.  

Uh, no thanks, I told him.

In that case, he said, may I offer you a reindeer meat sandwich?

Reindeer, did you say?

It's really very delicious.

(And this is exactly my point. You know the people back in Economy are not being offered reindeer sandwiches, and a case can certainly be made that, from a purely existential perspective, they are much better off for not having to make that choice.)

I passed on the reindeer, the blanket, the complimentary foot massage; ordered another beer instead, as the plane cruised somewhere over the arctic, outside air temp hovering around negative 60 C.
The miracle of flight, I reminded myself, repressing an urge to start screaming.

At least I was finally able to conquer the seat. After nine hours of pushing buttons I had the thing more or less where I wanted it. Not exactly comfortable, but close enough. The pursuit of absolute perfection is, after all, a fool's errand. Even thought I might be able to doze off.

Which is, of course, exactly when the Captain's voice came over the P.A.

We'll be landing in approximately twenty minutes. Please make sure your seat belts are secured and return all seats to their upright positions.



 

Blurry Reflections In An Ever-Expanding Puddle

After twenty-two straight days of ominous grey skies, sizzling high humidity and near-constant drizzle, is it any wonder you're reaching for the anti-depressants? Chewing them like candy, swiping them from family and friends, hording them with pack rat-like fervor. You're as depressed, but somehow you don't mind it as much. You're learning how to be happy with your chronic unhappiness.

Think of it as the paradoxical nature of life in the rainy zone.

Even the usually uncomplicated act of moving through space has become a daunting challenge. It's like trying to walk on the bottom of a swimming pool wearing gravity boots (breathing, needless to say, is also problematic). To conserve energy you and your wife take turns dragging each other around the house.

I'd like to go and sit on the couch now, you announce.
Fine, she says. But first you'll have to drag me into the bathroom.
Let me take another pill and see how I feel about that.

Twenty minutes later you're still sitting at the kitchen table, feeling neither one way nor another. The wife has managed to crawl to the bathroom and you're dumbly gazing out the window wondering when the garden had turned into a jungle. Menacing plants with large, succulent leaves press against the glass, aggressive crawlers seek out cracks in the outside walls, flocks of subtropical birds nest in the attic.

You weren't even aware there was an attic.

And then the screaming starts.  Not that you immediately recognize it as such. Sounds waves propagating through a humid medium of supersaturated air invariably become distorted, compressed, twisted into unrecognizable shapes. A woman's scream, therefore, is mostly indistinguishable from, for example, the mournful murmuring of ghosts, the subsonic drone of an anomalous electromagnetic discharge, the hapless yowl of a hungry puppy.

You sincerely hope it doesn't turn out to be option # 1. With your mood in free fall and your limbs simulating strips of worn out elastic, the last thing you need on your plate at this point is a so-called 'supernatural situation'. And suddenly you're wondering where the expression 'on one's plate' came from.

  Don't I have enough on my plate already? You also want me to worry about the origin of the expression 'on my plate'?  Anything else you'd like me to do while I'm at it?

Could you perhaps remove the birds from the attic?

Okay, now you're getting on my plate and I'm not very happy about it.

Can I offer you a mood enhancer?

Screw you!

Two mood enhancers? That's two for the price of one. You'll be feeling twice as upbeat in half the time.

In addition to being an idiot, are you also a drug dealer?

Fortunately, both you and your wife have wholeheartedly adopted the puerile, dehumanizing and utterly mindless practice of carrying cellphones at all times.  She calls. You answer. It's one of the few things you actually agree on.

Get in here, she says. 
Why, you want to know.
She says, I'm trapped in the bathroom with a giant spider.

(Another feature of the relentless rainy season, the giant spider, with the apparent ability to materialize out of thin air. They appear, they terrorize, they vanish. If you stare at them and let your eyes slip out of focus, they begin to resemble distant elliptical galaxies millions of light years from Earth, the black holes of their plump fuzzy heads as alluring as they are lethal.)

How do you expect me to get there, you ask her.

Crawl, she says.

You want me to crawl to the bathroom to see a giant spider?

No, I want you to crawl to the bathroom and catch a giant spider. Bring tools, preferably with the capacity to also serve as weaponry.

Are you seriously suggesting we terminate a giant spider?

If this thing bites me and I die, I will come back and haunt you mercilessly.

Ah, ghosts again. Why are you not surprised? One minute you think of them, the next your wife is threatening to become one. You sense yourself caught in an unreconcilable loop of quasi-tragic unreality. You're also pretty sure it's started raining inside the house. On the other hand, you might just be over-medicated. You're so mood-enhanced you've begun hallucinating. To the extent you're willing to entertain the implausible notion that the sun has come out.

The what has come out?

Bright glowing disk in the sky, source of all life on Earth?

Huh?

Never mind.

Pondering all this, a virtual myriad of potentially debilitating variables,  the phone rings .......







 

... No Cure For The Summertime Blues

*Original musical version released in 1958, written and performed by Eddie Cochran.

Summer, more accurately mid-summer, a week after the M.L.B. All Star Break,  colloquially referred to as the Dog Days. Welcome dogs everywhere. Of course, if you're like me and have a dog, you already know that every day is dog day, or in the case of my dog, Princess Dog Day. Ever notice how even a seemingly dumb dog can upon occasion display flashes of sheer brilliance, pretty much get you to do anything it wants, and at some point you just have to stop feeling bad about yourself for being so easily manipulated by a dog?

Anyway, Dog Days.  Courtesy of the ancient Romans who, apparently, in addition to inventing sewer systems, tossing Christians to lions and slaughtering barbarians, occasionally glanced up at the night sky.

Note* A little known fact; up until two hundred years or so ago, nights were dark and the night sky was actually visible. Who knew?

The Romans, it seems, were intrigued by Sirius, brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, which according to some earlier Greek guy resembled nothing so much as a big dog. Hence Sirius became the Dog Star. As Sirius and our own Sun are in conjunction during the summer (rise and set at the same relative time) the Romans mistakenly surmised that the energy emanated by the Big Dog star was combining with the energy of the Sun, thereby explaining the typical summer heat waves experienced in Rome.

You see where this is going, right?  Hottest part of summer = Dog Days.

(We shouldn't be too hard on the ancient Romans for assuming that a star approximately 86 trillion kilometers from Earth could have an effect on its weather. Recall that until the 16th Century anyone with the temerity to suggest that the Earth was not the epicenter of the Universe was routinely burned at the stake. Until the late 19th Century the scientific consensus was that everything in the universe - time, space, mass, energy - hung like Christmas tree ornaments from an invisible, light-propagating medium called the Luminiferous Aether. It required the glial-rich brain of Einstein to put this wacky idea to rest.)

Note*  Einstein was an avid dog lover, frequently observed on long walks conversing excitedly with his pet sheepdog; although exactly how much, if any, the animal's insights contributed to what would eventually become the Special and General Theories of Relativity is unknown.

So let's assume that many of us are currently ensconced in the hot and humid Dog Days of summer, perhaps secretly longing for winter, despite the fact that we absolutely hate winter, complain endlessly about it while we're in it. Maybe you're thinking, okay, you got me there, but at least in winter I don't have to spend half my time hunting down and killing mosquitoes. Putting aside for the moment the karmic implications of doing such a thing, this segues nicely into ...

Curious facts about mosquitoes:

Mosquitoes can smell the warm blood of a mammal at up to sixty meters.
They are particularly attracted to people with O type blood.
They are especially attracted to the blood of beer drinkers.
The blood of a pregnant woman is considered a special treat.
A mosquito is 500 times more likely to bite you during a full moon.

The obvious conclusion:  The last thing you'd want to be in summer is a beer drinking, pregnant, scantily clad woman with O type blood trapped outdoors during a full moon on a typical Dog Day evening.


F.Y.I. World high & low temperatures for yesterday, July 22nd:

Ouargla, Algeria:  119.7 F  (48.7 C)

Davis Lgb 46 AWS, Antarctica:  -94.7 F   (-70.4 C)

In terms of appealing summer destinations, more or less a toss up.

But then as Neil Young said (sang, actually):

"I'd rather be burned in Canada, than freezing in the south."

 **Correction:  The above was never uttered by Neil Young. The line actually comes from the song
"We can talk," performed by The Band on the album "Music From Big Pink."  Apologies to Levon Helm and the gang