If there are a couple of things which annoy me very intensely in the year 6 A.O. (Anno Obama) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c besides petty rudeness and vandalism which are loudly proclaimed to be anti-LBGTYWTF, racist or anti-Islam and then later (often within days or hours) admitted to have been perpetrated by the so-called victim in hopes of tapping into that sweet, sweet overflowing spring of sympathy and righteous affirmation \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 really, my default position after reading the breathless headlines about one of these incidents is setting a mental over-under of how many days it will take for the ostensible victim to be proven comprehensively to be an attention-seeking drama queen. <\/p>\n
Oh, and the other couple of things which annoy me intensely \u00e2\u20ac\u201c two phrases, apparently beloved of activists who want to be seen as involved and deeply concerned activists without doing anything in particular about their chosen cause: the first is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153raising awareness of (fill in the blank)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153starting a conversation about (fill in the blank).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d If there are any more trite and hackneyed justifications for doing something demonstrably thoughtless and annoying, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to know about them so I can be warned and take evasive action. Yes; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Think of the children\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If it saves just one life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are already on my event horizon of trite and hackneyed justifications for being a prize self-glorifying and ultimately expensive pain in the *ass.<\/p>\n
All these phrases are basically cheap grace, a flamboyant gesture and a signaling flag. They are a way of seeming to do something without actually doing something; permitting the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153deeply concerned activist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to preen before their peers without actually breaking a sweat. Because \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and this is the supremely annoying part \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in the main, we are already aware of most of the major problems afflicting us. The extreme smugness of assuming that we are not has become as annoying as it is arrogant and condescending. Homelessness in our inner cities? Starvation in Africa? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strife in Iran, Hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, actually, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, but California does. Forgive me; I just had a Merry Minuet<\/a> flashback<\/em>. Look, we already know about all these, all of us who have a social awareness above the level of a mollusk, the attention span slightly longer than a fruit fly, and a concern for our immediate communities. In the long run, is all that we can realistically concern ourselves with anyway. We already know; so quit shouting about social causes like carnival barkers trying to attract our attention to the Bearded Something or Other, or the Amazing Boneless Wonder. (Ooops \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 sorry establishment RINOS, but you know who I meant.)<\/em> <\/p>\n Start a dialog? Why, bless your heart! Among those possessing social awareness above the level of the average mollusk, and an attention span slightly longer than a fruit fly, et cetera \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we already know what that means. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dialog\u00e2\u20ac\u009d most often means \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You shut up while we lecture you at length.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And most usually, that necessary dialog has already been happening for some time, between family, neighbors, friends, acquaintances, club members, bloggers and commenters, co-workers and interested passing strangers. That dialog just hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been happening at the command of, or along the lines desired by those demanding that the dialog be started. Likely this is what annoys them so; that the dialog has already been underway for a good long time.<\/p>\n Any other trite and overused phrases in circulation which annoy the heck out of you? Please discuss.<\/p>\n (Cross-posted at www.chicagoboyz.net)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If there are a couple of things which annoy me very intensely in the year 6 A.O. (Anno Obama) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c besides petty rudeness and vandalism which are loudly proclaimed to be anti-LBGTYWTF, racist or anti-Islam and then later (often within days or hours) admitted to have been perpetrated by the so-called victim in hopes of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aint-that-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncobrief.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}