According to Hofmann: Thou doth protest too much, methinks
I’ve been noticing a lot of public protests lately, and I can’t seem to put my finger on why, exactly.
C’mon, folks, just because I write the news doesn’t necessarily mean I constantly follow it. Imagine that you work in a sandwich shop and your job is to, well, make sandwiches — just sandwiches all day long. Sandwich after sandwich after sandwich after sandwich…
Finally, at the end of your shift, you come home and find yourself ready for dinner. What are you hungry for?
Well, I may not know what you’re hungry for, but I do know what you’re not hungry for, and that’s protesting because either those filthy hippies or those uptight conformists stole your sandwich boards to make protest signs.
That’s right. No matter where you stand on any issue, I hope we can come together and agree that protestors and protests can be annoying.
Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly believe that people should express their passionate opinions on events and issues by protesting because it’s a cherished byproduct of this county’s ever-so-important First Amendment.
I just don’t want to see it or hear it.
Those silent, sit-in protests back in the day were really the way to go. I wish people still practiced those, but now everyone thinks the world is their Facebook page.
So, let’s start with the sights at a protest.
The term “dress for success” is ideal for any individual who wants to present themselves in a manner that perfectly accents the subject to which they’re knowledgeable and committed.
For example, if you want to gather and express your desire for better conditions for the working man, you should wear a pair of nice jeans, a casual, but not-too-loud short-sleeved shirt and sneakers or work boots.
When people see that, they know you’re passionate, yet level-headed and reasonable about that topic.
On the other hand, when you dress as a Minotaur with the top human part as George Washington screaming the alphabet while swinging around a bucket filled with ham salad, people will likely take notice, but will also avoid all eye contact as they flee from you in terror.
I have to admit, from what I’ve seen, some signs at protests have been clever over the years, but only when those making the signs adhere to the acronym KISS, meaning they need to rock ‘n roll all night and party every day.
Just kidding. It means “Keep It Simple, Stupid”.
Oddly enough, it’s when people use acronyms in their signs that it gets very confusing. Sometimes, you spend so much time reading the sign, you lose focus on what they’re for or against.
A-acronyms
C-can’t
R-really
O-opine the
N-notion that
Y-you
M-mean to express in any meaningful way,
S-stupid
If the sights weren’t enough to turn you into an agoraphobic, then the sounds will cause you to scrape your fingernails across a chalkboard for some peace and quiet.
First, there’s the screaming and, yes, it can be as shrill as the passion the screamer tends to have, but the screaming that really annoys me is the tone people use while audibly projecting their point. It sounds like they’re trying to read assembly instructions for an entertainment center to someone over the sound of a running vacuum cleaner.
Worse yet are the chants.
I don’t know how old the chant “Hey-hey, ho-ho (fill in the blank of something you don’t like) has got to go” is, but I think it’s time to retire it.
“Hi, John, I think I found a great chant for our protest against lazy songwriters.”
“Sounds good, Frank. Let’s hear what you have.”
“Hey-hey, ho-ho, lazy songwriters have got-“
“You’re fired, Frank.”
Let’s be clear, I’m not asking anyone to pen “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but if someone is taking time out of their day to prance around in public wearing a homemade manatee suit with a harpoon through the head outside of a tuna factory, then they can at least take a little time on the way there to come up with an original jingle.
Oh, well. I guess it’s time to get off my soapbox and thank you for letting me rant about this because, quite honestly, I don’t know of any other way to publicly express my disgust of the issue of people publicly expressing their disgust over an issue.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His books, “Good Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One … and Dying, Too” and “Stupid Brain,” are available on Amazon.com.