We hate entitlement.
It’s an icky behavior or mentality that has oozed its way from college cliques into mainstream society.
It’s beyond us at this point. Part of the all-encompassing nature of entitlement stems from the multitude of social networking sites at our fingertips. Dozens of websites want to know what we have to say.
That’s why we think people everywhere should have to see and hear them, too. This happens so often, in fact, that celebrities or politicians stage the opportunities.
Everything we are presented by a political party has, ideally, gone through a process of public relations experts; everything is for a reason and a purpose. Except when it becomes more fake than usual.
Paul Ryan, the star vice presidential nominee, was recently seen in some interesting pictures. No, not the ones from his “beefcake photo shoot” that TIME Magazine shot.
“After greeting and thanking a handful of volunteers from St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Canfield, Ohio, — who said they typically visit the St. Vincent DePaul Society every Saturday and serve food from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. — Ryan, his wife and their young children headed to the kitchen, donned white aprons and offered to clean up some dishes,” according to a Washington Post article.
It continued: “Ryan stood at the sink and took some large metal pans that did not appear to be dirty, soaped them up and rinsed them.”
He picked up clean dishes and then pretended to clean them some more while attempting to appear human.
In a Huffington Post article, Michael Shaw wrote that he can “imagine people looking at this story and just waving a hand, saying this kind of pretend happens every day.” He also said that it is not always so obviously thrust into our faces — that most politicians at least try to hide the fact that what they’re doing is for positive publicity.
Still have doubts that it was staged?
“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” said Brian J. Antal, the president of the St. Vincent De Paul Society in a phone interview Monday afternoon with the Washington Post. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
According to NBC News, which followed up with Antal after Internet buzz indicated he voted in Democratic primaries before, “Ryan did very little work only compared to the larger context of Saturday morning, when the kitchen fed 180 homeless people breakfast. Antal conceded that Ryan did wash several dirty dishes.”
Ryan might have done some actual work. But he did it under such a guise of integrity. Can you imagine a pizza shop owner picking up Ryan for a hug? Never, because it would wrinkle Ryan’s oversized suit.
