Thursday
Miscellaneous Rambling: Loud People
ITunes has again (for, what, the 14th time?) changed its lay out. I'm not even going to try to figure it out. I swear, the time commitment to keep up with Apples' endless tinkering amounts to a part-time job. I detest Apple, and I detest it even more because it's pretty much the only game in town right now. My computer tech guy hates Apple too, but he says Samsung has bigger problems that dwarf Apple's hubris. * * * * * * * Memo to people with small children: When you're in public, everyone doesn't need to know what a good parent you are, so don't interact with them with such a loud voice that everyone within 100 feet can hear you. I had to work all day Saturday, so I treated myself to a quick lunch at the quaint soup/sandwich shop across the street. I was seated about twenty feet from a woman with two small children. Everything was fine. Then the father (boyfriend?) showed up and proceeded to interact with the children. Criminy. He was practically screaming in his joviality, making munching noises at the children, etc. I gave a couple of shoulder glances his way and it may have helped. He actually lowered his voice. But at that point, the toddlers had started to misbehave so he was speaking a bit crossly with them . . . in a lowered voice. I find it interesting that he intuited that no one wanted to hear him discipline the children but intuited that everyone wanted to hear him make eating noises with them. * * * * * * * I probably shouldn't say this, but I dislike loud people in general. It's a height of oblivious self-centeredness to walk into a room or office and have a need to make sure everyone knows you're there with your hardy hellos and belly laughs. * * * * * * * I also find that loudness seems to be a characteristic of the lower class. White trash don't hesitate to yell to one another across the parking lot in my town; the black people at Cedar Point last week were consistently loud. I've told my kids often, "A person's intelligence tends to be inversely proportional to how loud he is." That's not always true, of course, but the loudest people I encounter seem to be those people with an intelligence level somewhere above high moron but below average. * * * * * * * My parish has stopped playing all Marian hymns, even last Tuesday, which was the Feast of the Nativity of Mary. It's all Disney banal tripe all the time: Sing a New Song, Open Wide the Doors to Christ, All are Welcome, Gather Us In, On Eagle's Wings. Sigh. * * * * * * * But in case the vapid who enjoy such tripe don't get enough banality at the weekly Mass, Fr. Longenecker has provided this helpful Youtube video.
