She hit her usual sites, sipping her coffee with her practiced habit, clicking through the things which mattered little but promised to inform her for the day ahead. And a new phrase, pulled from the dust-covered phrase lexicon seemed to come up again and again:
The special place in Hell.
The term seems popular, again, she thought, and the nasty people television tends to attract have pulled it out again. Not a mention by just one person, but once mentioned by more than a few it becomes a catchphrase like the clucking of hens to both sides of any issue. Everyone then wants to send the other side straight to Hell, if only metaphorically. Such is the danger of venomous words. She wondered if this place were a real place, or just an inner place of darkened hearts in which people tend to place others of whom they loathe.
But the real place? The one in Hell? Ah, what a place this is, she thought. Not just any place in Hell, but the special one. She guessed if one were despicable enough, this special place in Hell would actually be quite comfortable for those deserving enough to go there, with chase lounges, room service, on-call wait staff, little chocolates on the pillows, al-a-carte menus, warm blankets, an iced tea menu, and all the comforts of home. If this place were unpleasant, it wouldn't be special in the context of Hell, now would it?
Well, it is Hell, so she guessed cable news, pick your political persuasion, would be still on 24-7 on every television. Just like the airport departure lounge, which in itself, was just another ordinary place in Hell and not in any way special in the least.
So who would have reservations in such a luxurious and special place? Well, for one she guessed people who overused the term would be in the silver club members line at the registration desk. To get in the line for the gold club member check-ins, she thought you would have to regularly mock people of religion, and then pretend you stand in judgement of others to send them to the place you make fun of people of faith for believing in.
The platinum check in line? She guessed that special queue was reserved for the hate merchants in the media themselves, and also those who profited off jumping on the bandwagon of anger and trying to make a buck. To stand in the front of the line, she guessed these would be the people who never really believed in any righteous cause, only spoke to it off the cuff to sell an album or get people to come to a movie.
With every generation, there was nothing new about this. In the old days they were the bands who protested 'the war' in their songs, and while speaking the talk and dressing the part they never stood in the protest lines with those being sprayed by water cannons, arrested en mass, and hit by tear gas while being thrown to the dogs. These days, it is the movement of revolution-dot-com, and sharing click-bait articles online and feeling good about raising awareness when all they were doing is lining some domain-master's pockets with ad money.
And just like the television people, she felt they really don't care what side they were on as long as they practiced the alchemy of turning venom into cash. You take this side, and you take the other, bring on the lunatics from each side to fan the flames and we will all get rich. Excuse me, they will get rich, and you the viewers will get to watch the ads for new drugs and diet shakes.
She wondered if the advertisers would ever wake up from this nightmare of placing their products in such a place of negativity and feeding into this madness. What value is sane discourse? Do I support those who contribute to tearing things down, or building people and ideas up? This applies, in her mind, to both sides of any issue - be constructive and let the people decide the best ideas. Present ideas on their merit without personal attacks. How hard could it be to show restraint?
And then she knew wishful thinking paved the road to special places.
She knew the time would come when the 'special phrase' lost its punch due to overuse, and the merchants of discord would move on to the next novel twist of words. This was not the wit of experience and clever turns of phrase, it was pulling lexical tripe from the junk drawer and hoping like mud it would stick. Perhaps they would move on to other phrases, such as 'the wages of sin' or perhaps 'doing the devil's handiwork.' You know, something sinister and religious sounding and overused enough it could be blasted all over the click-bait articles and people would drop by to either agree or get angry.
The news has turned to pure fat-filled spam in these days, and like her junk folder the sources of information she relied upon were relegated to the folder where sex-enhancing pills were sold and wight loss supplements were hawked. None of it she was interested in the least, and by denying these stories she found a new-found peace and solid center to her life. Why, it was almost as if those in the media were preaching some new belief system, which like the gold-cuff-linked and slick hair-sprayed televangelists of old, making a small inner circle at the faithful top rich while the blind followers were happy, faithful, flocked, and fleeced.
The new religion was hate.
And she knew faith in this new belief system put its followers in a certain special place.
The special place in Hell.
The term seems popular, again, she thought, and the nasty people television tends to attract have pulled it out again. Not a mention by just one person, but once mentioned by more than a few it becomes a catchphrase like the clucking of hens to both sides of any issue. Everyone then wants to send the other side straight to Hell, if only metaphorically. Such is the danger of venomous words. She wondered if this place were a real place, or just an inner place of darkened hearts in which people tend to place others of whom they loathe.
But the real place? The one in Hell? Ah, what a place this is, she thought. Not just any place in Hell, but the special one. She guessed if one were despicable enough, this special place in Hell would actually be quite comfortable for those deserving enough to go there, with chase lounges, room service, on-call wait staff, little chocolates on the pillows, al-a-carte menus, warm blankets, an iced tea menu, and all the comforts of home. If this place were unpleasant, it wouldn't be special in the context of Hell, now would it?
Well, it is Hell, so she guessed cable news, pick your political persuasion, would be still on 24-7 on every television. Just like the airport departure lounge, which in itself, was just another ordinary place in Hell and not in any way special in the least.
So who would have reservations in such a luxurious and special place? Well, for one she guessed people who overused the term would be in the silver club members line at the registration desk. To get in the line for the gold club member check-ins, she thought you would have to regularly mock people of religion, and then pretend you stand in judgement of others to send them to the place you make fun of people of faith for believing in.
The platinum check in line? She guessed that special queue was reserved for the hate merchants in the media themselves, and also those who profited off jumping on the bandwagon of anger and trying to make a buck. To stand in the front of the line, she guessed these would be the people who never really believed in any righteous cause, only spoke to it off the cuff to sell an album or get people to come to a movie.
With every generation, there was nothing new about this. In the old days they were the bands who protested 'the war' in their songs, and while speaking the talk and dressing the part they never stood in the protest lines with those being sprayed by water cannons, arrested en mass, and hit by tear gas while being thrown to the dogs. These days, it is the movement of revolution-dot-com, and sharing click-bait articles online and feeling good about raising awareness when all they were doing is lining some domain-master's pockets with ad money.
And just like the television people, she felt they really don't care what side they were on as long as they practiced the alchemy of turning venom into cash. You take this side, and you take the other, bring on the lunatics from each side to fan the flames and we will all get rich. Excuse me, they will get rich, and you the viewers will get to watch the ads for new drugs and diet shakes.
She wondered if the advertisers would ever wake up from this nightmare of placing their products in such a place of negativity and feeding into this madness. What value is sane discourse? Do I support those who contribute to tearing things down, or building people and ideas up? This applies, in her mind, to both sides of any issue - be constructive and let the people decide the best ideas. Present ideas on their merit without personal attacks. How hard could it be to show restraint?
And then she knew wishful thinking paved the road to special places.
She knew the time would come when the 'special phrase' lost its punch due to overuse, and the merchants of discord would move on to the next novel twist of words. This was not the wit of experience and clever turns of phrase, it was pulling lexical tripe from the junk drawer and hoping like mud it would stick. Perhaps they would move on to other phrases, such as 'the wages of sin' or perhaps 'doing the devil's handiwork.' You know, something sinister and religious sounding and overused enough it could be blasted all over the click-bait articles and people would drop by to either agree or get angry.
The news has turned to pure fat-filled spam in these days, and like her junk folder the sources of information she relied upon were relegated to the folder where sex-enhancing pills were sold and wight loss supplements were hawked. None of it she was interested in the least, and by denying these stories she found a new-found peace and solid center to her life. Why, it was almost as if those in the media were preaching some new belief system, which like the gold-cuff-linked and slick hair-sprayed televangelists of old, making a small inner circle at the faithful top rich while the blind followers were happy, faithful, flocked, and fleeced.
The new religion was hate.
And she knew faith in this new belief system put its followers in a certain special place.
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