When the meek finally inherit the earth they will not say, “I’m humbled.”

(Two news items that caught my eye)

It’s Emmy night.  Get ready to hear the word “humbled.” 

Humbled is a word only used in front of a microphone.  It is uttered by someone who has just won an award or a plum job or a ceremonial position but they want to go all “gosh, I don’t deserve this.”  They could say, hey I don’t deserve this Emmy but someone has to win it and hooray, it’s me.

Humbled is only recognized as a real word by young on line dictionaries.  It is a word that contra-indicates because anyone who is really humble doesn’t realize it.  They carry on as their normal meek selves.  When the meek finally inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5), they will not go to a microphone and say, “I’m humbled to be given the earth.”  They will probably have their lawyer say something.

Recently Caroline Kennedy was “humbled” to accept the ambassadorship to Japan and “carry on JFK’s legacy.” What was JFK’s legacy?  I know, I know, he was handsome and Jackie was beautiful and the Bay of Pigs and there’s too much tragedy involved and he liked to listen to Camelot before going to sleep and Johnny, we hardly knew ye, etc., etc.   However, could someone remind Ms. Kennedy that most ambassadorships are political back scratching for some real or imagined help given to the office holder and often the appointee has no diplomatic credentials.  And it could be compensation for the ‘now she’s the Senator from New York, oops, now she’s not’ fiasco. She must have expected some goodie was coming down the pike when she said, “Yay! Obama.”

Red Lobster and The Olive Garden - how could sales be down?

I’m sorry to hear that sales are down at Red Lobster and the Olive Garden. The bottomless pasta bowl - how could that not work? They “see food differently” That’s for sure.  Once I heard a comedian say that at Red Lobster they had this giant roll of red felt and they cut out all of the shrimp and lobster shapes out of it and breaded them and that was the seafood they served.  That was mean-spirited, wasn’t it? 

When I see one of their luscious ads and notice how happy the diners are to be there, it makes me wish I were there, too, knowing I could have as much pasta Alfredo as I wanted.