Even when it's all about others, it's all about me.

Lena Dunham's / Larry David's / Bill De Blasio's New York:

(Language alert! Rant coming in 3... 2... 1...)

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE IDIOTS?

This cute little ad is the most disgraceful thing I have ever seen on a bus stop of any kind or in any place, and brother, I have seen a few.

"Ego-friendly." "Volunteering doesn't just help those around you, it helps you stand a better chance of being healthier and happier." This is what we are reduced to in a city full of the most selfish pricks in the world, I gather---that you cannot ever expect them to do something decent unless their own reward is front and center.

I guess this is what happens when you have a pack of dopes who believe in nothing. Congratulations, NYC Service; you have managed to take the most appealing thing about volunteering---getting out of yourself---and turned it back to yourself. You've performed a spirit-ectomy. You've blackened the heart of helping. You've taken the broad and noble sweep of citizenship and turned it back on the twisted little homunculus that lives inside. You've failed to use the semicolon (or em dash) where it would be appropriate. And you've even taken the fun out of the idea.

Verily I say unto you, they have had their reward.

And what kind of divas, hipsters, neo-beatniks, cupcake queens, handbag collectors, Hamptons runners, trust-fund dingdongs, and addlepated liberal arts majors do they expect to get? The ones who will tear ass out of there when they find that the bad neighborhoods they'll have to work in are ickier, tackier, and full of people less appreciative than movies would have led them to believe? Does these municipal morons expect to find people of character and determination with an ad that says "Doing good for others! It's all about YOU!"

The government of New York has put the "self" back in "selflessness." Dummies.

UPDATE: Mr. Philbin notes that this is exactly the kind of thinking that justifies doing disastrous things in the name of doing good. Results don't count; intentions---meaning the reward to the deed-doer---is all that matters.

UPDATE II: Joey Peeps writes, "This campaign will never work. Ironically, you will go through more for others than you will for yourself. You will get up at 4 for a hungry baby but very few will get up at 4 to go jogging."