pet peeve of the month

There are two phrases that whenever I hear them I have trouble restraining myself from severe sarcasm and derision:

"It is what it is..." and "What are ya gonna do?"

What is it about these phrases that annoy the hell out of me? Is it the implied hopeless ho-hum nonchalance or the empty faux zen?

"What are ya gonna do?" I want to spit back: "What ARE you going to do?!"

Slightly more annoying is the oft-used alternative: "What can you do?" because there in fact is an awful lot one can do. I most often hear this version idly tossed into the mix when things like the environment or racism or unjust war or fiscal responsibility are spoken of (and typically as a means of changing the conversation). You can almost see the shoulders shrugging and imagine the speaker casually turning back to his or her flickering TV screen to soak up a few more commercials. "What can ya do?" You can do a million things, if only you'd stop being so cool and insouciant!

And "It is what it is" is the ultimate empty phrase. It is used as filler, like putty in the cracks of a crappy vocabulary. It attempts a profundity that just isn't there and comes across rather stuffed with New Age fluff. "It is what it is." "Well, you don't say?"