My love affair with hamburgers has always been a curse. You'd have thought the bloated decline that hit the equally bun addicted king of rock and roll, whose fate was sealed on a toilet lid, would be enough to repel my appetite from that grizzled piece of pure saturated, german culinary engineering heaven! Alas, even Elvis, with his gyrating hips and borderline "Yeotree" desires, couldn't resist their appetite crushing, stomach bloating goodness!
2007 Orlando Florida. Perhaps the most obese of McAmerica's "tiny" countries that they so lovely refer to as States. I happened to find myself in a forced (state?) of clique American cringe.
Sat in reflection now; quite naively, next to a giant fish tank. An equally naive, pony tailed clique young female republican voter, asks of her audience to those that have ever served with the Armed Forces at home (America) or abroad (the rest of us), to stand and be applauded for their equally naive efforts in representing the best interests of the western boys club elites. I stood there, a pillar of awkwardness that reeked of sun cream, basking in their soft spongy pawed applause in one of America's favourite theme parks.
7 years later, sat in a grommet burger kitchen, still just as naive, I chew away at a piece of an animal whose purpose in life is that to eventually reside in my stomach, until digested. This ex-army, SeaWorld endorsing, burger eating man's resume would give any truly intellectual being the impression, that his values on existence was that it is ultimately his to be consumed.
I have always been impressed by people who are enlightened enough to see past their own dinner forks. Veggies and of course those that manage to have cash in their bank accounts over £100 at the end of the month. These wonderful people should be the ones heading up our government. If ever you needed credentials from people to run a country, surely the ones that fight for the rights of others and animals and can manage their own bank accounts, deserve such a position? Rather interestingly, on Question Time recently Russell Brand the comedian and Campaigner was posed the question to run, his response was that he was afraid that he would become one of them.
Power, control and greed all rage far more frivolously among the less informed and those that are within reach of obtaining such qualities. People will always cast judgement on those that feel violence should always come before compassion. Yet rather ironically then these people manage to show little compassion to those that are open to the argument and the change in opinion that could eventually come.
No one person is ever truly lost to their believes and as such can never be judged as a result. I love whales, but when I visited SeaWorld I had no idea until later on the reasons as to why that place is actually Hell manifested on earth. My dear, long departed grandmother, by today's standards was a racist. Yet, I did and still do love her dearly. I know that had the right people been around her to challenge her views, these would have changed. It would have taken time and would have required a lot of patience, but then surely isn't that what being compassionate is all about?