Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Tsunami Burgers

First, let me say that I was, of course, horrified at the massive loss of life and suffering the bloody thing brought.

Second, I'd like to say, as a person fascinated by the planet and things larger than ourselves in general -- I was extremely intrigued and looked at lots of video just to try to get an idea what it must've looked like.

A huge chunk of land, bigger than most of us can really imagine, due to forces we can't imagine, suddenly lurched and went up or down, I don't really know which. Of course, the earth's been doing this for billions of years (or 5,000 if you're a staunch ultra-Christian). The earth does this. We know it does this.

Then I was amazed at the reactions. Not so much the good reactions -- people pitching in and helping each other, crossing ethnic and religious lines. Really, I think most people in the world are, deep down, decent folks and we pull together when stuff like this happens.

No, what got me was the whiney cries of outrage people had over things like the Tsunami Burger in South Africa. From what I understand, the restaurant had had a Tsunami burger long before this Tsunami. But now it's "insensitive".

Bull crap.

As I said. Tsunami's happen. Tsunamis are big. Tsunamis are powerful. These guys had a big, powerful burger and gave it an interesting name. I could imagine wanting to eat a Tsunami burger after such a tsunami, if I survived it, in celebration of the fact that I had survived it. It might give me a feeling of power, of overcoming something big.

But no, we are to be offended, the PC crowd insists. They always insist that we be offended.

Folks, we choose to take offense. We can also choose not to.