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Some thoughts of WAR and KFC |
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Written by googirama
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Saturday, 24 July 2004 |
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What does war mean to the average person? Arguably, many individuals
are intimately acquainted with the mathematical equations of war and
yet, few pay little attention to its far more detrimental effects. We
have all read the newspaper headlines that inform us that wars cost
billions of dollars and claim millions of lives but if you are anything
like me you might feel lost within the magnitude of the numbers. There
is an artificial component to trying to envision one thousand bombs
blowing away ten thousand people. After all, I have never actually seen
one thousand bombs and never witnessed the death of thousands of people
with my own eyes. At some point, the words in the newspaper are just
words, stagnant, still and slightly incomprehensible. Inevitably, I
turn the page and I continue to read something I can envision and
something I can relate with. Perhaps a restaurant review or some
surreptitious photographs of Jennifer Lopez’s recent wedding, but war,
well that subject seems more like a piece of violent science fiction.
Clearly, this is the way the average person thinks about war. We are
all suffering with adult A.D.D when it comes to our emotional response
and responsibility to war. It is a crime of which I am admitting my own
guilt but I am beginning to question the validity of my own apathy. Is
it right to just switch off everything that does not directly concern
or affect my own life? I have not personally felt the effects of either
of the two most recent wars that we have been involved in. Afghanistan
and Iraq are both very far away from my house in downtown Decatur, no
soldiers come to dinner and I do not have to shield myself from
dropping bombs when I go to work. Although hitting the KFC on Memorial
Dr after 10 pm at night can be a little testy, especially when the all
you can eat buffet is in effect! |
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