I don't give a rat's hairy ass that the tiger killed that kid.

There, I said it.

Tiger eats kid, fucking waah. Seriously. I'm sad that the tiger had to be shot. That's one less tiger in a world where tigers may not be around much longer anyway. Otherwise, I say that being able to drive down to Hardee's every time we get the notion for a 10 pound Angus burger has filled our little monkey brains with an inflated sense that our position in the food chain is much higher than it is.

I've recently gone vegetarian, for a variety of reasons that I honestly don't want to get into because whenever you tell anyone why you became a vegetarian they get all offended and defensive, like you're trying to imply that you are somehow morally superior to them. When, in reality, all you are doing is answering the question that they probably just asked you, some variation of "Why the hell would you want to do that?" So. No meat for Mama Ro. Being a vegetarian is kinda like being a smoker used to be. Nobody is going to come up to you and tell you that you're ugly or that your haircut is unflattering or that your pants make your ass look like the backend of a barn, but even the most imperfect of perfect strangers feels completely comfortable making snide comments about the fact that you're sucking on a naughty naughty cancer stick. Or that you've given up hotdogs in favor of tempeh.

My favorite comment so far has been "I didn't make my way to the top of the food chain just to eat salad and tofu." This from a squirrely little man who looks like he might strain himself scratching his ass too hard.

Motherfucker, please.

It makes me want to kick ass when humans crow about being on top of the food chain. Like we're equipped with razor claws and lightning reflexes, like we chase down antelopes and giant wildebeasts, wrestle them to the ground in a mighty battle of speed and strength, tear out their throats with our teeth, drag them home with the hot blood still smeared on our faces, and then carve them into steaks and chops and burgers for our own grilling pleasure. Not, you know, that we pay some factory farmer to keep relatively docile animals in tiny boxes.  Not, you know, that we pay someone else to slaughter them for us, clean them up for us, throw away the worst parts, wrap them up nice in plastic and carry them safely to the store where we can purchase them with our magic money already portioned into convenient little pieces. And all this without so much as soiling our delicate hands, much less having to actually kill something in order to eat it.

Top of the food chain, baby. Fucking fierce.

Eat whatever you want, people. It's no hair off my twat what goes in your belly, be it steak or soy. It isn't at all an issue of morality, no matter how some people try to make it seem.  Just let's not kid ourselves about what mighty mighty predators we are just because we drove over to the Piggly Wiggly and purchased a filet mignon. When you track, kill, dress and carve your own dinner before you eat it, then you might, just might, be somewhere up in the upper reaches of the food chain as long as a tiger or a lion or a shark don't happen by. Otherwise, you my friend are just a guy eating a cheeseburger out of a paper wrapper that someone else made for you. And if someone else hadn't killed it and prepared it for you, chances are pretty good that you'd be going to bed hungry.

And if you're some moron who thinks that it's OK to train a tiger to read the newspaper while riding a giant unicycle or some stupid shit, or some dumbass kid who feels safe taunting one because it's behind a fence, then maybe it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise when the large carnivore attempts to kill and eat you. Why don't you put down the fucking PSP for 5 seconds and read a book, and then maybe you'd know that tigers are huge, have big claws and sharp pointy teeth, no sense of conventional humor, and that they eat smaller, weaker things that can't get away real fast. Which means you, Mr. Top of the Food Chain, unless you happen to be packing a really big gun.

Also, the fact that every article I read about the "tragedy" makes a point to mention that the families of the idiot dead kid and his idiot friends are already talking about the lawsuit makes me wish that some large carnivore would eat them too. Just an easy way to make a little money here in Gomoneygoville...have a relative die doing something fucking stupid in a public place.