Culture Wars
The Boring Life of a Prince
by Clay Staggs
In a strange way, I feel very sorry for Prince Charles. He’s an extremely important person, but yet he’s utterly irrelevant. That is to say, he will never wield any real power. But since he’s the Prince of Wales, the media will hang on his every word. So, he has this bully pulpit, but is completely impotent to do anything other than talk - or maybe I should say nag.
Today the UK Evening Standard carried a report (read it here) quoting Charles as saying that, in effect, McDonald’s fast food should be banned. How noblesse oblige of him to determine what his lowly little subjects should and should not be eating. It’s for their own good you know.
But my sarcasm aside, he can say that all day long, and yet he’s without the first whit of authority to do anything about it. That must be extremely frustrating. All the riches and splendor in the world, and all he can do is rail against Big Macs. What’s actually sadder is that he obviously can’t appreciate the simple pleasure of a good, greasy hamburger and fries.
Posted by Clay Staggs at February 27, 2007 05:37 PM
Prince Chuck is just afraid that McDonald’s is a cover group run by the Scots and using hamburgers as mind control and take over the throne.
Wish I had a double cheeseburger meal right now….
Maybe I need PC to protect me from myself. Yikes!
I think I know how this happened. Charles was watching the Academy Awards and realized that he, as a bona fide “celebrity”, didn’t have a CAUSE. He passed a McDonald’s later and saw some very large Brits exiting it, and Lo!, the light dawned. Now he’s okay again in his celebrity status.
Charles has found himself in the middle of a a couple of controversies back home here recently.
He’s announced his intentions to break away from the monarchy’s traditional role as the “Defender of the faith” as head of the Anglican Church (don’t get me started on that one!) but to morph into a kinder, gentler religious icon, His Royal Highness’ words:
“I personally would rather see it as Defender of Faith, not the Faith, because it [Defender of the Faith] means just one particular interpretation of the Faith, which I think is sometimes something that causes a deal of problem,”
Remember, this is the man who felt that we, the United States, were a wee bit too confrontational with the Islamic world after September 11th.
Secondly, accusations have been made that His Royal Hopeless has avoided paying taxes on his Duchy of Cornwall estate, the very estate that gives us those wonderful high fat alternative to the Big Mac.
While it is good for the working class to pay high taxes, to support the nanny state, the royals are perfectly content to pay a lower marginal rate than the poorest Brits. Good show Charles old boy!
There is often great confusion in communicating with the Brits, as we are indeed separated by a common language, but it is plain to see that Charles is British for Al Gore.