Not-So-Happy Meals

What in the hell is wrong with people? Not just people in general (though I have questions about them as well), but certain people. You know who they are. You know the ones. The ones that do things that are just so not smart and so incredibly inexplicable that it makes you wonder how they've managed to keep themselves alive for this long. The folks over there at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) would be some of those people. (Alicia Silverstone over there on the left? She is so not one of those people. If she keeps looking like that, she can be an axe murderer for all I care. But she's definitely not one of those.)

Again, I ask what is wrong with them? This time, their outrageous, inflammatory and "in your face" method of bringing attention to how animals (otherwise known as "food") are allegedly mistreated during the process of growing the animals in captivity until they are to the point where they become known as "delicious". I'm not denying that some of the conditions (in which animals that are raised for food live) are less than ideal, but how ideal is it in reality? I mean, overall. The animals? Yeah, they're gonna die. And we're gonna eat 'em. That alone is "bad" enough. Again, I'm not in favor of horrific conditions for these creatures, but it is kind of like making sure that executions by lethal injection are done in a completely sterile environment so that some sort of infection doesn't develop within the condemned. I'm just sayin'.

So PETA, not satisfied with the response (or lack thereof) that they receive from adults, have apparently decided to target small children with their horrific and in-your-face tactics and they've seemingly decided to use McDonald's as the outlet from which to spread their scary ass message of slaughterhouse horrors to those who enjoy McDonald's the most. The small.

Not only are their tactics abhorrent, they've targeted my favorite McDonald's crap! The McNuggets! And that's just a futile effort in and of itself, going after either McDonald's and/or the McNuggets. They're both not going anywhere. You could tell us that torturing our loved ones in a back alley is part of the McDonald's food making process and we'd probably just ask (likely with our mouths full), "What kind of torture and for how long?" We don't care. We will continue to eat McDonald's until the day that it is ultimately responsible for our own early demise due to a sedentary lifestyle and arteries clogged with trans-fat. The only regret we'll have is that we weren't able to manage one last taste of Mickey D's before the taste of sweet, sweet death.

There was an ad campaign by....I don't even remember which other fast food chain, which took aim at McNuggets with the slogan "Parts is Parts". Funny, to the point, and possibly true. I don't know and neither do you. Nor do we or anyone else even CARE. McDonald's sold a gazillion McNuggets before that commercial came out and it has continued to sell a gazillion McNuggets since that commercial came out. And it's a little ironic that I can remember "Parts is Parts" and that I LOVE me a McNugget, but I cannot for the life of me remember which other fast food chain launched that campaign. I didn't care where they found these "boneless chickens" then and I don't care where they find them now. All I care about is that I find the correct number of McNuggets in that little box when I order.

But PETA has decided to take their campaign against McNuggets WAY farther than "Parts is Parts". According to Fox News, people showing up at a McDonald's in Albany, New York found "Unhappy Meals" which were clearly supposed to represent the opposite of McDonald's iconic Happy Meal. "Inside the box they found a bloody rubber chicken, packet of ketchup blood, knife-wielding Ronald McDonald, and a tee-shirt." Yes, I would be extremely unhappy if I found that as opposed to my McNuggets. That would be a "Really Pissed Off at PETA Meal" if there ever was one.

Now, since the reporting was horrendous from both Fox News sites that I referenced (the one linked above and this one) it's unclear to me exactly HOW the patrons of McDonald's came across the Unhappy Meals by PETA. Were they substituted for their regular meals and if so, how did that happen? Were they handed out to people and some folks just thought, "Free is free. Gimme!"? I don't know, but it does support the statement "Fair and balanced" because it's fair to say that both sites had equal amounts of crap reporting on them, balancing out that crap scale just fine. Fortunately, I found everything I needed to know over there at New Jersey Newsroom. And from their website it would look to me like they had these Unhappy Meals available for one to pick up at their leisure if one so chose to do so. It also appears as if the table of Unhappy Meals was being monitored by a giant Pac Man character, though it is unclear as to why that was.

Now, all PETA claims it was doing was "...asking McDonald's to switch to controlled atmosphere killing which their own research has shown would be far less cruel for the birds," so said a one Kristina Addington, PETA Peddler (and sharp dresser!). In reply "A representative for McDonald's defended the franchise, saying it supports the use of a stunning technique that numbs its chickens before they are slaughtered." Oh good! NumbNuggets!

While I'm not FOR cruelty to animals, I'm not so thrilled about the method that PETA wants McDonald's to implement (though I AM glad that they aren't just tauting their very tired "NO MEAT" mantra). PETA's preference is "...called Controlled Atmosphere Killing (CAK), and involves slowly replacing chickens' oxygen with inert gases, slowing putting the chickens to sleep." (Wow. It sounds like Chicken Euthanasia, Michael Jackson Style!) Um, the chickens that I eat, see, their oxygen is distributed throughout their bodies which I then, as previously alluded to, eat. I don't want to be eating the equivalent of a chicken that has just been put to death in a gas chamber. I know that none of the methods are desirable (especially for the damn chicken!), but unfortunately it is what it is.

The thing is, I have the feeling that PETA could be very effective in getting something other than just free freaking publicity if they toned down their scary shock and awe methods and instead acted like reasonable human beings to get their message out there. Because I'll tell you, if there is one thing that most people will shun and dismiss it is the rantings of a crazy person. And having a life-sized, fuzzy Pac-Man creature handing out Unhappy Meals with bloody rubber chickens inside? Yeah, that will be shunned and dismissed.

Immediately.


Side note: Turns out it was Wendy's that told us "Parts is parts." I still don't care. I heart the parts.

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