Megan Mulls It Over

+JMJ

“Every election cycle we are treated to candidates who promise us ‘change,’ and 2008 has been no different. But in the American political lexicon, ‘change’ always means more of the same: more government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more unnecessary war, and more centralization of power.” 

– Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto

With the release of Michelle Obama’s memoir, we are being treated to an endless barrage of books and articles about the former First Family. Many of these make corny references to Obama’s campaign promises of “hope and change.” Does this “hope” include the hope that we can recover from eight years of Obama? Because I could use some of that.

And as far as “change,” I think it’s indisputable that Obama brought a whole lot of that. He changed the definition of “due process” in order to take out an American citizen (Anwar al-Awlaki) with a drone strike. We have seen the term “high-tech lynching” used to describe investigations of would-be Supreme Court justices for things like pervy water cooler talk and drunken teenage groping, but so far I haven’t seen it used to describe an actual extrajudicial killing that was super high-tech.

I understand how offensive that sounds. To be clear, I am sorry that our country has such a substantial history with lynching. But I am also sorry that an American president thought it was ok to play judge, jury, and executioner with the life of one of his own citizens. And while we’re on the subject of feeling offended: I really don’t like the Obamas’ odds against al-Awlaki’s family in the game of “Who Feels More Offended?”

To be fair, I would be very surprised if Obama were the first president to do such a thing. It could very well be that he was simply the first to do it openly (relatively speaking). And he wrapped it up neatly with a bow memo that explained how it was totally constitutional. I haven’t read all of that memo yet, but I definitely plan to. I suspect that it owes much to the Patriot Act. The same Patriot Act that Senator Obama had some major shade for. (And there’s another change, this time of heart.)

And no discussion of “change” under Obama would be complete without a mention of my favorite anarcho-socialist eunuch. Who can forget how Obama changed sad and suicidal Bradley Manning into sadder and still suicidal Chelsea Manning? The least he could have done was offer Manning a job guarding his harem. It’s not too late to do the right thing, Mr. Former President.

So those two things are why I’m having a hard time with all this adulatory Obama coverage. When it comes to #TrialByDrone and taxpayer-funded sterilization of dissidents, my limit is zero in each category.

And at long last, I have arrived at the actual subject of this post, which is (somewhat) more lighthearted than the topics in the introduction.

A less dastardly Obama-inspired change was the change of the McDonald’s Happy Meal into what I like to call the “Sad Meal.” (I’m ok with getting zero points for originality regarding the name.) At that fateful moment in fast food history, instead of a small order of fries, Happy Meal diners would be treated to three fries and a bag of apple slices. Yipee! (Said no one ever. Except people who weren’t eating at McDonald’s to begin with.)

I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe that Mrs. Obama was instrumental in bringing about this rather unpleasant change. This is not a random conspiracy theory – just an educated guess based on the fact that promoting healthy eating and exercise among children was a priority for her. I recognize that the changing of the Happy Meal was ultimately a decision made by a private business, rather than an act of government coercion. But I would like to explore two ways in which this change may have been counterproductive.

First, I wonder how many McDonald’s customers ended up making worse food choices than before as a result of this change. Very young children were probably amenable to it because for them the toy is the most important part of the Meal. But I think some older children and adults might have decided to get an extra order of fries or even an adult-sized combo meal instead. I ordered Happy Meals occasionally during my adult years (whenever I could muster enough willpower to avoid the adult-size meals, but not enough to avoid fast food altogether). But once those apples hit the scene, I decided I didn’t need the toy that bad. Fun fact: If they had kept the fries the same size and added the apples, I likely would have continued to order the Happy Meal. And I would have patted myself on the back for getting in a serving of fruit, courtesy of Mrs. Obama.

The other potential dark side of the Happy Meal apples is whatever they’re putting on them to keep them looking as pristine as they do. And, please, nobody say it’s just lemon juice. Ordinary lemon juice only reduces and delays browning, and not by that much. It does not give you an immaculate, pretty-as-fresh apple like the ones in the Happy Meals. So I wonder if this stuff could be some Monsanto elixir of doom that we’ll eventually learn is carcinogenic. If we’re lucky, that is. If we’re unlucky, we’ll never learn that it’s carcinogenic. And then we’ll blame the cancer on the other components of the Happy Meal, because everybody already knows those are bad for you.

Just say no to them apples.

Verso l’alto,
Megan