where grimace is happy

the traffic lady said this morning - "on the interstates, everything's moving along fine right now as far as the cars are concerned." what exactly are these things that are that are moving, how can we be certain they are fine, and why are the cars concerned?

also on the news this morning was a story about the center for science in the public interest who are suing mcdonald's over happy meal toys. their premise is that offering the toy is an unfair method of inducing children to eat mcdonald's's food. um... durr? happy meals have been around for, what, like 30 years or something and these guys are just now catching on to the concept.

"McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children.... It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction."

okay, give me a freaking break. mcdonald's is überpervasive, the very antithesis of the stranger. mcdonald's is the normaler.

my theory is that these cats didn't get the good toy back in the day and this is their revenge. mcdonald's would change toys about every six months and with every set of toys there would be a good one that was an actual working toy, then there were a couple lame cardboard toys and a lame book toy. everyone wanted the actual toy of which there'd be only like one at every store but you'd always hope you'd get that one, so you'd keep going back and buying more happy meals.

but - i'll bet those golden tickets make the chocolate taste terrible. not only are the meals unhealthy, but they must not taste too great because if they were any good, mcdonald's wouldn't have to give you a toy to get you to want the meal. it's a gastric shakedown.

so the kids are bombarded by the teevee commershals that tell them they want these toys and these meals, then they pressure their hapless parents into purchasing these meals for them. goodness. how can we stop this bombardment?! gosh. gosh. what shall we do? what CAN we do?

well, we could educate the parents and thereby empower them make solid choices for their children, choices about both television viewing and quality food -- help parents perform that vital role as teachers and guides for children. help parents be the grown-ups in the room.

we could spend tax dollars to offer safe recreation options for children whose parents use television as a babysitter. we could spend tax dollars to build neighborhood grocery stores to bring fresh food into places where it's hard to come by, and to plant community gardens. kids in wealthy communities and in poor communities can benefit from these options.

or, instead of spending our tax dollars to make a positive, tangible difference in real peoples's everyday lives, we could spend tax dollars to tilt at the freaking windmill of ginormity that is mcdonald's, wasting years debating theory in the courts instead of implementing change on the streets.