The Happy Meal Dialogs

[innominatus] "We're with Honeysuckle Schwartz, People's Delegate to San Francisco City Council for Ward 11 and associate professor of Nutritional Economics at UC Berkeley."

[Honeysuckle Schwartz, in breathy and authoritarian yet cloyingly polite voice that's part Nurse Ratched and part Kathy Bates from Misery] "It is soooo good to have this discussion with you.  There has been a lot of misunderstanding, and it would be soooo nice to get it all cleared up."

[i] "First of all, it is being reported that your city is considering a ban on Happy Meal toys.  Is this correct?"

[hs] "Children nowadays are increasingly suffering from obesity.  Large corporate entities with vast marketing budgets offer enticements to these kids to make unhealthy dietary choices.  The children are too young and naive to realize they're being manipulated.  Fortunately, the adult, (well 'usually' adult) parents of these kids don't believe in the oppressive 'me parent, you child!' kidrearing beliefs that prevail in less enlightened communities.  These youngsters make petulant demands and then get their way.  Which leads to obesity and corporate profits.  Both bad.  Hence the need for government intervention.  It's for the best."

[i] "Shouldn't the parents be educating the kids about making good nutritional choices?"

[hs] "Absolutely!  It's all about choices!"

[i] "But banning things outright, well, that seems no choice at all."

[hs, beaming smile] "Exactly!"

[i] "Ummm...."

[hs] "One bit of confusion I'd like to clean up is this notion that we are anti-corporatists.  That may be true in a broad sense, but really, we're not trying to punish McDonalds."

[i] "OK, can you elaborate?"

[hs] "Cerrrrrtainly!  Most of the people in our community are members of non-breeding gendertypes.  Therefore, there aren't many kids to nanny.  And most of the people in our community live in urban condos, so there are few lawns to mow.  So we very much need big corporations like McDonalds to hire all the undocumented 'guests' our city attracts.  If the economy were really booming, then yes, maybe we'd like to see Big Beef go down in flames alongside Big Oil and Big Pharma.  But that isn't a viable position right now."

[i] "But it still seems you're punishing an industry that you say is so vital."

[hs] "That's one of the main misunderstandings we'd like to clear up.  Yes, we intend to ban the Happy Meal toys.  But we will not leave them without a substitute.  We will provide McDonalds with a taxpayer funded alternative.  See, even as we speak, cookie cutters and blocks of tofu are being distributed to all McDonalds affected by our ban.  The cookie cutters cut the tofu into exciting educational snacks that the kids just love.  So far we have cutters to make tofu shapes of Gaia the Earth Mother, the Gay Avenger, Ché, and one of a polar bear raping an oil company executive.  We're having a gathering of folk artists next week to come up with even more cookie cutter ideas."

[i] "You're right.  It is important that the public know about this aspect of the story."

[hs] "But I haven't even told you the best part yet.  If the kids are really good kids and eat all the way to the middle of the tofu, they'll find a coupon inside for 20% off any purchase at participating marijuana boutiques.  Because it is all about making healthy choices!"