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Honolulu Lite
NEWS ITEM: "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has suspended its campaign against McDonald's in response to the fast-food chain's announcement that it will improve the living conditions for its chickens." McDonald’s chickens
rule the roostRegular readers know how much I admire the radical animal rights group PETA, which several regular readers insist stands for People Eating Tasty Animals. I hate to see a major food chain cave in to PETA, especially one like McDonald's, which has made eating minced cow meat a national pastime.
If you are going to be in the business of executing millions of cows and converting their carcasses into sandwiches sold by a guy in a clown outfit, you should be well beyond caring what any animal-rights organization has to say about it. If it's against God's law to kill and eat animals, several generations of McDonald's executives are going to go straight to hell and it's way too late to do anything about it now.
McDonald's also turns scads of chickens into nuggets, pigs into patties and fish into filets. PETA apparently figured it couldn't slow McDonald's cow-to-Quarter Pounder juggernaut so it closed in on the chicken part of the menu. And McDonald's fell for it! The company agreed to treat its chickens better. Does that mean that Ronald McDonald will no longer personally throttle the little buggers?
I called the McDonald's Free-Range Chicken Ranch to make sure the chickens were living better than before.
Me: So, howzit going? Is life good?
Rhode Island Red: Beautiful, baby. I'm sitting here in the jacuzzi with a dozen cute chicks as we speak.
Me: What was life like before the PETA settlement?
Red: Brutal, man. They kept us in some run-down condos in Philly. An attorney from PETA came by one day and couldn't believe it. No air conditioning, no television ... fed us chicken feed.
Me: And now?
Red: We've got the run of 1,600 acres of prime Colorado ranch land. Not that we run much. Frankly, that free-range stuff is overrated. Mostly we hang out in the rec room playing Ping-Pong and watching videos.
Me: But you still get killed and eaten in the end.
Red: Well, yeah. We're chickens. You don't see many chickens in retirement homes. What can I say? We taste good. It's a curse.
Me: You seem to accept your fate well.
Red: I've had quite a bit of wine. Don't tell anyone, but a lot of the chickens around here are boozers. When you're part of the food chain, it sort of goes with the territory.
Me: Sounds like you are doing better than the cows. They stand around in muddy feedlots all day.
Red: Puh-leeze. They're cows, for cryin' out loud. It's not like they have a thought in their heads. They don't know if they're standing in the mud or in the lobby of the Ritz.
Me: So you don't think PETA should go to bat for the McDonald's cows?
Red: Cows don't have rights. Chickens do, because we're kind of cute. And we lay a lot of eggs. Well, not me personally, being a rooster and everything.
Me: How do you feel about pigs?
Red: Walking sausage patties. Pigs think they are soooo smart. But look who's in the jacuzzi and look who's out behind the barn.
I hung up. I felt bad. I knew the next time I ate some Chicken McNuggets and a Sausage McMuffin I'd remember only half of my meal died happy.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
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