McDonald's giving out Hummers in Happy Meals

Yes it's true - Apparently, instead of opting for candy cigarrettes, McDonald's has decided on this as their new promotion for kids: A free toy hummer with each happy meal - yeay! Can you hear the dripping sarcasm? I thought when I heard this I was having some sort of nightmare about combining the 2 most terrible things in the world, but it's happening. You can read more about the promotion here.

Most people in their right mind could not defend McDonald's food or their mode of operation involving selling the most cruelly mass produced and unhealthy food on the face of this fast-food earth. And most people in their right mind will agree that the Hummer represents the apex of gas guzzling, eco-stomping vehicles. But when you put these 2 things together I cannot imagine what is going through the minds of people who think this is in some way a good marketing campaign. What are we trying to teach children? On top of teaching them it's ok to hurt animals while slowly poisoning their bodies, do we also need to teach them to idealize giant environment harming vehicles as something which should be desired?


Well I'm glad the Environmental Working Group has done something to provide a fun way to speak out against this public insanity. They've created one of the funnest sites I've seen in a while. Check out
Ronald McHummer.com. Their main page has a form letter you can send to Ralph Alvarez, McDonalds USA President. But while your there you can have some fun too! Make your very own sign like the ones below and download the jpeg for fun. I think they look very much like an actual photo, what do you think?

This is one I made up quickly with the added veg message.


And this is one of my favorites from the archive of slogans.



Thanks to Eric Marcus and vegan.com for covering this in his most recent edition of his 'Vegan Diner' podcast.

I talked about it at our meetup last night and everyone was quite amused, but amused in that way where you can't believe the insanity in the world so you just have to laugh at it. Help take a stand by sending the letter, or at least have fun making a sign!

Since I initially wrote this last night I realized a TON of people are speaking out against this. Everyone from Vegan Porn to WIRED Magazine, countless blogs, the NY Times and of course, groups like the Sierra Club. That should tell you something.