McElections 2008

Can you relate to this feeling? You have had a long day, you are hungry, and the only place on your way is a McDonald's restaurant. So you go there and you are presented with this large 20 item menu which seems to provide a large variety of choices. And yet, alas, when you deconstruct the menu, you find out that the offer is limited to 3 items: beef gunk, chicken (gunk and allegedly non-gunk), and fish (god knows).
That is exactly the way I feel when I see the roster of polished political candidates arguing about the smell of red herrings. Yes, you have your right tossed salad and your left tossed salad on the menu, but most of us seem to choose some kind of pilled-over overcooked glop.
Why we chose to be fat rather than thin, sick than healthy and overall deceived, escapes me, and yet this seems to be what we are doing. What happened to the exercise of democracy? Why are we going every two years through this fake treadmill instead of exercising daily?
The conspiracy theory says that McDonald's food is made so you get addicted to it. I do not know about that, I do not care. What I do know is that in the American restaurant we still can be the cooks.
I know that you, like me, love to cook for friends. And yet, what is happening to the backyard barbecue with friends (and I am talking politics here)? Remember the feeling? Remember the corncobs and the fresh sausages, the juice meat and the ribs? Aren't you hungry for some real food? As we approach the winter of our political discontent, I look forward to a spring with thousands of neighborhood cookouts.

Disclaimer: This article does not constitute criticism of McDonald's restaurants food offerings; rather of the dismal state of American politics.