The Politics of McDonald's, Torture, and Video Feedback

Contrary to what my roommate may think I do not have McDonald's for lunch every day. And with my new Get In Shape Plan, I have sworn off having it more than once a week til I have achieved In Shape.

But when the impulse strikes me at work to enjoy a tasty number two, I tend to find myself at a place a block from Santa Monica beach, across a bridge from downtown Santa Monica. It's a nice, large, clean McDonald's, the dining area of which is bisected by a strangely college cafeteria-esque feasting table bookended with television-embedded ceiling supports.

These televisions, up until today, had always been mutely tuned to a closed captioned Fox News--a move which I had always found a bit peculiar in its boldness. But today I was fairly delighted to sit down on one of the backless stools around the table and look up not just at MSNBC, but at my boy Chris Matthews's strawberry frog-elf face.

Let's talk wild generalizations for a moment. I don't know that much about Santa Monica's politics, but there seem to be two stereotypes of Santa Monicans: wealthy Third Street-types who shell out outrageous amounts of money on a wardrobe and the bizarre-smelling men and women who beg them for money. I have seen both types in that McDonald's.

Shepard Smith notwithstanding, my feelings about Fox News generally range from the unintentional mirth of Bill O'Reilly to a desparate yearning to take a crap in Glenn Beck's mouth.



Video NSFW by the way. Any Oz fans? Oops...?

Anyway, while I have my reservations about some of the people on MSNBC, I think it is a much more honorable 24-hour news station, and much less ignorantly offensive. But I found myself wondering why it would have changed... why the McD's in Santa Monica would have just now swung blue. I don't think they got any bail out money.

So did somebody complain? If I, who hates FNC as much as the above video would suggest, and who finds myself there on a fairly regular basis had not felt the need to speak up because A) it's muted and B) I don't find myself in there any longer than it takes to eat nine chicken Mcnuggets and a medium fries, who would I) have felt the need to do so and II) have carried the weight to make it happen?

Perhaps I'm making too much of this, and it was only a change for today that could have happened because of anybody's request, and I should reserve judgment until next time I'm there, which won't be til next week (See GIS Plan above). But it was BOTH of the TVs. And they hadn't been changed to something politically inoffensive like TBS Spice, the restaurant had swung fully from the fringe right to the left. From theories about secret terrorist plots to theories about secret Mormon plots.

I have a couple little theories. I remember when that Minnesota bridge collapsed and so many people turned to Fox News to learn about it as their default non-political news source. Perhaps MSNBC has become the new default for the newly blue America, and either McD's is late in catching up to the trend or the American people are only now fully embracing the center-left position they felt forced into in November because of, well...



Maybe, and this is a stretch but I like it, the entirely Latin and mostly Latina staff of that McD's got pissed off about the racist and sexist closed captions they were seeing from Glenn "Schillinger" Beck & Co. regarding Supreme Court-nominee Sonia Sotomayor and decided to change not one, but both televisions to something more Latina-friendly.

Come to think of it, I probably should have just asked. Oh well. Next week.

And speaking of politics, I've been meaning to weigh in on the torture question with a different opinion. It seems to me that the whole debate is kind of ridiculous. I understand both points of view, one being that it is morally wrong for America to torture people under any circumstances and the other being the USA needs to do whatever is possible to maintain public safety.

The question that nobody seems to agree upon is whether water-boarding qualifies as torture. While my only experience with torture is being held-down and tickled as a child, I think it has become clear that barring water-boarding everyone and letting them decide first-hand, there will never be a consensus.

The reason for this, aside from the politics, is there is no answer. Torture is a completely arbitrary idea. There are professional American interrogators who make careers out of sweating information out of rapscallions both domestic and international in ways that nobody refers to as torture, but I am sure are damned unpleasant. Clearly, there is a difference between a stern talking to and the Pear of Anguish, but how can you truly draw a line that is anything other than fuzzy? What about a loud talking to? What about a loud talking to with intermittent yelling? What about loud music?

You can't say it is a question of pain. Because there is pain and then there is pain. You put someone in a cramped cell with shitty food and an Ikea mattress, and they will have pain both in their back and their psyche. Probably even permanent pain. Pain is an unavoidable part of any sort of detention and/or punishment scenario. But that doesn't make it right.

Furthermore, how is there so much outrage about torture when people are being killed. In addition to fire fights, Predators seek out training camps and hideouts and just massacre people. I think the implications of this are glossed over far too much by both the right AND the left. We. Are. Killing. People. Young men and women will never take another breath of air because of us.

Personally, I think this is a far greater crime than torturing. My definition of justice is circumstances in which everyone has the ability to achieve self-actualization. The opportunity to see one's own faults and correct them is the most prized-possession we have as humans. And taking that away from people, however misguided, is wrong. I have to believe there is another way, particularly in a clash that is so much more about ideas than power. I may not believe in God, but I do believe that death is very much an unknown, and recklessly sending already-warped individuals there is wrong.

So what torture comes down to is what level of pain society is willing to permit in our prisoners. It is an unwinnable argument. And if that is not a helpful argument, there is always this: I think it is the worst kind of hypocrisy that we executed Japanese soldiers after WWII for waterboarding Americans but now practice the practice ourselves.

And finally, on a lighter note, I have appreciated all the people who have watched our videos. I am genuinely surprised by the feedback we've gotten. Our first video seems to be much more liked than our second even though Bridge and I both thought the second was better. Our theory is that Zigbat was just too zany, though I hope as time goes on people will find it whose sense of humor lies more in the realm of the surreally psychotic.

The comment that my friend Sherwin left on my Facebook page today "...What the hell did I just watch?" is both disappointing to the side of me that had thought Zigbat was going to be a hit but also amusingly complimentary to the side of me that enjoys making people laugh almost as much as messing with them.

Unfortunately, Bridge is leaving for Scotland for a month so it's going to be a while before our next vid, but we have a concept that we are totally psyched about. I think it will be pretty funny. But then again, we all know about me.