News You Can't Use: Chinese Authorities 'Arrest' Ronald McDonald Statue

We have always been allies with EastAsia and because of this eternal friendship it makes sense to attempt to better understand our good buddies who generously loan us non-manipulated currency and take undesirable jobs off our hands. Our own culture of clowns, pink mystery burgers and epidemic obesity might in some ways clash with their benevolent good nature, so perhaps today's story will be instructive in insuring that our highly fulfilling equal partnership continues into the bright future that surely awaits.

Chinese authorities weren’t lovin’ Ronald McDonald this week, hauling away a statue of the clown that was blocking sidewalk foot traffic.

Nothing like a little goofy joking around to make a totalitarian state much more palatable to the sort of person who reads a newspaper that prints important stories like "Best Sex Ever." A few wacky modified burger slogans makes it all better. That entire student massacre, talk about bad time, bad taste. Did somebody say repressive dictatorship? We love to see you against a wall or in slave labor. There's something for everybody to love in that gulag. Have you had your two minutes hate today?

Uniformed code enforcement officers in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou ripped the Ronald McDonald figure off its base, leaving only his big red shoes behind, as shoppers in the Huadu District of commerce hub Guangzhou looked on in amazement Sunday.

I mean, we're used to you treating human beings in the most horrible fashion possible, but a statue of a clown mascot? What is the future, Winston? Imagine wacky clown shoes stomping on a human face, forever.

The city had been warning operators of this McDonald’s that its statue was hindering pedestrian traffic, according to state organ the People’s Daily.

People disappear for having unpopular thoughts, but on the other hand pedestrian rights are aggressively defended. Maybe I was wrong in my initial judgments.

“If the McDonald’s staff admit their violation and accept the punishment, they can have their statue back.”

If you'd just win that war over yourself we could put old Bad Ronald up again.

When capitalism and communism combine and retain all their worst elements.

Pictures of Ronald McDonald’s arrest have gone viral, and opened authorities up for mockery across China. 

Don't worry, it's nothing a series of summary punishments can't solve.

One user of the popular social media platform Sina Weibo wondered if Chinese authorities were acting under orders from a rival, powerful military figure named Col. Sanders.

Trampling on human rights is hilarious. If nothing else we've proven that.

Full Story.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.