4A
OPINION
THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2015 | WEST HAWAII TODAY
WASHINGTON
— In January,
McDonald’s, leaning
against the winds of
fashion, said kale would
never replace lettuce
on its burgers. In May,
however, it said it will
test kale in a breakfast
meal (breakfast is
about 25 percent of
McDonald’s sales).
Kale might or might
not cause construction
workers to turn at 6
a.m. into McDonald’s
drive-through lines,
where approximately
two-thirds of
McDonald’s customers
place their orders.
McDonald’s also
says its milk will soon
be without artificial
growth hormones, and
chicken (McDonald’s
sells more of it than
of beef) will be free of
human antibiotics. All
these might be good
business decisions
and as socially
responsible as can be.
They certainly pertain
to McDonald’s new
mantra about being a
“modern, progressive
burger company,”
whatever that means.
The meaning will
perhaps be explained
by the progressive
burger company’s new
spokesman, Robert
Gibbs, formerly
Barack Obama’s
spokesman and
MSNBC contributor.
McDonald’s British-
born CEO Steve
Easterbrook clarifies
things, sort of, while
speaking a strange
business dialect:
McDonald’s will be
“more progressive
around our social
purpose in order
to deepen our
relationships with
communities on
the issues that
matter to them.”
Suppose, however,
you just want a
burger and fries, not
social purposes and
relationships? You
might prefer Five
Guys or Shake Shack,
where the burgers
taste fine even without
the condiment of
community uplift.
Five Guys and Shake
Shack are pipsqueaks,
with about 1,000
and 63 restaurants,
respectively.
McDonald’s, which has
more than 36,000 —
14,300 in the United
States — will open
more than 1,000
new ones this year.
Although McDonald’s
burgers ranked 21st
in a recent Consumer
Reports survey of
21 brands, this $81
billion company will
not founder because
of the small but
growing cohort of
customers who like
the burger equivalent
of microbrews. But
another behemoth,
Budweiser, is
experiencing
McDonald’s-like
difficulties.
Budweiser’s problem
is not just that the
number of barrels it
sells has declined for
25 years, from almost
50 million in 1988 to
16 million in 2013.
(Budweiser has been
partly cannibalized
by Bud Light, which
in 2001 displaced
Budweiser as America’s
top-selling beer.) The
ominous fact is that
44 percent of 21- to
27-year-old drinkers
have never tasted
Budweiser. They
prefer craft beers
from microbreweries.
A craft brewer is one
that ships 6 million or
fewer barrels a year.
In 2013, craft brewers
shipped more than
Bud did. Budweiser’s
response has included
this truculent ad:
“Proudly a macro
beer. It’s not brewed to
be fussed over. … It’s
brewed for drinking.
Not dissecting. …
Let them sip their
pumpkin peach ale.”
This is an interesting
approach to potential
customers, calling craft
beer drinkers (“them”)
pretentious twits. If
this is unavailing,
Budweiser could try
becoming a modern,
progressive beer
company with social
purposes to deepen
relationships with
various communities,
maybe even including
people who just
want a beer.
McDonald’s has
been serving burgers
since Ray Kroc opened
his first store in Des
Plaines, Ill., in April
1955. Many billions of
burgers later, however,
it has had an epiphany:
Henceforth it will
toast the buns longer
and sear the beef
patties differently. Its
60-year learning curve
bends imperceptibly,
which helps explains
sagging revenues
— down almost 15
percent last year.
Recently, McDonald’s
(“I’m lovin’ it”)
briefly instituted an
excruciating policy
of inviting randomly
selected customers to
“Pay with Lovin’” for
their meals. Customers
could call their
mothers, ask another
customer to dance, or
perform some other
act to enlarge the
universe’s stock of love.
Shortly thereafter,
Starbucks, which
evidently thinks
Americans do not
obsess sufficiently
about race, tried to
enlist customers in
conversations about
that subject. After
six days, this project
died of derision from
Starbucks’ customers,
many of whom go
there for coffee,
not a seminar.
McDonald’s, deep
in an identity crisis, is
awakening tardily to Ira
Gershwin’s truth: The
Rockies may crumble,
Gibraltar may tumble,
they’re only made
of clay. Everything
is perishable, and
history is a story of
vanished supremacies.
Easterbrook,
channeling his inner
Hillary Clinton, vows
to “reset” McDonald’s.
Perhaps his reset will
go better than hers did
with Vladimir Putin.
Progressives are
forever telling us
who is and who is
not on “the right side
of history.” Many
fastidious progressives
deplore, and try to
control (witness San
Francisco’s current
crusade against soft
drinks), other people’s
food choices. It will be
instructive watching
the progressive
burger company try
to persuade its chosen
constituents to stop
at McDonald’s on
the way home from
Whole Foods, their
environmentally
responsible, because
reusable, shopping bags
overflowing with kale.
George Will’s email address is
.
Oahu’s homeless sit-lie
ban a bad idea
I was listening to National
Public Radio the morning of
June 15 on the way to Hilo.
Some public representative
wants to make an islandwide
ban against homeless people
living on Oahu, since if they
just ban it in certain areas,
the homeless will move to
other places. The bill(s) are
coming up to a vote soon.
So, this is my advice to all
elected officials in regards to
this bill: Before you vote on
it, take a night or two away
from your cushy homes, go out
into the city or the beach or
somewhere and spend some
nights. Do not take any comfort
items with you, and do not
sit or lie down anywhere.
Sara Steiner
Pahoa
Use green waste to
generate power
Everywhere I go I see
piles of green waste, slowly
decomposing into pollutants,
CO2, methane; plus, eventually
a little dirt. It is obvious
that the 110,000 tons a year
of green waste collected by
environmental services is less
than half the total generated.
We get preached to
constantly about sustainability,
yet this valuable resource
equivalent to billions of
gallons of oil is wasted, rotting
by the side of the road.
A properly designed waste-
to-energy plant could dispose
of both man-made combustible
waste and this free resource
while generating power.
Selling the power would
generate cash flow to enable the
county to buy the waste instead
of charging to accept it. When
you have a lot of anything,
there is a way to profit from it.
Sustainability does
not have to be limited to
growing your own veggies.
Ken Obenski
Kaohe, South Kona
Charge the hikers for
rescuing them
Finally, Kauai County
has come to its senses. All
islands should do the same
and charge hikers who
disregard signs and go where
they know danger lurks.
Why should the county
pay for these people’s lack of
common sense? Everyone
should be accountable for
what they do. If they want to
take chances and go where
signs say it is dangerous, then
they can pay to be rescued.
Those without money can do
community service or repay
their rescuers in some other
way but pay they should.
Colleen Miyose-Wallis
Kailua-Kona
McDonald’s, the ‘progressive burger company’
GEORGE WILL |
THE WASHINGTON POST
EDITORIAL |
THE WASHINGTON POST
P
arents everywhere
received welcome
news last week:
Underage alcohol use has
decreased significantly in
the past decade. Better
still, binge drinking
among minors has also
declined. Cause and
effect is always hard
to determine in these
matters, but the many
prevention measures
adopted in recent years
by governments, schools
and other public service
organizations seem to
be having an impact.
According to the
Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services
Administration, the
proportion of people
ages 12 to 20 who drink
has dropped from 28.8
percent to 22.7 percent
from 2002 to 2013, and
the proportion of those
who binge drink, from 19.3
percent to 14.2 percent.
The study’s findings
suggest that states
need not lower the
drinking age to 18 — as
a number of college and
university chancellors
and presidents urged
in a 2008 letter — to
cut down on underage
and binge drinking.
That would absolve
educational leaders of
the responsibility to
implement effective
solutions to the alcohol-
related problems facing
their schools, when last
week’s report indicates
that responsibility is
exactly what it takes
to get the job done.
A number of catalysts
could have spurred the
decline in underage
drinking. Along with
stricter enforcement of
the National Minimum
Drinking Age Act enacted
in 1984, price and tax
hikes on beer, wine and
liquor have made alcohol
less available to minors.
But the past decade also
has brought about an
evolution in how young
people view alcohol.
Ad campaigns and
educational seminars
stressing the dangers
of drunken driving and
alcohol poisoning seem
to have made students
warier of drinking large
amounts. There’s also
been growing attention
to the connection,
highlighted in a recent
Washington Post
survey, between sexual
assault on campus and
alcohol consumption.
This hyper-awareness
of drinking and its
consequences may be
contributing to a cultural
shift: According to the
University of Michigan’s
yearly Monitoring the
Future study, minors
have reported increased
perceived risk and
disapproval rates of
underage drinking and
drunkenness since 2000,
just as heavy drinking
itself has declined.
Of course, better does
not mean perfect. The
decrease in consumption
comes as a surprise to
most precisely because
underage drinking
remains widespread.
Alcohol is still the most
common drug young
people use illegally, and
the current numbers
on binge drinking
are hardly rosy. Many
teenagers continue to
be at risk. In the coming
years, efforts must
build on the progress
of the past decade.
LETTERS
| YOUR VOICE
Drop in underage drinking is welcome news
