As IF Times

link Deal Approved In Muslims’ Suit Against McDonald’s « CBS Detroit.

A franchise is a very valuable thing.  Creating and maintaining a franchise is very powerful.  McDonald’s is inarguably the icon of the franchising model.  The core idea of franchising is to sell a specific expertise and to offer that specialty at every single location that carries the corporate name.  Tied in firmly with franchising is the notion of branding.  Franchising and branding is a serious business.  Everyone knows what a Coke is. Everyone knows what Nike stands for.  Everyone has an idea of what a Hooters restaurant is.

In the rush to gain more market share by expanding offerings, iconic franchises risk losing or at least diluting the valuable branding that in many cases, has been created over decades and generations.  Few would go to Fouad’s Falafel House for a cheeseburger, nor would they expect to get poutine at Hon’s Wonton Garden.  In the case of many so called fast food franchises like McDonald’s and Wendys, they have tried pandering to wider audiences with offerings of ‘healthy’ salads and other lighter fare.  Who wants a walnut salad at Mcdonald’s?  Why would they even consider selling Halal food?  Getting slapped with a legal judgement by unhappy customers should be a warning to operations like Mcdonalds that all customers aren’t worth chasing.

Some other food chains at least remain true to their roots.  Burger King offers the bacon cheddar stuffed burger and Denny’s even offers a bacon milkshake…topped with whipped cream of course.   Now that’s some honest American eats.  The boutique In-N-Out burger franchise out west likes to advertise that their menu has barely changed since 1948: burgers, fries, shakes.  No weenie salads or organic seaweed nonsense.   You gotta stand for something!  Nobody goes into a roadside diner expecting to get brook trout almondine with a mango salsa.

This is a philosophy that would serve well outside of the food business.  In the political process, they should also pay attention.  Recent news headlines show that the once darling of the conservative set, New Jersey’s Chris Christie, is now hosting fundraisers for the Clinton camp. !!!  Is he bacon or is he walnuts?  Marco Rubio, once considered to be a possible standard bearer for the GOP is backing a very liberal immigration policy.   That franchise looks as doomed as a Chinese taco stand.

Even more annoying is the fact that reaching out always goes one way, that is to pander more to the weenie crowd.  We would never see a veggie restaurant offer spareribs to entice meat eaters for their patronage.  We would never see hair salons offer a cigar section.   We would never see a Prius offered with a V-8.  Will we ever see a cheeseburger at Wolff’s Deli?  You would never see a liberal reaching out to get the conservative vote.

Where’s the beef?  The take away is that you can’t be all things to all people.  Unless there’s a core value that is consistently represented, the core constituency cannot be retained and the new ones will likely be fickle anyway.  When everyone offers the same thing, it’s all essentially hash.  Nobody has ever uttered the desire to go to a good hash place.

link Hard drugs just minutes away for Vancouver users, study finds | CTVNews.

It’s been very popular to push the notion that the decades long ‘war on drugs’ is lost and that the vast resources expended to battle the drug problem has been wasted.  No less than 4 previous attorneys generals and local mayors of all political stripes have come out in favour of revising tactics on addressing the drug problem.   Apparently, criminal penalties are not the answer.  Interestingly, this is exactly parallel to the decades long “war on fat” being waged all over North America.  Actually, greater amounts of money have been spent on that on-going campaign than has been spent on the war on drugs.   According to the website DrugSense.org, in the year 2010, $15 billion dollars was spent on the war on drugs (not sure how to validate this) whereas according to Business week, about $40 billion dollars is spent on the diet business every year.  www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/01/the_diet_indust.html

While it is not yet criminal to be obese, efforts are being made to legislate what people are allowed to eat.  We have Mayor Bloomberg of New York restricting salt levels and the size of soft drinks for example.  Comprehensive labels are required on all food items describing composition and caloric content.  As if that will dent McDonald’s sales. Let’s not forget the war on drunk driving.  Very few aspects of our modern culture are more heinous than being tagged as a drunk driver, especially if involved in a serious accident causing death.

It’s hard to see how people cannot see the consequences of unfettered social recklessness.   While on the one hand, we all want to be free to do as we please, the fact is, much of that freedom have consequences beyond our fleeting personal gratification.  If people want to pursue recreational drugs, then a libertarian society would say, let ’em.  The problem is that the consequences of such an attitude links to all kinds of undesirable outcomes like a long chain to a heavy ball.  Even without the threat of criminal records or incarceration, the undesirable health effects on the individual and their families is undeniable.  This is not victimless.  Not to mention the assorted undesirables who traffic in people’s misery.

If as a society, we really want people to live and let live, then people should be free to consume what they want without restriction or guilt.   If we’re going to decriminalize something as odious as drug use, then we should certainly stop the sanctimony regarding something as pleasurable as food and let people eat freely.  Why would we spend so much time and money demonizing fat people but be compassionate to drug users?  In the case of obesity, people don’t have the choice of eating or not, the only issue is amount.   At least there’s a social benefit to eating and drinking.  For instance, discovering fine restaurants or touring the wine country has a bit more cachet than a tour of a local meth lab.

The sinister nature of hard drug use is not just wild theory.  It has brought down nations (think Chinese opium wars ) and has destroyed productive lives.  I don’t recall that obesity has ever been the cause of  the wholesale collapse of nations.  With perhaps the exception of Michael Moore, no one is addicted to Big Macs. So it’s amusing that we have various and sundry celebrities and media types calling for the decriminalization of toxic chemicals and in some cases glamorizing the use of them, while we have government sponsored campaigns telling people what and how to eat.  Better fat than fried is my opinion.

In societies of consenting adults, people  should be free to do as they wish to themselves, but they must also suffer the consequences of their stupidity, sort of like skiing out of bounds or windsurfing in a hurricane or voting liberal.  No amount of warning will dissuade adults from pursuing harmful activities.  Think cigarette warnings. Think Barbra Streisand concerts.  But you still have to protect the kids.  Any society that doesn’t protect their kids will wind up having to be protected from them.  If anything, the war on drugs should escalate to deter those preying on kids.  But leave the food alone.