Oh the shame of it all

Congressional Representative Maxine Waters is upset again, this time by the police shooting of a black 13 year old car theft suspect. She has urged the community to "...demand justice and become even more creative in ways to shame the establishment for tolerating this kind of abuse in our city."

Never mind the fact that the investigation is still underway and that it appears that the victim in this shooting was behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle that he was backing towards the officer who fired the fatal shots. Let's set that aside for a moment and deal with the outrage of these community leaders.

Where was their outrage in the case of Burley Lewis Dixon and Gregory Sims Dixon, who were shot in their front yard at 3:30 in the afternoon by an unidentified African-American male? The brothers were shot multiple times and Burley Lewis Dixon, aged 31, died of his wounds. This was less than one month ago and only 3 miles from the location of the shooting that has Ms Waters' knickers in a twist.

Where was and is the outrage over the 50 homicide victims within the city limits of Los Angeles thus far in the year 2005? That's more than one per day. The police trumpet a reduction in overall violent crime stats but the fact remains that thus far in this year, someone in the city has been murdered every 18.72 hours. Is Ms Waters going to shame the establishment into doing something about that? She isn't concerned about black on black crime, or black on white crime or any kind of crime unless it is a criminal act where the police may have violated the rights of the suspect in the crime. Perhaps if she were to direct some of her outrage towards the victims of crime, rather than making political hay out of cases like this most recent police shooting, she might accomplish something positive for a change.

I know, I know, it's asking too much. But can we at least wait until the investigation of this officer involved shooting has concluded before people climb on the political soapbox and demand the officer's head?

NAACP Finds Bond Speech Quite Taxing

During last year's NAACP convention, Julian Bond gave a speech in which he was quite critcal of President and then candidate George W. Bush Jr. and that speech has come back to haunt the NAACP as it has apparently triggered an IRS audit of the organization. An audit that the NAACP says is politically motivated and that they are not cooperating with.

The problem with the argument of the NAACP is that as a non-profit organization organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, there are certain forms of political actions and behaviors that they simply cannot take part in and Bond's speech appears to have crossed over that line. Why else would the IRS want a copy of the speech and the NAACP refuse to provide it? In fact, there was, repeat, was a link to the speech on the NAACP website, but that link no longer works.

There is a very good and logical reason for non-profits to be prohibited from engaging in political behavior, that reason being that donations to non-profits are tax-deductible to the donors. Quite the opposite from the treatment of donations to political organizations, which cannot be deducted as a contribution in any way, shape or form. To allow contributions to political organizations to be tax deductible would be to provide tax subsidies to political activities and that would be a serious gaffe on a societal level.

There is nothing wrong with Mr. Bond making speeches as a private citizen and making them as political as he pleases. But when he speaks on behalf of a IRS recognized non-profit, he needs to either follow the rules, or suffer the consequences. It would be a terrible shame if the NAACP lost its non-profit status because of Mr. Bond's speech, but it wouldn't be unfair, politically based, or a racist action. It would simply be justice for a violation of the rules. Mr. Bond needs to stop whining about this being a partisan witchhunt, cooperate with the IRS probe and get it over with.

Apparently Burger King Can't Tell Time

The text below is copied from a letter I mailed today:

February 2, 2005

Mr. Greg Brenneman
CEO
The Burger King Corporation
5505 Blue Lagoon Drive
Miami, FL 33126

Re: Customer Service (or lack thereof)

Dear Mr. Brenneman:

Your biography on the Burger King webpage indicates that you are a turnaround expert. I am sure this is true in business and in the corporate world, but my recent experiences indicate that what may be needed in your company is a turnaround in the level of customer service.

There is a BK location on El Segundo Boulevard in Hawthorne California. It is on my way home from my current job which involves working evenings as the manager of an H&R Block tax preparation office. Last week we were there later than usual on Wednesday and I suddenly realized that it was getting close to 11, the time that your location mentioned above is scheduled to close. So I rushed to get there ahead of 11 and arrived at around 10:55. The place was already closed. I called your consumer relations office and was told that if the posted hours of a Burger King location say it is open until 11 then it should be open until then. The woman on the phone apologized and promised to send me some coupons as a way of apologizing.

The next night, the same thing happened. Now I should have known it would take more than 24 hours to deal with this kind of issue, but I was still upset and called your consumer relations office again the next day to express my displeasure at again being forced to go elsewhere to eat when I had arrived in advance of the closing time.

In my life I've worked at both McDonalds and Jack-in-the-Box and at both of those fast food companies, when a store is scheduled to be open until a certain time, it does stay open until then. We may have done some advance closing work, but we served customers who arrived prior to or even at the appointed closing time. Perhaps those companies, like the one I am working for presently understand something that Burger King apparently doesn't. Without our customers, we have no reason to exist.

So, last night, after a very long and trying day I was really in the mood for a Whopper, because it does taste better than any other fast food burger (in my humble opinion) and I got to that aforementioned location even earlier, at 10:52. But once again, the lights were dimmed, the chairs were up on the tables and the drive through board was darkened. When I pulled around to the window, the young lady inside shrugged and said "Sorry, we're closed."

Right then and there, Burger King lost a customer. Not just for a night, but for a lifetime. Oh, there's another Burger King that is open later within a 20 minute drive but I'm not driving 20 more minutes out of my way no matter how much better a Whopper might taste. It isn't worth it. It especially isn't worth it when one has gone to the trouble to point out to a business that it has a problem and the business isn't doing anything to solve that problem.

Now I am sure that losing one customer is no big deal to someone at your level, but it should be. It is indicative of a fatal flaw in your corporate philosophy. Particularly when one analyzes just how much of the fast food business is repeat business. Perhaps someday you'll add to that huge list of Senior Vice Presidents on your executive team page a Senior Vice President of Customer Service and put that person to work educating your employees on just how valuable an asset your customers are. As fierce as the competition is for the fast-food client, I don't think you can afford to just let your lowest level employees continue to achieve their goal of walking out the door earlier at the expense of losing business.

Ray Kroc (I'm sure you know who he was) expected his employees to practice QSC and it seems like the S in that equation has been lost at Burger King. Then again, that's why they are who/what they are and why they are number one.

Sincerely,