Opinion
Lawrence Journal-World l LJWorld.com l Thursday, June 18, 2015
EDITORIALS
New regents Gov. Sam Brownback has chosen to put three new faces on the Kansas Board of Regents.
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igher education plays a huge role in the future of Kansas, and the Kansas Board of Regents can and should play a big role in supporting and promoting the state universities, community colleges and vocationaltechnical schools that constitute the state’s higher education system. For that reason, appointments to the Board of Regents are among the governor’s most important choices, and the way he or she uses those appointments is a significant indicator of a governor’s goals and vision for higher education. Gov. Brownback announced the appointment of three new regents on Tuesday. They will replace three regents that Brownback appointed in 2011: Fred Logan, Robba Moran and Kenny Wilk. All three were eligible for reappointment, so either they declined that opportunity or the governor decided he wanted to go in another direction. Two of the three regents appointed by Gov. Brownback on Tuesday are company CEOs, which may indicate he wants to take a more business-oriented approach to higher education in the state. The third is a periodontist who practices in Leawood. The two CEOs are David Murfin, of Wichita, and Dennis Mullin, of Manhattan. Murfin’s businesses include a drilling company and a tractor and equipment company. He is a Kansas University graduate who serves on the KU School of Business Board of Advisors. In addition to his business interests, he also serves on the boards of the Kansas Chamber and the Kansas Bioscience Authority. Mullin attended Pittsburg State University and is CEO of Steel and Pipe Supply. According to a press release, he’s also active in the Flint Hills Christian School and serves on the advisory board for Kansas State University’s business school. Dr. Daniel Thomas was appointed by Brownback to serve on the KU Hospital Authority Board and is a board member for the Kansas Arts Foundation, the entity that Brownback created to more or less replace the Kansas Arts Commission. He also was one of the co-chairs for Brownback’s 2010 inaugural committee. State statutes set some geographical and political requirements for regents appointments, but no specific qualifications for the job. It doesn’t appear that any of the new appointees has professional expertise in higher education, but all three men are accomplished in their fields and have connections to state universities. Perhaps their career success and their interest in higher education will make them strong leaders and advocates for the state’s university system. Their new position gives them the power to have a big impact on those universities. Hopefully, they will use that power to enhance state universities and help elected officials and other Kansas residents appreciate the importance of maintaining a strong system of higher education in the state. LAWRENCE
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7A
‘Reset’ may not save McDonald’s 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
George Will
georgewill@washpost.com
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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.” 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 mil-
lion 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, Illinois, 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 is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.
OLD HOME TOWN
100
From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for June 18, 1915: years “A plan is unago der way in the IN 1915 Merchants’ Association to have Thursday afternoon as a weekly closing time during July and August for the business houses of the city and will be brought up for discussion at the Association’s next meeting on Tuesday. The business places will close at 12:30 on Thursday afternoon for the rest of the day.” — Compiled by Sarah St. John
Read more Old Home Town at LJWorld.com/news/lawrence/ history/old_home_town.
PUBLIC FORUM
A poor example To the editor: The Legislature has decided, but how? The budget is underfunded because of big tax breaks recently, so resort to the “largest tax increase” to cover deficit. Don’t question the cause: the tax break. Gun owners’ rights should allow guns on campus. Some “nut” might just be out there and shoot the quarterback. (Athletic department doesn’t have money for armor suits.) The Supreme Court questions or rejects plan for school funding, so put through a “simplified plan” without considering unique factors. (And threaten the court’s budget and system for appointments.) Is Kansas a model for other states — to learn what not to do? Don Conrad, Lawrence
Restroom access To the editor: Kansas University has already implemented gender-neutral restrooms for university students. KU has been remarkably helpful in providing accommodations for its LGBT students and should be seen as a model for all other public universities. Access to gender-neutral bathrooms on college campuses should be required at every public university in the country. Although it should be a given right for all transgender persons to use any public restroom based on the gender they identify with, forcing society to be accepting of all transgender individuals
is impossible. The first step in creating a better quality of life for transgender individuals is allowing college students access to gender-neutral bathrooms if ever they feel uncomfortable or unsafe using a single-gender bathroom. Education over transgender issues is relatively new. More and more transgender individuals have come out of hiding because western society has been more accepting of transgender individuals than it was 30 years ago. However, many transgender individuals continue to feel unsafe in their work or school environments, and their biological needs such as using the bathroom have been ignored out of fear of physical or verbal harm. In a study by the Williams Institute, 70 percent of transgender individuals have experienced some sort of negative reaction when using a public restroom; 68 percent were told they were in the wrong facility and needed to leave, were ridiculed or verbally threatened. Some even had the police called on them. Like everyone else, transgender persons deserve to use restrooms with assurances of their safety and dignity. Kelli Gamel, Lawrence
Harmful spray
my tomato plant, oak tree and blackberry plant. I live in a densely populated neighborhood. Does Kansas have any laws regarding lawn herbicide applications in densely populated residential areas where there is no buffer zone? There need to be some laws to let the nearby homeowners know when these spray applications are done in the neighborhood. Harm to my vegetables is less of my concern than the adverse health effects from breathing the leftover vapors and also through soil or grass contact that one could get when working in the yard. The air that we breathe is for everyone to share. The use of weed spray is not a private business anymore. When the home lawn maintenance is entrusted to a professional lawn maintenance business, the homeowner may not know what they apply on the lawn. The spray applicators are not usually seen as they may be applying it during the workday when most people are not at home. But what about that evening, when the effect is still lingering in the soil and the air? The city need to have a website where citizens should be able to find when weed sprays are applied in close proximity to where they live. Elsit Mandal, Lawrence
Good show
To the editor: Year after year, each spring time, To the editor: We saw “South Pacific” on Friday, the garden vegetables that I grow in my backyard gets affected by the weed opening night, at Theatre Lawrence. It spray drift. I do not know which neigh- was wonderful. We highly recommend it. bors are using those, but clearly it is a Don Sneegas, weed killer spray drift damage. I have Lawrence taken photos of the damaged leaves on