Island Issues

Companies Should Stick To Their Businesses Not Stick It To Us

Companies Should Stick To Their Businesses Not Stick It To Us

Why do corporations and their CEOs believe they need to voice an opinion on issues totally outside of their areas of expertise?

If a company manufactures bowling balls why would its CEO think he has an obligation to comment on social activism and politically sensitive issues that have no bearing on the bowling ball business.

Otherwise, the bowling ball company will fall into the same trap as those set by the empty corporate suits that head up Atlanta-based Coca Cola and Delta Airlines. This past summer their irresponsible actions chased Major League Baseball’s All-Star game out of Atlanta causing that city, where their firms are headquartered, to lose almost $100 million in projected revenue and their two companies to lose customers and heaps of good will.

These two corporate dunderheads were following the lead of Stacey Abrams, a delusional Democrat, who holds no appointed or elected office, yet runs around the country claiming she’s Governor of Georgia, refusing to admit she lost that gubernatorial race some four years ago by more than 50,000 votes.

She’s no different than Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou, who declares he’s the King of France. Louis has a better claim on his preposterous boast than Abrams does hers as he’s the most senior living male descendant of France’s Bourbon kings. Abrams is a flat-out pathetic loser and liar and a morbidly obese hypocrite suffering from comorbidity who doesn’t wear a mask while demanding that Georgia’s school children do.

While King Louis XVI lost his head, the Delta and Coke CEOs appear to have lost their minds, and follow Abrams around like the handful of sycophantic French Royalists who support the Duke of Anjou’s absurd claim.

Many of the Atlanta firms that lost out on the All-Star fiasco were small and many minority owned. How do Coke and Delta explain that’s good for their image or selling their products and increasing their share value?

The voting issue they protested had nothing to do with their products or services. It was about Republicans siding with the folks who opted for voting practices that make it harder to cheat while Democrats, led by Ms. Abrams, demanded practices allowing people to vote wherever and whenever they want without any proof they’re even eligible to cast a ballot.

Did these corporate twits sell more sodas and airline seats as a result? Nope! Just the opposite. And they alienated their stockholders and Atlanta residents, too.

I have friends and neighbors who tell me they no longer allow Coke products in their homes and avoid flying Delta.

While driving from Folkston to Tifton, Georgia, I saw an expensive professionally designed billboard in a farmer’s field that read: “No Coke Here!” Georgians used to be proud their state was home to Coke. Not anymore. Do these corporate cretins ever talk with the people that buy their sugar-water and sit in their cramped middle seats?

Nike is another of those companies that has gone over the top, alienating half the country. Shortly before Independence Day in 2019, Nike announced plans to release an athletic shoe featuring the iconic Betsy Ross flag. Failed NFL quarterback and Nike spokesman Colin Kaepernick, who made a career out of slurring patriotism and America’s national character and who for some unfathomable reason is now a Nike proxy, objected.

The national anthem kneeling dolt condemned the flag as a symbol of racism and slavery. Consequently, the twits running Nike announced that they, like the GoFundMe, Coke and Delta CEOs, have spines of  jellyfish. They halted production of the shoe. Chinese slave labor that produces many of their products doesn’t bother these holier-than-thou jerks. It’s American patriotism they can’t abide.

Google, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. are telling us what we can and can’t say publicly and censoring news they don’t want us to see, hear or disseminate. They only want us to see and hear what they approve of and if we object, then we’re banned from using their services. How does that differ from a stationery store, saying they won’t sell us paper or pens because they disapprove of the letters we write and our recipients?

A recent Brunswick Group (not the bowling ball company) study finds that those corporate leaders that think they are helping the bottom line when they speak out on political issues are doing just the opposite. They are painfully learning that, in this silly age of wokeness, silence may indeed be golden.

When I was heading up communications organizations for publicly traded companies the last thing we wanted to do was get involved in public debates over social or political issues. What was the point? That wasn’t our area of expertise. It was a losing situation. There are few exceptions, and they’re related to a company’s business or products.

When I was Vice President of Public Relations and Advertising for Coastal Corporation in Houston we explained the firm’s views on the environment, fossil fuels, alternative fuels, and conservation because they were related to the firm’s energy businesses. We didn’t provide advice on issues such as abortion, voting laws, reparations, etc. as that was not the firm’s area of expertise.

Corporate CEOs should stick to what they know. Otherwise, they’re sticking it to their shareholders, employees, and consumers.

(An abridged version of this column ran recently on the national Biz Pac Review site: https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/02/02/dave-scott-myopic-ceos-lost-sight-of-their-jobs-1195715/ )

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Poll Results: Last week’s poll asking readers if they were comfortable that their “GoFundMe” donations would actually go to the intended recipient indicates that folks have zero confidence in “GoFundMe” with 100 percent (59) saying they don’t trust the outfit and zero percent (0) saying they do. This week’s poll asks whether businesses should butt out or in on issues that don’t involve their products or services.

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Something To Ponder: If you owned a business would you hire Joe Biden? If so, to do what?

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Super Bowl Afterthoughts: A group of us watched the Super Bowl last Sunday at Fernandina Beach’s American Legion Post 54 and were greeted with gracious hospitality, an enthusiastic crowd, generosity, a variety of food, and a full bar.

The only downside was out of the control of the Legion and its viewers and came during the football game’s vile halftime show.

My Tampa Plant High School pal and American Spectator writer, Larry Thornberry, put it best writing: “I  always thought the Super Bowl was supposed to be fun and appealing to all. Sorry, but after what we have had to put up with for the last two plus years, dancing convicts and twerking strippers, is not my idea of entertainment. I thought all the country’s problems were supposed to disappear when the ‘adults’ took the White House. So, what is being said by taking a knee at this point in time, under the current ‘leadership’ of this country?”

Here’s a link to Larry’s full American Spectator article https://spectator.org/super-bowl-halftime-coupla-things-one-should-never-say/

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Inclusion Requires Exclusion

By Ed Thompson

(Editor’s note: This is the third in a four-part series titled “How the left is Transforming America Right Now” by Fernandina Beach resident Ed Thompson. The final portion will be published next week.)

You would think that the call for Inclusion would be an invitation for participation from any and all, an open, welcoming environment that values all participants. Surely, that is a worthwhile objective that respects all perspectives and viewpoints. In practice, however, the implementation of Inclusion has actually resulted in exclusion. How can that be?

Consider recent changes that have come about under the umbrella of Inclusion. It’s not that far in the past that anything other than a traditional man and woman relationship was seen as abnormal, to be hidden, shunned, or maybe even outlawed. Those who were considered outside of the norm lobbied for tolerance. “It doesn’t bother you”.  “It’s a personal choice – you don’t have to participate.”  “People have no choice – they’re born that way.”  Changes facilitating tolerance followed – with perhaps the final holdout being the implementation of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy in the military during the Clinton administration. However, tolerance wasn’t enough as it was seen as continuing to imply a situation at odds with “normal.”  Therefore, a push was made to seek approval – not just tolerance, but a level of acceptance as “normal.”

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteen Amendment to the United States Constitution. And yet, that has not been enough. With the rise of the LGBTQIA+ movement, you must also celebrate their lifestyle lest you be pushed out of the public square and polite society. You see, it’s no longer acceptable to hold religious beliefs that state that marriage is a holy union between one man and one woman.

Practicing your faith is forbidden if it conflicts with the secular views held by others. Those who have held to their religious faith and teachings have been pushed from the modern public square – censored and banned on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, etc. Moreover, they have had their livelihoods and belongings taken through lawsuits that have now decided that secular viewpoints supersede religious views.

Caterers, cake makers, and photographers who have declined to serve in same-sex marriage ceremonies have had to close their businesses because they wanted to honor their deeply held personal morals and religious views. In every case, the services sought by same-sex couples were available from any number of other providers, but the intolerance of the LGBTQIA+ movement sought instead to destroy those with whom they disagreed.

This is the Inclusion being promoted in the DEI worldview. You’re told that Inclusion means that you must leave your practice of religion at the altar, and you must not only tolerate and accept practices at odds with your faith, but actively promote them or otherwise be excluded from society.

Inclusion is being used to promote a host of controversial subjects, each of which requires submission and support. Any dissent results in personal attacks, censorship, and exclusion. The supposedly open practice of Inclusion is used to silence opposition, exclude dissent, and subvert American values and rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. In true Orwellian fashion, the true meaning of Inclusion is Exclusion.

(Ed Thompson earned his bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems at Florida International University in Miami while also competing in men’s basketball. A true student/athlete, he completed his degree Magna Cum Laude. He completed his MBA at the University of North Carolina Greensboro while working in Information Technology at Sara Lee/Hanes Brands. He moved into Supply Chain Management Consulting with Price Waterhouse. Combining his IT and business experience, he helped lead the growth of i2 Technologies to become the leading Supply Chain software company in the early 2000s. In 2008, he founded his own consulting organization. In 2011  joined Logility as the Sr. Vice President of Global Services in 2011  Ed retired in 2020 and he and his wife Yohanna now split their time between homes in Fernandina Beach, Florida and Mijas, Spain.)

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Things You Need To Know: While reading Joe Posnanski’s recently published book “The Baseball 100” I ran across a fascinating bit of trivia involving an obscure player named Cliff Dapper. Despite only appearing in eight games Dapper holds the record for the highest batting average of any player in baseball history with more than 15 plate appearances, hitting .471 in 17 at bats for the Dodgers in 1942. Dapper is also the only player ever traded for an announcer. He was traded by the Dodgers to the Atlanta Crackers for broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who announced games for the Dodgers until the legendary Vin Scully replaced him. Harwell went on to announce Detroit Tiger games for 42 years. Harwell and Dapper met for the first time 50 years later when Dapper came to Comerica Park on September 15, 2002, when Harwell’s statue at the Tigers’ home was unveiled.

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Wait! What? I’ve read that some almost 400,000 slaves were brought to North America from sub-Saharan Africa. But there are currently 2,000,000 immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa living in the United States of their own volition. Doesn’t that suggest that this nation isn’t the racist hell that those left-wingers lacking the backbone to flee it claim it is.

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Speaking Of Left-Wing Wackos: Jason Kilar, CEO of CNN must have been trying to lighten the mood when he wrote a memo to CNN employees announcing the resignation of Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer this past Tuesday following the conclusion of an investigation that incriminated her, former CNN President Jeff Zucker, and former CNN host Chris Cuomo.

The staff must have been rollicking on the floor with gales of laughter when Mr. Kilar wrote: “We have the highest standards of journalistic integrity at CNN, and those rules must apply to everyone equally.”

I assume their high standards of journalistic integrity are preventing them from reporting Special Counsel John Durham’s findings that the Hilary Clinton presidential campaign was behind the phony Russia hoax that consumed their network for five years.

I’ve read reports that people are talking to the grand jury to save themselves and we are just seeing just a small piece of what Durham has. He’s too smart to put on a losing case and I’m betting he’ll produce a massive report and a lot of indictments at some point, and destroy Hilary Clinton and the Democrats. Will she be charged with multiple felonies including treason? If so this will make Watergate look like small potatoes and all just in time for the midterms.

The media ignores Durham’s evidence proving that Hillary paid associates to collect data to spy on Donald Trump over a multiple year period and confirms that her presidential campaign lawyers directly paid a tech firm to infiltrate Trump Tower and White House data-servers to gather information on Donald Trump while campaigning, and later as acting president. CNN and the rest of the main stream media continue to disgrace themselves by ignoring this.

Despite five years of continuous coverage of the false “Russia connection” rubbish, CNN has not mentioned Durham’s findings. Like ABC, The New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, CBS, etc. this crowd has a strange definition of the phrase “highest standards of journalistic integrity.” What a sad collection of biased ideological phonies. It’s fitting that CNN is headquartered in Atlanta along with their left-wing corporate pandering pals, Delta and Coke.

Many Democrats are “on the run” and some party members feel that total annihilation could be upon them soon if the Democrat party doesn’t change its rhetoric about people who aren’t like them reported the Associated Press, apparently accidentally failing to print the most recent party talking points.

The Democrat party is totally out of touch with reality and has no idea what to do about the Durham report or any of the other calamities it created. This entire mess is compounded by the fact that Joe Biden, who was widely considered to be a moron before he became senile, is shuffling around pretending to run this circus. Let’s hope he and his handlers don’t make any more major screw ups before the November elections in nine months when the GOP regains control of this sinking ship of state.

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Valentine’s Day Big Band Bash

A sold-out audience including my wife, Linda, and I and a table of friends enjoyed the February 14 Valentine’s Day Big Band Bash benefit, pictured below, put on by Amelia Island resident Les DeMerle and his vocalist wife, Bonnie Eisele, at the new Fernandina Beach Marriott Courtyard on Atlantic. Les says he is considering a similar event with his band April 23. This year’s Les DeMerle Jazz Fest Dates are October 2 to October 9. For more information go to www.ameliaislandjazzfestival.com 

21 Comments

Duke Lebold - 20. Feb, 2022 -

Welcome to The United State of Florida, all!

Duke Lebold - 20. Feb, 2022 -

Cuck Foke!

anonymous - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Dave, I enjoy reading your blog but my browser (Safari) indicates that your website is ‘not secure’. You may want to address that before it becomes an issue.

John Goshco - 19. Feb, 2022 -

Apparently not using the HTTPS protocol.

Big Ed - 18. Feb, 2022 -

I almost never agree with your opinions, but find your view point of interest- your most recent p LP issue motivates me to comment- on the concept of CEO’s speaking out on social issues, you are spot on. They should comment on what they know (I’m a retired CEO of a multibillion dollar company). As for the Super Bowl halftime show, spot on again- how did that crap represent the viewing audience? Thank god the game was REAL football

Donals A. Sims - 18. Feb, 2022 -

The torment waiting for November is eased by watching the democrats and Hillary squirm.

John Moore - 18. Feb, 2022 -

I 100% agree with your assessment of the “Woke Coke Management”. I vote with my feet and now ONLY drink “Pepsi”. I won’t fly Delta unless it hurts me personally. These managers are giving in to the “Vocal Minority” vs the “Silent Majority” who wish they would stick to their expertise in drinks or airplanes.
Those who want illegals, dead, uninterested or other voters harvested for the Democratic (or Republican) Party are destroying voting credibility. It appears that the Democratic Party wants to dominate our country by any means: bringing in more illegals, harvesting votes from people too lazy to go vote, saying having an ID to vote is racist, etc. The decent people of this country need to speak up to stop this Woke Strategy.

John Goshco - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Regarding the current Russiagate news blackout. Was the media (corporate or individuals) independently helping Hillary or were they actively communicating with the campaign to determine what they should, or should not, report? If the communication was active and intentional, they may be afraid of being drawn into potential conspiracy charges.
Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you. – John Boyle O’Reilly, Rules of the Road

Bruce Smyk - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Dave – are you intentionally getting away fro m reporting about the local restaurant/bar scene?

R.Troxel - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Agree with your statements on the Coke and Delta CEO’s spouting off about the new voting law
enacted in Georgia to a degree.While it’s normally off base to involve a large companies image in
unrelated politics it’s also a fact that these men are residents of the state and city of Atlanta.Thus
making them no different than you or I in voicing our opinions on local matters.I am sure their
respective Boards were not thrilled at the Backlash from the local media and citizens.BTW; the
law in no way limits anyones rights or access to voting in fact it is much more voter friendly
than the laws in Delaware and New York.Although by the rhetoric by pols in those states you
would never know it.

Bill Shaffer - 18. Feb, 2022 -

THE VOICE OF REASON.

CoCoNUT Harry - 18. Feb, 2022 -

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” – P. J. O’Rourke, R.I.P.

Richard Norman Kurpiers - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Wonder not why Dave decided to devote this week’s blog to events that happened almost a year ago. He’s counting on his low information voters to have short term memory or at the very least, fail to fact-check him. One, the actions of Coca-Cola and Delta did not chase MLB’s All-Star game out of Atlanta as he claims. MLB acted on their own after the player’s union raised the idea of moving the All-Star game in response to Georgia’s passing restrictive voting laws to address voter fraud that has never been proven. This happened before Coca-Cola and Delta made their respective announcements condemning the same restrictive laws. Two, despite all the foot-stomping tantrums thrown by Georgia’s GOP, year-end 2021 financials from Coca-Cola and Delta showed huge gains over 2020 and better than expected performance in contrast to predictions made by financial analysts.

Fred - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Hey, I’ve got a novel idea Dick. Why don’t you start the Dick Kurpiers Blog. You know, like a point/counterpoint thing (but way more WOKE than Dave’s). I’m sure we’ll all rush to read your tripe every week.

Coleman Langshaw - 19. Feb, 2022 -

Clearly Freddy No-Last-Name-Chicken-Hawk, abhors any voice contrary to his myopic view of the world, but he is doing better with his vocabulary lessons. “Tripe” is such a large word for a small mind. Anyway, Richard, keep on flexing your First Amendment Rights in the arena where it is so desperately needed, whether they like it or not. Damn, this is SO much fun!

Coleman Langshaw - 19. Feb, 2022 -

Oh, I forgot to add: Freddy, your proposal of Richard having a Point/Counterpoint Blog would be pointless in your case, since you never have a point, and you certainly never have a counterpoint.

Freddy - 19. Feb, 2022 -

LOL, Oh Dick and Cole, I love getting under your collective skins. So are you guys just partners on here or in real life too? And no, that wasn’t an attempt at outing you. Apparently neither of you are originally from the South, where all names are “shortened” not lengthened. I mean I would call you Bubbas but I don’t think you’ve earned it, so… My point to the point/counter point blog is that neither of you have the guts or the cahones to start your own and exercise your 1st Amendment rights, as you so graciously remind us are yours to do with as you please. All either of you can do is come on here, week after week and try to play ofr Dave’s well written and quite popular blog. I would think you both might jump at the chance to spew your “myopic” views about the rest of us fully. Or do you just have writer’s envy? LMAO

Freddy - 19. Feb, 2022 -

Oh and would you guys prefer I call you Dickey and Coley? Don’t want to offend…

Melodie Winston - 21. Feb, 2022 -

Fred you have wound up the “Tiny Dancer.” He is spewing his weekly belittling towards you and crying small mindedness of anyone who has an opposing view….week after week after week.

Fred - 21. Feb, 2022 -

I’m used to their drivel. LOL I’ve come to enjoy making them look small minded and pitiful in their attempts to undermine anyone that doesn’t tow the liberal progressive line.

Joe Murphy - 18. Feb, 2022 -

Great views to share on this upcoming weekend.
Keep it rolling Dave