Posts tagged ‘boycott’

News I Can Use

by , posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 10:51 pm

I just wanted to send a public thank you out to the Daily Herald, a right-leaning publication that is everywhere in the Chicago Burbs. Yesterday, the Herald published an (unsurprising for them) piece about the BP boycott. It was one of those human-interesty things that seemed designed to make us all rethink who we are really hurting by boycotting BP – “pity the little guy” (or do I mean small guy) type of thing. Along with a description of things these guys are thinking about doing to help with the clean up.

True, DH stopped short of apologizing to the CEO of BP, but they did characterize the ongoing environmental disaster to our south as an incident that “has added to the corporation’s woes” as “President Obama and environmental groups” are being so mean as to pressure them to stop the leak and stuff.

Eh, but the piece soon gets back on track in asking us to consider the woes of the poor franchisees who really own those BP stations. Now I normally consider myself a fan of the small business owner – I’ve known many a Mom and Pop who pour their time, love and soul into their business. But it’s a little harder to feel sorry for these franchise owners, since the story details how many of these things each owns – hint, in no case is the answer “one.”

Anyway the real value of the piece to me was the quote from Bob Juckniess, president of RWJ Management (10 BP stations) who wanted us all to know that we don’t know what we’re doing.

(more…)

Share