Maryland’s Gambling Armageddon…

In 2008, Maryland voters, largely pushed by union support and the promise of improved education and more police and fire support, passed a constitutional amendment legalizing gambling at 5 specific slots.  Since then, Maryland has opened 2 casinos in 2010 and 2011 in Perryville and in Ocean City.  The hope was that slots would help Maryland with its budget deficits due to increased spending.  The returns on these casinos has been less than anticipated, largely because these casinos only have slots in an area of the country where table games are in states that are close by.  Perryville and Ocean City are also in locations that are not near the cities of Baltimore and DC, and you have to pay tolls to get to either place.  The true test will come when a casino opens in or near Baltimore, and that time is fast approaching.  On June 6, the Casino at Arundel Mills will open its doors, and the fate of Maryland Gambling, future Maryland budgets, and even a 2016 Presidential candidacy hang in the balance.  This is gamble that has so much risk, and I believe it will ultimately fail without modifications…

For over a decade prior to 2008, Maryland horse racing watched its own decline as horses and ultimately horse farms left Maryland to pursue racing in West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.  They pleaded with Maryland lawmakers to pass legislation legalizing slots in Maryland.  Until 2007, their pleas had met with failure as lawmakers showed no interest in saving the industry.  Finally, in 2007, a constitutional amendment was proposed to legalize slots.  It did not give the horse racing industry what it completely wanted, because in order to legalize slots, the Maryland legislature decided to also fund education, police and fire fighters.  Also, it mandated the gambling places be placed in five specific locations:  Perryville, Ocean City, Rocky Gap, Baltimore City, and off 295 in Anne Arundel County.  The amendment passed in 2008 along a 60-40 percent margin.

Perryville and Ocean City were ready to go immediately.  Everyone assumed the Anne Arundel location would be Laurel Horse Park.  But Laurel’s owners botched their chance at the bid, and opened the way for the Cordish group to propose building a slot palace at the family friendly Arundel Mills Mall area.  Immediately, home owners in the area protested, correctly realizing that a slot palace near their homes would destroy property values and make the once safe Arundel Mills an increasingly hazardous area.  The slots at Arundel Mills was put to a vote again by Anne Arundel County in 2010, and it passed by the same margins as it had in 2008 at the state level. 

Over the last 18 months, construction has proceeded at a feverish pace.  Roads have been ripped up and modified to handle the anticipated increase of traffic at an already crowded mall.  New restaurants have sprung up, a new parking garage has been added, and the hope is that the increase of traffic will only help an already busy mall.  With the Baltimore casino allocation still in limbo, this may be the dominant casino in Maryland for years to come.

But has the Cordish Group anticipated every possible scenario?  Have they considered that the prostitution and crime syndicate nearby along Route 1 and I-95 in Howard County is so close to Arundel Mills Mall that once they smell the money flowing they will move east into the Arundel Mills Area?  And like their counterparts in Perryville and Ocean City, the casino is slots only.  Will that be enough to get people to keep their money in Maryland?

Also, the legislature have set the bar high on these casino to produce a higher rate of return than other casinos, trying to game the system into giving players less odds of winning.  Will players willingly come to the casino knowing they have less of a chance of being a winner?  And, there has come to light recently that Maryland did not factor in the life cycle costs of slot machine, which could cost the taxpayers perhaps millions of dollars when these machines need to be replaced?  What happens at the end of the machine’s life cycles?

The slot machines by themselves seem destined produce a return less than desired in Maryland with higher cost than expected.  And the slots profits will only hurt a Maryland budget that’s already experiencing strain.  Just two weeks ago, Maryland legislatures raised taxes of singles making over $100,000 and families making over $150,000.  In this state, that’s the middle class.  More families are beginning to head for the exits to Virginia and Pennsylvania.  The slots will be needed to close the gap, and they will likely be a tax on the poor, trying to get rich quick.

A second special session will be called with the idea of expanding gambling to include table games could level the playing field with other states.  But is it too little, too late?  And how will the success or failure of slots impact Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s aspirations to run for President in 2016?  You’d have to be a fool to think the Democrat from Baltimore isn’t laying the groundwork for a run at the White House the way he has raised his profile in recent years.  Would the failure of slots at Arundel Mills hurt his chances to win the Nation’s highest office?

I believe slots are doomed to fail as is in Maryland.  Table gaming might help, but has everyone thought about all the potential negative impacts?  This is one gamble Maryland can’t afford to lose.  The one-armed bandit levers on this venture begin to turn June 6.

Should Florida A&M terminate their Band Program?

By now, anyone who is or was a band member is well-aware of what has been happening with the Florida A&M Marching Band.  In November of 2011, drum major Robert Champion Jr. (who was a clarinet player from DeKalb County, GA), was fatally beaten during an alleged hazing incident on a chartered bus trip to Orlando.  Thirteen members of the band have been charged in the death, though none for murder.  It is believed that Champion was targeted for severe hazing due to his stance against the practice.  It is also rumored that Champion may have been hazed more because he was believed to be gay, a rumor that even the parents of Champion dismiss.  The ramifications of this beating have reverberated across Florida, and metro Atlanta, where Champion was from.  Champion’s parents have accused FAMU of a cover-up, even going so far to say that alumni of the famed Marching 100 band have coached active members on what to say to police in the hopes of saving the band’s reputation.  In suburban Atlanta, DeKalb county school official have suspended marching band activities because many of the band directors in the county are alums of FAMU.  Other incidents of hazing at FAMU have come to light in the wake of Champion’s death, exposing a deep culture of acceptable hazing at the institution between students and at faculty members’ houses, though the music director, Julian White, denies witnessing any hazing taking place under his watch.

As of now, the future of the band remains in doubt.  Champion’s parents have demanded that the school suspend the band program until real changes have been made and faculty and students involved in hazing are forced out.  DeKalb county officials have not given a timeline on when marching activities can resume.  And a group of musically-inclined High School Seniors are wondering if they should attend FAMU without a guarantee that the band program will be in operation in 2012-2013 and beyond.

There are differing types of hazing that goes on.  Most of it is innocent:  Freshman carrying Seniors’ gear, Freshman having to learn chants, fight songs, etc.  Occasionally, it gets out of hand.  But I have never witnessed it go to a level of beatings during my time (and I would have been more likely to have been on the receiving end of such hazing).  This is beyond my tolerance, and apparently it’s been going on for as long as anyone can remember.  There is clearly a lack of institutional control at FAMU.  There’s only one way to handle this, and it is an extreme action:  Terminate the Band Program for at least 2 or 3 years and disassociate with any active/alumni that has been remotely involved with hazing for at least 10 years.

The termination of the Band Program is the easy part.  It at least tells students and future students that the era of extreme hazing is over.  Many current students will leave FAMU and transfer to other schools, but their will have a scarlet “H” over their reputation, which they will have to work to overcome.  When FAMU returns, there should also be a new band director and new music faculty with a new anti-hazing policy.  It will take years for Florida A&M’s Band to return to the glory it once had (at least 10 years, probably longer).  But when they return, it will be under the right way.

The disassociation of alumni/students who hazed will be the harder part.  Some alumni will be all too happy to cut ties with an institution that no longer tolerates things they once did.  But some alumni will want to rejoin the university’s support system either to hide their past sins or try and repent for their indiscretions.  And some alumni were never involved in the hazing and will feel blackballed for something they never did or condoned.  But disassociation from the past will help to begin the healing process that will take time and will tell new band members that they have nothing to fear from vengeful alumni of the past.

In the end, Florida A&M has one chance to get this right.  Succeed, and the Band will suffer in the short term, but eventually could regain its status in the long run.  Fail, and the band will eventually be starved to death by parents unwilling to put their kids lives at risk just for a tainted legacy.  It will be hard, but cleaning house is a good place to start.

When is a politician too “radioactive” to be elected again?

Recently, news came out that former Democratic U.S. Congresswomen from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, has returned to the metro Atlanta suburban county of DeKalb.  It is believed that she has come back to attempt to reclaim her old congressional district from the current incumbent, Hank Johnson, who apparently has been making his share of gaffe over the last 6 years (“Capsized Guam” is an example).  But compared to McKinney, Johnson is a stately politician in many eyes.  At least Johnson never slapped a Capitol Hill Police Officer, or challenged an Israeli navy blockade as part of the free Gaza movement, or claimed President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand, or had a daddy that was just as crazy, if not crazier than you.  McKinney, a six-term congresswomen, quit the Democratic party in 2007 after being defeated in a primary for the second time in three tries in one of the rare blue districts in a deep red state, defecting to the Green Party to run as their candidate for President in 2008.  She now returns to Georgia to run as a Green Party candidate.

While public opinion right now is almost universally against her, counting her out of any race is unwise.  She has shown a resiliency to come back from defeat before.  No matter how outrageous her behavior has been, she still believes she can win an election.

Maybe she has a point.  Some of the most controversial political figures currently in the US have managed to get re-elected time and time again.  Marion Berry went to jail in a drug and hooker scandal and he hasn’t paid taxes in years, yet he has not lost an election for mayor or city council of DC since he was released from prison.  Charlie Rangel has been nothing short of a crook, skirting around the law for years, yet he keeps getting returned to Washington every 2 years.  Ted Kennedy survived in the US Senate 40 years after the Chappaquiddick incident literally until the day he died.  And some toxic political figures manage to resurrect themselves.  Richard Nixon was politically dead after losing the 1960 Presidential election and the 1962 California governor’s race.  But he came back to be elected President 6 years later.  And how many races did Mitt Romney lose before he finally won a major race in Massachusetts?

Then again, some political figure never get a chance at redemption.  Dan Quayle never ran for political office after he and George HW Bush were defeated in the 1992 Presidential/Vice Presidential race, even though he was still young.  He was too toxic in many people’s eyes.  So is Sarah Palin.  Let’s be honest, she is so polarizing that she will never run for office again.  And former senator Carol Mosley Braun was so controversial in her 6 years in office, she got badly whooped when she tried to run for Mayor of Chicago last year.  Safe to say Mosley Braun will never get a chance at winning a major office again.

So when is a politician too toxic to get a second chance (or in McKinney’s case, a third chance) to return to office?  Why do people continue to give extra chances to controversial figures instead of electing people who will do their job as the people’s representative instead of grandstanding in front of a camera?

One thing for sure:  Cynthia McKinney’s attempt to re-claim her seat will be anything but boring.  I just hope the people of the 4th Congressional District do the best possible thing—and send a message to Cynthia that she needs to give up her political ambitions for at least a while.

Thoughts on a dying anti-US leader and fear for his country’s future…

By now, it’s coming increasingly clear that a new leader will likely be in charge of Venezuela by this time next year.  Either a new President will be elected or Hugo Chavez will be dead from cancer and his subordinates will be battling for control of the South American country—a scenario that could lead to civil war.   Either way, Chavez will not be in direct control of the future of his country—and it scares him.  On Maundy Thursday services, Chavez pleaded with God not to take him yet, because he still believes he has work to do to make his revolution succeed.

Hugo Chavez’s actual condition is a closely guarded secret.  But what we do know is this:  Last June, Chavez went to Cuba to have a large malignant tumor removed from his pelvic area, although the Venezuelan leader did not let anyone know where the tumor was found.  Then in February, the Cuban doctors removed a lesion from Chavez and commenced radiation treatment.  Up to five rounds of the treatment are expected in an attempt to try and prevent a recurrence of the cancer. 

But it may be too late.  Rumors are rampant that the initial tumor have spread and possible incorrect treatment by Cuban doctors may have cost Chavez whatever slim chances of surviving the cancer.  There are even rumors the initial tumor was pancreatic cancer, which if true, is one of the toughest of all cancers to beat.  Chavez’s recent acknowledgements to God to spare his life are even a clue that Hugo may be running out of time.

This is quite a different side of Chavez who once called President GW Bush “the devil” and who has spent the last 13 years as President, but who has consolidated so much power to himself that he is more of a dictator.  Everything runs through Hugo in Venezuela, and his charisma has allowed him to be loved by his country’s poor, in spite of being despised by the middle class and elites.  Hugo has supported and embraced similar ideological leaders in Ecuador and Bolivia, while showing a deep friendship with the Castro brothers in Cuba.  He has developed relationships with China, Iran, and other rogue states.  He loves to bash the United States, poking a stick at the US whenever he gets a chance.  He effectively owns every major company in the country, and whatever he doesn’t own, he uses his power to try and take it.  Several once prosperous companies are now being run into the ground by Chavez allies, all in the name of allegedly helping the poor and spreading the revolution, but in reality, it is keeping those allies from turning on him.  In short, he is Venezuela.

But what happens when you remove a leader like Chavez from the equation?  To answer that, you don’t have to look very far into the past at a country once known as Yugoslavia.  Josef Broz (better known as Tito) was the undisputed leader of Yugoslavia from 1948 until his death in 1980.  He ruled with a iron fist, but his charisma managed to keep conflicting factions from wiping each other out by integration and intimidation.  But upon his death, no one was able to match his leadership abilities, and within 10 years, the country began to split apart, factions began committing genocide, and once beautiful countries were reduced to ruin that have taken years to rebuild.

Another developing examples are countries that have experienced changes in leadership due to the Arab Spring of last year.  Mubarak and Gadahfi ruled each country as supreme leaders, and although they ruled differently (Mubarak as an ally to the US and Gadhafi as an occasional antagonist), they were able to keep rival factions in check.  With Mubarak’s departure, it is clear that Egypt will not have the same relations with Israel that were enjoyed with Mubarak, and many Coptic Christians fear they will ultimately be forced to leave their homeland.  Libya appears to be stable now, but Gadhafi’s allies are not making things easy.  There is a fear al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood may have penetrated into the leadership of both countries, even though both countries are becoming more democratic.  Syria could be another example if Assad can not eliminate opposition forces scattered throughout his country.

When a leader who consolidates all the power and resources to himself or herself over a period of time, their departure means their subordinates or others will fight over control of that power.  Rarely does a successor have the iron will or charisma to keep the power to themselves, though the obvious counterexample is the former Soviet Union, where Josef Stalin was an even more larger than life figure than Lenin.  It is unlikely, based on what we know about the situation in Venezuela, that there is a successor who can even match, much less be bigger than Hugo Chavez.  That means trouble for Venezuela once Chavez has left the scene.  And it’s not just Venezuela.  What happens in Cuba, once old age finally claims the Castro brothers and their brothers in arms from the 1950s revolution?

Regardless of what you think of Chavez, the country is Venezuela is now tied to him.  His imprint will long affect that country, even after he is gone.  His untimely departure is not a scenario I look forward to, regardless of my opinion of Hugo.

Nationalize the mobile broadband industry???

I am going to put forward a brief argument recently made by a member of the 3GPP standards body that will be unpopular with my friends who work with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and anyone associated with the Cell Phone Industry. I’m not in favor of the idea myself, but I know that if I don’t state the case now, someday, someone will make the argument.

It seems appropriate in this time that we are debating the idea of government-run health-care, that perhaps we should look at the idea of nationalizing certain industries. There is one industry that may become a target for nationalization, particularly as more people use it. Is it time to nationalize the cell phone industry and bring wireless cellular communications under the control of one company that is run by the government?

Yes, I know the arguments against nationalizing the wireless industry are legion. And yes, someone will remind us that AT&T was once a monopoly in the wired phone industry that was broken up about 30 years ago. But in the future, someone will make the case FOR nationalization, so I thought I’d get the case for nationalization out there as a public service so that everyone will have the correct information to make a judgment when that day comes.

First, let’s make a couple of points…

(1) Wireless has become more important than electricity for many people around the globe. No, seriously, it has. 85% of the planet’s population has wireless connectivity compared with only 80% of the planet having electricity. And the 85% is increasing. At some point this year, the number of wireless connections around the globe will exceed the number of people in the world. Furthermore, at it’s present projections, the number of wireless connections on Earth will exceed 50 billion by 2025. Although people will still use wireless to communicate, wireless connections will become more and more based on machine to machine communications. Every appliance in your home will have some type of internet connectivity, passing data back to other machines, allowing smarter machine to mange things that have become tedious in our eyes. In short, the internet has become less an internet of documents and more an internet of things. The change in definition is significant.

(2) The mobile phone has become more than just a phone or internet device. In many parts of the world, it has become money itself, either as a credit card or as a tool to hold money. In addition, plans include making the mobile phone a way to monitor personal health stats, and a way to share locations and information between people. Some kids today have become so dependent on their smartphones from everything in their lives that they cannot function without it.

(3) Even though the world has finally adopted a global technology in the form of LTE, the fragmentation of the World’s RF bands has made a global 4G device almost impossible—unless you want to go back to the days of a phone the size of a brick. There are about 40 RFs that have been approved for LTE use and let’s just say they all don’t play nicely with each other. Look at the recent problems Apple has had with LTE on the new iPad outside of the US.

Based on this and other pieces of information, the smartphone has gradually become an essential part of people’s lives. It has become as much of a necessity as food, air, water, and shelter. I’ve personally seen homeless people have smartphones and they prefer having a smartphone to a stable place to sleep. In fact, during the recent Occupy protests, some people decided it was more important to buy a new smartphone than eat so they could get their message out to the masses.

But there is a problem. The cell networks that have supported cell phones are on the verge of being overwhelmed and possibly melting down. They cell phone industry is trying to compensate for an exponential increase in use of the networks by increasing network efficiency, buying new spectrum, and putting up more cell towers, but it’s clear that at present projections, widespread daily outages on the network will be seen starting next year. And it’s only expected to get worse. By 2016, Yankee Group projects that mobile data will exceed network capacity by a 2:1 margin. Plus, most networks don’t work well with each other in the US. If you are an AT&T customer and your network is having problems, you can’t go use Sprint’s network because AT&T and Sprint’s phones are not compatible with each other.

So, how would a nationalized network work in the US, if it was implemented? That’s a little unclear. The first way would be obvious. All the networks would be forced into one government-owned company. The US government would buy back all the spectrum, then merge it all together producing larger bandwidth that could increase capacity in urban areas where lack of spectrum is a problem. The US would also standardize under one technology (likely 3GPP), focusing the engineers on the problems of that technology, instead of being spread out to focus on 5 or 6 different technologies. Would it work? Well, Europe did a similar thing when the western portion of the continent created a single technology called GSM. By working on the issues before releasing the standard in 1991, they created a Europe-wide technology standardized at 2 RFs (later expanded to 4) that allowed cell-phone makers to easily create devices that could work across the globe. We don’t have that with LTE at present. In addition, putting up cell towers would be less of a hassle, because the government would eliminate one layer of obstacles that is now prevalent in working out how to put up towers.

A second way to implement a “nationalized” network is similar to a model now being implemented by the Russians for LTE. Last year, 5 companies entered into a landmark agreement where you effectively have network sharing. Scartel, the largest WiMAX provider in Russia, agreed to build the LTE network at specific RF bands, and 4 other companies would provide services on that network with the option to buy into the network. In the US, you might have AT&T and Verizon build the network. All the US providers could then buy into AT&T and Verizon’s network, but everyone would use the same network, with much more cell towers at their disposal. But it would still have national capabilities and all the networks would have to agree to work together.

One big benefit of nationalizing the cell phone industry is that it would focus cell phone providers to build more towards a specific set of requirements. That would in the long run reduce the cost of building a cell phone, a cost benefit that would be required to be passed on to the consumer in the long run.

The second benefit is that unifying the US along a specific set of requirements would make producing a “world phone” feasible again. As of right now, there are about 6 different LTE frequencies being proposed, and that doesn’t even count Lightsquared’s proposal which was just thrown out. If the US could unify around 1 or 2 frequencies, the rest of the world (China and India possible exceptions) would be focused on opening that common spectrum up to cell phone use, thus paving the way for a global standard to be built.

There are other benefits to be considered, and yes, there are potential risks. Again, though, this is just the thoughts of someone who has dealt with standards bodies, and he is expressing frustration at the fragmentation of LTE networks around the world. While I disagree with the idea, I sympathize with his concerns. While nationalizing the cell phone is a bad idea as far as I’m concerned, it is a way to try and build a global LTE standard—something that could become more imperative as LTE-Advanced starts being released next year.

The rise and fall of restaurant chains…

Restaurant chains are strange creatures to be sure. Some chains have succeeded to the point where they are universally recognized, like McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway, KFC, and more. Others are not as prevalent, but become cult favorites like In-n-Out. Others start out hot, but as time progresses, the novelty wears off, and many places either shrink in numbers or disappear all together as newer restaurants become the hot items. For every Chick-Fil-A rising, a Hardee’s is losing restaurants. Sometimes it’s location, other times it’s the food, and other times it’s the service.

Just recently, I found out that Mrs. Winner’s Chicken and Biscuits has all but closed up shop with just a handful of franchise stores scattered in North Carolina and 1 or 2 left in Georgia. The Website has been taken down without fanfare, and it took a Facebook link to figure out why. In the last Facebook page from the Mrs. Winner’s Company, they stated that all the corporate locations had closed in August of 2011 and that only franchises were left to carry on the name. This departure saddened me personally. My family had regularly visited the location in Lawrenceville when I was younger. Unfortunately, they got caught in an era of increasing competition. KFC is the king of Fried Chicken, but pressure from traditional Fried Chicken places like Popeye’s, Bojangles’ and Church’s, plus new chicken entities such as Chick-Fil-A and El Pollo Loco seemed to push the largely metro Atlanta chain to bankruptcy and ultimately to near extinction.

Mrs. Winner’s is just the latest restaurant I grew up with in Atlanta, Chicago, and Baltimore that developed a national or regional following once upon a time, only to shrink back and/or disappear completely for a number of reasons. How many longtime metro Atlanta residents remember that Sizzler used to be in Atlanta? I vaguely remember a Sizzler on Memorial Drive near Hambrick. However, Sizzler left Atlanta and I thought they were gone until a passing reference in the movie “White Men Can’t Jump” pointed me to the fact the Sizzler had retreated back to its origins in the West Coast.

How many people also remember Bonanza or Ponderosa in Atlanta? The chain of buffet restaurants used to be in metro Atlanta before disappearing in the 1980s. I found them again in the 1990s in Valparaiso, but I guess that I ate them out of town. Bonanzas and Ponderosas still exist, but they are few and far between these days.

Steak and Ale used to be the place to get a good steak—or at least an expensive one. For the longest time, they were the national steak chain. But competition from family steak houses like Outback, Longhorn, and Texas Roadhouse and fine dining steak houses like Mortons, Ruth’s Chris, and Flemings drove Steak and Ale to Chapter 7 liquidation.

Bennigan’s was founded in Atlanta in the 1970s and was a great place to get Burgers, Sandwiches like Monte Cristos, and the famous Death by Chocolate dessert. But several competitors also drove the corporate locations to extinction leaving a handful of franchise places scattered throughout the country.

Shoney’s was part of the Big Boy group, then struck out on its own to compete outside the Southeast, and appeared to be doing well. But the all-you-can-eat buffets could not be sustained nationally and, just like Sizzler and Bonanza/Ponderosa before it, Shoney’s started disappearing rapidly. All of the corporate restaurants closed leaving just franchise locations scattered across the southeast—about a quarter of the number of restaurants Shoney’s had at their peak. You can still find them around, but not at the levels they once were.

Damon’s was one of the first to have giant TVs for customers to enjoy sporting events, but it also had a back room where large dinner groups could be housed away from the rest of the restaurant. In fact, when Liz and I got married in 2006, we had our rehearsal dinner at Damon’s and it was a wonderful affair. At one point, Damon’s had 5 restaurants in the Baltimore area and they had 2 dozen restaurants in Michigan. But a failure in further innovate and competition from national chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and regional competition like the Green Turtle drove the chain into bankruptcy in 2009 and by the end of 2011, there were no more Damon’s in the Baltimore area, just two in Michigan, and none in Columbus Ohio, which was Damon’s Headquarters.

Pizza Inn, Fazoli’s, The Blackeyed Pea, Chi-chi’s, Western Steer Steakhouse, and Po Folks are other examples of chains that once were popular in Atlanta, but have since left the Atlanta area. Many still survive, but at far fewer numbers than they once did. Chi-Chi’s disappeared in the US, but still lives on overseas.

Del Taco used to be the primary Mexican fast food place in Atlanta. Taco Bell bought out most of the stores in the late 1980s in Atlanta, but now it appears Del Taco is starting to make a comeback in Atlanta starting with Snellville. So, even when restaurants appear to die off, they sometimes have a way of coming back from exile.

What restaurant chains (national or regional) do you recall once being prevalent in your towns but are no more? What do you remember best about these chains? What chains would you like to see return? And what currently dominant restaurant do you think will/should eventually disappear from your area? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Forgetting your roots…

Recently, when a powerful series of tornadoes rocked the Ohio Valley area causing multiple deaths and millions in damage, one of the hardest hit areas was the town of Henryville, IN, located north-northeast of Louisville.  The small town was featured in lots of news coverage, but I didn’t hear much about the town’s claim to fame:  it was the hometown of Colonel Harlan Sanders, the man who would go on to create the Kentucky Fried Chicken brand.  While Sanders didn’t actually build the first chain of KFC restaurants, he was their most famous spokesman until his death.

I have not heard much of KFC trying to help the town of Henryville out, and I should not have been surprised.  Still, it would help a company’s image if they occasionally remembered their roots.  Besides, the parent company of KFC, Yum! Brands is headquartered in Louisville.  How hard would it be to provide support to the town which is less than an hours’ drive away?

Forgetting ones’ roots is not a good idea for anyone, person or company.  When you stray away from your humble past, you lose your perspective.  Remembering the past provides you with perspective as you move forward.  And if something happens to your origins and you do nothing in response, what does it say to people about you remembering the lessons of today going forward?

I hope KFC is helping out the people of Henryville.  I might consider paying more visits to companies who remember their roots when those roots experience trouble.  It makes a company a good corporate citizen.