The latest target: Ronald McDonald.
A proposed city ordinance would ban McDonald's from putting toys in Happy Meals unless it adds fruit and vegetable portions and limits calories. The proposal would apply to all restaurants, but the focus has been on McDonald's and its iconic Happy Meals.
Supervisor Eric Mar said he proposed the law to protect the health of his constituents, but McDonald's has waged an aggressive fight to block the measure. A battery of McDonald's Corp. executives showed up at city hall to argue that the legislation is a heavy-handed effort that threatens the company's decades-old business model and the free choice of its customers.
The proposed Happy Meal law is just the latest in a string of San Francisco ordinances aimed at regulating public health. The city recently expanded a law banning tobacco sales in pharmacies to include grocery stores and big-box stores that also have pharmacies.
Mayor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order earlier this year banning sweetened beverages like Coca Cola and Pepsi from vending machines on city property. Local leaders considered but ultimately abandoned laws recently that would have imposed a fee on businesses that sell sugary drinks and alcohol.
Newsom has slowed down in his support of some health measures after he was attacked by his opponent in next month's lieutenant governor's race, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, for being the "food police." Newsom vetoed the alcohol and soda fees, and he's indicated he'll do the same for Ronald McDonald. The Board of Supervisors could overturn a veto but needs the votes of eight of 11 supervisors to do so.
Tony Winnicker, a Newsom spokesman, has said the mayor was opposed to the measures in part because of their negative impact on local businesses.
"The mayor is always open to argument and evidence about a better way — he's not ideological, he's not wedded to one approach," Winnicker said. "This is not the time to be considering new fees and taxes that would put San Francisco at a disadvantage to other counties around the state."
Mar said he expected his Happy Meal bill to pass out of committee Monday and receive a vote by the full Board of Supervisors later this month.
McDonald's vice president for nutrition and menu strategy, Karen Wells, said that denying a toy to a child would undermine the authority of parents to decide what their children should eat and would be difficult to execute.
"It's different from what we're doing today and different from what we've done for 25 years, successfully," Wells said.
Responded Supervisor Sophie Maxwell in an exasperated voice, "Just because it's different does not make it necessarily difficult. I mean, McDonald's is an amazing institution. It's been around for many years ... because it's able to change and to adapt to new circumstances and new things that people are eating so I think I have a lot more confidence in McDonald's, I guess, than you do."
Cynthia Goody, McDonald's nutrition director, said there was no evidence that childhood obesity would be reduced by requiring a fruit or vegetable with all meals.
In response, a supervisor asked what mix of foods would lower childhood obesity. Goody said she would need to conduct more research to provide an answer.
The Happy Meal ordinance is not all surprising given San Francisco's famously liberal leanings.
"San Francisco has a reputation — and it's well deserved — of being a very progressive city," said Alex Clemens, founder of Barbary Coast Consulting, a local political communications firm. "With that comes naturally, hand in hand, a reliance on government to encourage thoughtful change — that's just tradition."
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October 2, 2010The Heavy Hand of Kathleen Sebelius
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Saying a mammal is extinct is based on two criteria, it hasn't been seen for more than 50 years, or a massive search has come up empty.
Interestingly though, as many as a third of mammals thought to be extinct turn up again. University of Queensland scientists Diana Fisher and Simon Blomberg created a list of those 187 species that were listed as extinct since 1500, at least 67 of them turned up again.
Wired has a great piece on the scientists work:
Australia’s desert rat kangaroo, for example, was rediscovered in 1931 after having gone missing for almost a century, only to disappear again in 1935 when invasive red foxes moved into the area of the remaining survivors.
One thing to check, say the scientists, is how the species went extinct.
“If you think that a missing species is extinct and the main cause of decline was introduced predators such as feral foxes, cats or rats, then you are very likely to be right,” Fisher said. But, she added, “If the main cause of decline was habitat loss, you are quite likely to be wrong if you say that it’s extinct, unless it was restricted to a very small area.”
Fisher says that there are a couple species that have been listed as extinct that may be good candidates for a comeback.
...the Montane monkey-faced bat of the Solomon Islands, last seen on Guadalcanal in 1990, and Alcom’s pocket gopher, which was abundant in a high-elevation forest in Mexico in the late 1990’s but hasn’t been seen since.
October 2, 2010Obama's Hyper-Partisan PresidencyJay Cost, Weekly Standard | |
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