Ron Shaich, the founder and chairman of Panera Bread, has sculpted his company into one of the most successful small restaurant chains in the country. He's also done something no other chain has done before.
By creating a unique, pay-what-you-can model at three “Panera Cares” cafes around the country — and more are coming soon — he has proven an idea that seems revolutionary for a large corporation, but is actually very simple: trust people; they'll often surprise you.
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“It worked,” Ron said. “20 percent would leave more than the suggested donation, 60 percent would leave the suggested amount, and 20 percent would leave less.”
Each week, on a Friday, Alexander Cockburn publishes a weekly diary in the weekend edition of Counterpunch, which he co-edits with Jeffrey St. Claire. Last week’s diary included a particularly important entry that expands on earlier CP essay analyzing the possibility of increased infant deaths in the western US resulting from the poisons spewed out by the multiple meltdowns in the Fukushima nuclear power facility in Japan.
Cockburn enlisted Pierre Sprey, a recognized expert in the proper use of nonparametric statistics to extract unbiased information out limited but important data samples, to examine the data/analysis in the original CP essay and to expand or critique the analysis, if possible. (caveat: Pierre is a close friend of mine)
Attached below is Cockburn’s summary of Pierre’s findings … it makes for very important reading for two reasons: it is a good discussion of the limits implicit in in quality statistical analysis, and it is a sobering discussion of a danger that has receded from the public consciousness.
Last weekend on this site we ran a piece by Dr. Janet Sherman and Joseph Mangano, reviewing some recent figures from the Center for Disease Control: here's how they interpreted the data in the context of the disaster at Fukushima on March 11, 2011:
“The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:
“4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 – 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 – 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week).
“This amounts to an increase of 35 per cent (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3 per cent ), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster…
In 1990 new proteins were engineered into the American food supply. Other countries don't allow it. Walmart, Kraft and Pepsi actually formulate different food for export. America has highest cancer rates in the world.
Robyn O'Brien gives us information and patterns she has assembled and synthesized about how our food “industry” makes us sick (allergies, cancer, etc., etc.), raises our health care costs, weakens our global competitiveness, etc. and what we can do about it.
Phi Beta Iota: Industry–which operates on public incorporation commissions–lacks integrity because the government lacks integrity, as does the media in a corporate state. We have had a failure of integrity across the entire US system of systems (see Paradigms of Failure).
Robyn O¹Brien lives in the Boulder area. She is a fresh, inspiring and credible voice for the information/patterns she has assembled/synthesized about how our food ³industry² makes us sick (allergies, cancer, etc., etc.), raises our health care costs, weakens our global competitiveness, also etc. etc. and what we can do about it. And, she brings a deep level of compassion and wisdom to the task of transformation at hand. Kudos to Robyn….JS
Robyn O¹Brien shares her personal story and how it inspired her current path as a “Real Food” evangelist. Grounded in a successful Wall Street career that was more interested in food as good business than good-for-you, this mother of four was shaken awake by the dangerous allergic reaction of one of her children to a “typical” breakfast. Her mission to unearth the cause revealed more about the food industry than she could stomach, and impelled her to share her findings with others. Informative and inspiring.
Amazon Page
Robyn authored The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It. A former Wall Street food industry analyst, Robyn brings insight, compassion and detailed analysis to her research into the impact that the global food system is having on the health of our children. She founded allergykidsfoundation.org and was named by Forbes as one of “20 Inspiring Women to Follow on Twitter.” The New York Times has passionately described her as “Food's Erin Brockovich.”
Phi Beta Iota: The industrialization of agriculture, and the corruption of government, have led to a complete ignorance of the “true cost” of bad food, not only in making children ill, but in consuming fuel, water, sweatshop labor, and enabling tax avoidance and the externalization of pollution costs to the public present and future. It bears mention that US Government regulation has totally trashed the emergent organic food movement in the USA, and there are only two sustainable agricultural models on the planet: the Amish in the USA, and the Cubans. The truth at any cost now lowers all other costs forever.
Drapeable fabric turns into solid concrete when it gets wet
popsi.com, Clay Dillow, 18 May 2011
When disaster strikes and permanent structures are leveled, as they were recently by earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand (and more distantly in Haiti), they are usually replaced in the short term by tent cities. Two engineering students thought they could do better and invented Concrete Canvas, a fabric impregnated with concrete that can turn a tent into a hardy, permanent structure in 24 hours. Just add water.
President Obama used his weekly address to announce steps to promote greater domestic oil production and reduce the burden of high gas prices. Republicans say it's not enough.
Whatever else we might say about Big Oil in the United States, we have to give the industry credit for one thing: it has mastered the art of scamming us with a perfectly straight face.
Pompeo and Labrador were joined by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Mike Needham of Heritage Action Fund. The two organizations joined a coalition of conservative groups in March, including Americans for Prosoperity, in a letter calling for an end to energy subsidies.
Click on Image to EnlargePhi Beta Iota: US politicians have substituted ideology for intelligence (decision-support) and borrowing for thinking. There is nothing intelligent in US energy policy, because there is no policy–just a long string of subsidies and hand-outs and tax exemptions. The oil drilling decisions are an example of doing the wrong thing righter, instead of the right thing (Russell Ackoff). The “policy” decisions are also hypocritical because nothing being decided today will have substantive effect in less than ten years. Here's what an intelligent government would use to think about energy futures…and everything else, all together.
