I’m not going to lie: I don’t particularly like Cracker Barrel’s new branding. The popular restaurant chain recently replaced its iconic logo, featuring said barrel and the founder’s “Uncle Herschel” sitting in a rocking chair, with a plainer version, a stylized “barrel on its side” shape with the chain’s name on it.

As one meme going around puts it, they removed the cracker AND the barrel. Meh.

But is the new logo “woke,” as “conservative” “influencer” Robby Starbuck and others would have us believe?  Does it reveal a corporate conspiracy to brainwash the public in, perish the thought, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” doctrine, by imposing brutalist signage on  us or something of the sort?

In a word, no. The rebranding may be a poor marketing decision, but it’s exactly what it looks like: An ailing company trying to turn things around.

COVID-19 hit most restaurants pretty hard, but Cracker Barrel caters to an older, presumably more cautious, customer base that was already shrinking. Last year, CEO Julie Masino noted that 16% of customers hadn’t returned since the pandemic hit.

Getting targeted by moral panic scammers like Starbuck doesn’t help, of course, and this isn’t the first time.

Almost exactly three years ago, Starbuck was one voice in the off-pitch chorus screeching “WOKE!” when Cracker Barrel added a new item — the Impossible [TM] Sausage, a non-meat take on the classic breakfast food — to its menu.

Yes, really.

They lost their minds because a popular, but flagging in popularity, restaurant chain tried to make its menu more attractive to a growing demographic: Those who choose to eat less, or even no, meat for any number of reasons.

Cracker Barrel didn’t remove ham or country fried steak from its menu. It didn’t require its servers to wear tie-dyes, get their noses pierced, and lecture customers on checking their privilege.  It just added a menu option. Don’t want the Impossible [TM] Sausage? Don’t order it. “Problem” solved!

I wouldn’t go so far as to blame Starbuck and his crack-brained co-complainers for Cracker Barrel’s business problems. They’re real problems, with real underlying causes. Markets change. Demographics shift. Businesses fail. That’s just life.

But the “extremely online right” and its social media enabled attacks, which often go way beyond idiotic, probably can’t help.

Or maybe, just maybe, they can.

I only eat at Cracker Barrel every couple of years. Part of that is “out of sight, out of mind.”

When I think about Cracker Barrel, I think good things about Cracker Barrel.

And Robby Starbuck’s antics have me thinking about Cracker Barrel.

Suddenly, I’m craving Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast, and perhaps some classic candy bars to take home from their “country store.” Maybe I’ll see you there!

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On May 27, US  Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the federal government no longer recommends COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children.

On May 30, the US Centers for Disease Control contradicted Kennedy, instead simply recommending that parents of children between the ages of six months and 17 years “discuss the benefits of vaccination with a healthcare provider.”

On August 20, the American Academy of Pediatrics took yet a third position: That “all young children” between the ages of six months and 23 months, possibly excluding “older children in certain risk groups,” should receive the vaccines.

One of these positions — the CDC’s — is consistent with both good medical practice and parental rights/responsibilities.

The other two — Kennedy’s and the AAP’s — try to substitute the one-size-fits-all judgment of  a few supposed “experts” for the case-by-case judgments of millions of parents and doctors.

It’s not very often that you’ll see a good word from me where CDC is concerned. Its operations and recommendations often seem geared more toward affirming establishment policy positions than protecting Americans’ health. It’s nice to see the correct take coming from that corner.

Why should decisions on childhood vaccination be made by parents with the advice of their family doctors?

Put simply, vaccination entails both benefits and risks.

I’m not referring to “fringe” theories about the dangers of mRNA “clot shots,” or to the notion that preservatives in some vaccines may be linked to autism,  although those certainly are, and should remain, up for discussion.

It’s an indisputable fact that some vaccines, including but not limited to COVID-19 vaccines produce allergic reactions in some patients. Those reactions can be fatal.

Vaccines, including but not limited to COVID-19 vaccines, have also been linked to Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder. Whether that linkage is directly causal or whether a vaccine is just the tipping point that “activates” GBS seems unclear, but it’s a risk either way.

Individual doctors are better positioned than “experts” a thousand miles away to evaluate their patients, their patients’ needs, and their patients’ risk levels, and offer their best advice on whether to undergo any medical procedure.

And individual patients — or, in the case of children, their parents/guardians — are the ones entitled by right to weigh the benefits and risks, seek advice or not, and make the decisions.

When a vaccine is administered, it’s injected into the patient’s body, not RFK’s body or the AAP’s body.

Does the phrase “my body, my choice” ring any bells?

It’s not just about vaccines. It’s about the whole range of health issues.

Oddly, many of those inveighing against vaccine choice take the correct position on treatment for gender dysphoria in minors — that parents and doctors should be free to do their best to help children.

Also oddly, many of those rightly invoking “parental rights” on childhood vaccine decisions claim that politicians, rather than parents and doctors, are entitled to decide for everyone on child gender dysphoria treatment.

Individual/parental choice is always preferable to letting politicians and bureaucrats choose for everyone.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On August 15, US president Donald Trump met with Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin in Alaska. On August 18, Trump met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a collection of European politicians in Washington. The goal of both meetings: Bringing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war now well into its fourth year.

Media coverage of both events centered more on Trump than on the other participants, and more on Trump’s motives and competence than on either the desired outcome or how that outcome might transpire.

Trump, we’re told, got rolled — used and humiliated — by Putin in Alaska.

Trump, we’re told, played the Emperor in his new clothes to a fawning Zelenskyy et al., hiding his cankles and flaunting his crackpottery.

And in both cases, we’re told, Trump’s motives are impure: He’s just after a Nobel Peace Prize and sees ending the war, on any terms, as a way to get it.

I can’t think of any way to sufficiently emphasize my opinion on those speculations, so let’s just go with all caps and too many periods:

I. DON’T. CARE.

I don’t care if Trump’s an easy mark for Putin.

I don’t care if Trump’s mad as a hatter or if other world “leaders” try to placate him by pretending otherwise.

I don’t care if Trump’s obsessed with cadging yet another participation trophy for his mantel.

Nor do I care whether the Moscow gang or the Kyiv gang gets to treat the people damaged and displaced by this war as livestock at best, slaves as the norm, and meat for their mutual slaughterhouse project at worst.

The ideal answer is “neither, and none,” and the second-best answer is “let those people decide for themselves,” but the only thing on the table at the moment seems to be shutting down the slaughterhouse part.

If Trump can help make that happen, award him all the ribbons, plaques, and trophies he craves and let him babble nonsense to his heart’s content on whatever subject he pleases.

Two important things to remember:

First, millions of people have been killed, injured, abducted, detained, enslaved, displaced, or some combination of those things, over the last 42 months. That needs to stop.

Second, we’ve gone 42 months with no one else succeeding in stopping it.

So how about just letting Trump take his best shot at getting the job  done, instead of quibbling over the details (which we can’t even know from moment to moment), or over his supposed motives or inadequacies?

It’s not like there’s any shortage of things to complain about when it comes to Trump. Why turn this into one of those things?

If Trump can help end this war, he has my support and should have yours.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY