DAN GALBRAITH'S BLOG: SELLING PRODUCE SIMPLE WITH SITCOMS

Friday, March 20, 2009

SELLING PRODUCE SIMPLE WITH SITCOMS

Column by Dan Galbraith, publishing in March 23 edition of The Packer

I doubt there’s any market research to prove it, but, in reviewing recent reruns of TV sitcom “Seinfeld,” the fresh produce industry seems to be missing marketing opportunities since that show suffered its disappointing death in 1998.

Several memorable “Seinfeld” episodes put fresh produce at the top of the food chain — and top of mind for consumers watching the antics of Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine, the latter two of whom were particularly positive as produce proponents.

As important as it was to Jerry Seinfeld’s career to find the humor in produce — a subject not used to getting a lot of laughs — it was equally vital to the produce industry to be mentioned prominently on the long-running No. 1 show in the U.S.

Although postman Newman once proclaimed steamed broccoli a “vile weed,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJw6Z-MLyBA George never showed much interest in healthful foods except once when it appeared to enhance his sexual performance, and Jerry seemed anything but proud of it when he ordered a salad while on a date with Elaine’s cousin Holly, the show certainly added notoriety to produce.

The series’ writers allowed Kramer and Elaine to promote produce as not only a discussion topic but also a viable food option for the mainstream — and even for the “hip” (or, the “hipster doofuses,” in Kramer’s case).

Who could forget this “Seinfeld” moment? GEORGE: What’s in the BIG salad? JERRY: Big lettuce, big carrots, tomatoes like volleyballs…

The best part about produce being featured in a sitcom is I don’t think it cost the industry anything. However, if any produce associations paid Seinfeld to slip some produce references into the scripts, it couldn’t have been considered anything but money well spent.

Although I’m not seeing a lot of produce potential in the dialogues of popular sitcoms of today, such as “30 Rock” and “The Office,” perhaps it would be in the produce industry’s interest to slip Tina Fey a few Benjamin Franklins to ensure the next time she uses the line “I-want-to-go-to-there!” refers to her travels to a fruit stand or salad restaurant.

Still, I doubt the promotional value for produce would ever be more valuable than it was on “Seinfeld.” From Kramer’s radish roses, freshly prepared in his garbage-disposal-enhanced shower, to Elaine’s infatuation with the “big salad” at Monk’shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emWKg4vKLbU, to Jerry telling Newman “You wouldn’t eat broccoli if it was deep fried in chocolate sauce,” the moments — and their untold, hidden promotional value — proved priceless.

Perhaps the most prominent produce episode, of course, involved Kramer getting banned from his favorite fruit store, Joe’s, after complaining about a bad peach in “The Fruit Stand.” It featured plantains, papayas, avocados and plums “with the red on the inside.”

Of course, there was also the insinuation that mangoes are nature’s Viagra — at least for George, who exclaims, “I feel like I got a B-12 shot. This is like a taste explosion!”

Then, of course, Kramer enlists Jerry to purchase fruit at Joe’s for him and Kramer tries to educate Jerry on the particulars of picking prime produce while standing just outside Joe’s.

JERRY: All this? It’s too much. What do you need five mangoes for?

KRAMER: I like mangoes.

JERRY: Avocado? I don’t know how to pick out an avocado.

KRAMER: Well, they gotta be soft.

JERRY: How soft?

KRAMER: Not too soft. Better too hard than too soft.

JERRY: (looking over the list) I’m not going through this every week, I tell you that right now. And what are these? Plums? What is that?

KRAMER: Yeah … now, get the ones that are red on the inside.

JERRY: Uh-huh. Well, how do I know what they look like on the inside? What do they look like on the outside?

KRAMER: Oh, and get some plantains!

JERRY: Plantains?

KRAMER: Yeah.

JERRY: What the hell is a plantain?

KRAMER: It’s part of the banana family. It’s a delicacy.

JERRY: You’re not getting any plantains!

I can’t close without this parting shot from George:

“WELL, IT WAS A BIG SALAD! AND WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IS, HOW DOES A PERSON WHO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIG SALAD CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT SALAD AND ACCEPT THE THANK-YOU UNDER FALSE PRETENSES - AH — AH? … You know, if it was a regular salad I wouldn’t have said anything. But you had to have the BIG SALAD!”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtZ_mlNXVYU

Perhaps free produce promotion through sitcoms will come back in 2009 — or maybe it’s all just a big pipedream stuck somewhere in Seinfeld’s Bizarro World (Episode No. 137)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcjSDZNbOs0.

Unfortunately, the Bizarro World is the only place fresh produce industry officials can readily find a muscle-bound, 4% body-fat Newman using lemon zest to top his frozen yogurt just so he’s able to choke it down.

E-mail dgalbraith@thepacker.com

GALBRAITH'S PERSPECTIVES

PRODUCE MARKETERS SHOULD BACK OFF HEALTHFULNESS PUSH
By Dan Galbraith
From The Packer's April 14, 2008 edition

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — There’s a famous “Seinfeld” episode that repeats the line, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” and that buzz phrase pops into my mind as I look back at the April 3-5 Produce Marketing Association’s Consumer Trends ’08: A Produce Solutions Conference in Newport Beach, Calif.

Conference attendees already knew the product they’re selling is fresh and healthful, yet not as popular or as profitable as many food alternatives proven to be detrimental to health.

Fresh produce is healthy and that healthfulness is promotable — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but are produce industry marketing agents missing the point?

Possibly, if you listened to some of the conference speakers closely enough.

Harry Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, Port Washington, N.Y., for instance, spoke on “Eating Patterns in America: The Scoop on Who’s Really Eating What — Regardless of What They Say.”

That’s “scoop” — as in ice cream — one of many poor-nutrition foods Americans like to eat more than they like to eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

Perhaps the title of the speech should have been changed to “… Who’s Really Eating What — And Why” because Balzer stressed, among other things, that Americans said “eating light” was the main reason they ate a particular meal only 2% of the time.

That’s right — only 2 Americans in 100 said healthfulness was the major motivating factor behind a given meal. And that should have been quite an eye-opener.

What’s worse, when asked what they ate when they sought out a “light meal,” salads finished no higher than the middle of the Top 10 pack. And guess what: burgers topped the list.

It’s important to note that Balzer’s data is based on what Americans actually ate, not what they reported they ate.

Balzer also talked about how factors such as convenience and perceived value are most vital to Americans when they make their food choices.

Speaker Jim Perkins, president of ULATAM Retail Solutions, Chicago, talked about the importance of connecting with Hispanic consumers through responding to their culture “in a culturally relevant way regarding produce.”

Perkins emphasized the need to make packaging, store displays, advertising and store atmosphere both user-friendly and culturally appealing to Hispanics.

Except during the food safety seminar, I didn’t hear speakers equate factors such as healthfulness of the product and safety behind the product as money-makers.

We all know fresh produce ranks among the most healthful and safe types of food in the world. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But, for maximizing produce profitability, most conference speakers suggested maximizing taste and convenience messages to consumers.

In the vein of Taco Bell’s “Fourth Meal” promotion, perhaps produce industry marketers should take the emphasis off the healthfulness of the products they’re pushing and appeal to good ol’ American excess, for a change.

After all, the biggest trend in American eating is, that, well, we’re eating bigger and getting bigger around our waistlines.

Of course, excess is part of the American dream — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but can’t the fresh produce industry capitalize on this phenomenon instead of being victimized by it?

It sounds absurd, but how about a “Mass Quantities” produce promotion, with the old Saturday Night Live “Coneheads” as spokespeople, devouring entire heads of lettuce or entire bags of carrots?

Check the state-by-state statistics presented at the conference on obesity careening out of control and you should realize Americans are going to overeat, no matter how much nutrition education they get.

Fresh produce has long been food’s “good guy” — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but it’s apparent Americans prefer the “bad boy,” and Balzer’s presentation supports this fact (he concluded, “so health is a secondary factor” in American eating).

Chicken snack wraps, which Balzer dubbed “the hottest thing right now,” in foodservice, could wind up being a positive development because the wraps include fresh produce — lettuce and sometimes tomatoes.

If consumers could get into the habit of eating snack wraps now offered at places like McDonald’s and KFC without any dressing, it could be a positive development for the fresh produce industry.

Call me an anti-traditionalist, or call me crazy, if you will, but the fresh produce industry’s prior attempts to tout the nutrition and the relative low cost of their products hasn’t put fruits and vegetables at the top of any shopping list I’ve seen.

Especially now, when high input costs necessitated by food safety efforts and skyrocketing energy bills have taken away some of the produce industry’s price advantage, now is the time to promote produce taste any way possible.

In the real world — and in Harry Balzer’s statistical world — taste is the only true factor, other than convenience, that will drive what Americans eat through 2020 and beyond.

For fresh produce companies to survive in this world, they have to become aware of this food-trend knowledge, embrace it and adapt their marketing efforts to play to it.

That’s called making money off American excess, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

FOODSERVICE PITFALLS CAN COST LETTUCE GROWER-SHIPPERS
By Dan Galbraith
From The Packer's March 24, 2008 edition

To maximize profitability, it’s vital for grower-shippers and middlemen in produce deals to take care in partnering with the right people on the back end of the deal.

By “the right people,” I mean those at the retail and foodservice levels committed to taking proper care in serving customers and ensuring the chain of the deal doesn’t break.

A lunch at Boston Market I had recently, when I was served Market Chopped Salad Dressing with a “use before” date that was expired by almost three weeks, comes to mind.

Now, mind you, I’m anything but obsessive-compulsive about expired food.

However, this dressing was nearly three weeks past date and I felt obligated to say something to a manager, who then dropped the ball — not only for Boston Market and for me, as a customer, but for the unsuspecting grower-shippers and salad processors who probably won’t enjoy my future business.

When I mentioned the dressing’s expiration date, the manager told me she didn’t have any fresh Market Chopped Salad Dressing.

The manager told me not to worry about the dressing being out of date. She said that, previously, she had eaten expired Boston Market dressing and “it’s fine.”

Reluctantly, I ate the salad with the expired dressing because I felt I had no other option since I don’t like the taste of the other dressings and the manager didn’t offer me the option of a refund.

Of course, this was all wrong. The manager should have apologized for the mistake of serving me salad dressing that old, should have refunded my money and should have told all customers from that point on who ordered Market Chopped Salad that they could substitute another dressing, but otherwise, the Market Chopped Salad was unavailable until fresh dressing was delivered to the store.

It’s irresponsible and foolish for any restaurant to knowingly serve a food product past its expiration date.

With all the news in the last couple of years about people getting sick from salad products, including salads served at foodservice, it’s appalling to me this manager made no reasonable effort to diffuse this situation.

I hate to inadvertently punish the people involved in the front end of producing my salad because they really did nothing to wrong me; nevertheless, I doubt I’ll be returning to Boston Market.

Those future salad sales are lost, not because I got sick or was even too worried about getting sick, from the salad, but because I was displeased with the way one restaurant manager handled one situation.

Of course, there are plenty of my foodservice dollars to go around because I eat lunch out almost every weekday.

Lenny’s Sub Shop is a regional chain I had frequented until recently.

However, one day when Lenny’s was very busy, I waited in line with about two dozen other patrons for my favorite menu item, a chef salad.

I waited 10 to 15 minutes for my salad and found it was worth it, but then got turned off when a manager handed out “buy-one-get-one-free” coupons to people at every table but mine.

Lenny’s is usually big on customer service, shouting greetings to every customer as soon as they walk in, making sure an employee asks every customer how their meal is while they are dining, etc.

This time, when the employee asked me, I told him the salad was fine, but I didn’t get the coupon the manager handed out to everyone else, along with her apologies for taking so long to be served.

The employee returned five minutes later to regretfully inform me the manager was denying me a coupon because she was only handing those out to “customers who waited for their food a long time.”

I thought I had waited as long for my food as anyone else — after all, I didn’t get served out of turn or cut in line.

But here’s what really stuck in my craw: The manager didn’t even think me deserving of an explanation directly from her — she sent her employee back to take care of the matter, instead of taking care of the matter — and the customer — herself.

Denying a customer a “buy-one-get-one” coupon isn’t worth the risk of losing all of their future business and, therefore, damaging grower-shippers and salad processors’ ability to make money off the deal.

The moral of the story: It’s important for restaurant managers to remember “service” is an important part of the term “foodservice,” not only so they can maintain their sales, but also sustain positive working relationships with the people who provide them the fresh, tasty food in the first place.

It’s equally vital for those on the front end of produce deals to avoid “guilt by association” by being as particular with their foodservice partnerships as customers like me are with their restaurant choices.

E-mail dgalbraith@thepacker.com

PRODUCE VARIETY NAMES RUN GAMUT OF GODLY TO GHOULISH
By Dan Galbraith
From The Packer's Oct. 1, 2007 edition

The topic of variety — being the spice of life and all — has some lofty expectations to live up to.

The same goes for the plural form of the word, “varieties,” a hot topic in a recent Produce Pulse online survey, sponsored by The Packer.

Survey respondents exclaimed their excitement for specific varieties, touted the creativity used in creating names of varieties for fresh fruits and vegetables, and provided their input on what factors lead to the relative success or failure of a particular variety.

From the responses generated by the survey, it’s obvious that all links in the food chain agree that variety names and marketing of such are vital, and sometimes it’s a case of the wilder, the better.

Many survey respondents highlighted variety names for produce apparently with taste that’s out of this world … literally.

Grower-shipper-packers and retailers praised everything from saturn/UFO peaches to Mercury garden beans, marrs oranges and sunburst tangerines, galaxy nectarines and cosmic carrots.

There was even mention of varieties called blushing star and galexia, although I could find no evidence of what these are in The Packer archives or on the Internet.

There’s no truth to consumer rumors that these varieties need special irradiation. The consumers starting those rumors believe they have been abducted by aliens and that the aforementioned varieties actually come from outer space.

Besides looking to the sky and to astronomy for creative inspiration, those naming produce varieties also have looked to Greek mythology and have put their faith in association with heaven — and hell.

Participants in the Produce Pulse survey touted the creativity of variety names such as Aphrodite melons, cherub tomatoes, Hercules garden beans, Athena melons and Buddha’s Hand citrons. On the other side of the spectrum, there’s devil’s tongue hot peppers and supposedly lettuce by the same name, horned melons and, would you believe, Bull’s Blood beets?

I’m wondering if any fruit products touting names of deities have ever copped out and used the all-too-easy marketing slogan, “Nectar of the gods.”

Those in the produce industry like their variety names supersized as well as they like them supernatural, and those names work well, too, as Produce Pulse respondents noted variety names autumn king grapes and king kong plums among the most memorable.

What’s next for marketing of varieties? Varieties endorsed by and named after celebrities?

I guess there could be cause for “Devil Without A Cause” peaches, endorsed by fuzz-faced rock musician Kid Rock.

Or how about giving some tomato with a kick the “Lindsay Lohan” or “Britney Spears” variety label (I can see the slogan … “Now that’s one spicy tomato!”).

However, I know there are trademark and logistical issues that come into play when your endorser is in rehab or jail.

(I’ve just come up with another possible Lindsay Lohan- or Britney Spears-variety slogan … “Taste so good, it’s almost criminal!”)

I would think there would be no end to produce marketers who’d like to get their hands on Paris Hilton, but perhaps I should reword that.

You can talk about the reasons for more and more new varieties pushing the envelope as far as it will go, but bottom line, it’s all about reaching new customers.

Survey participants noted the obvious when they pointed out the major reason to create more varieties is to create more profit.

It was evident potato marketers had money on their minds when they came up with these “rich” produce variety names: Goldrush russets, klondike gold dust potatoes and Yukon Gems.

I agree with the few survey respondents who touted their favorite variety names as being noteworthy only for their colorful use of the English language — the Dapple Dandy and Flavor Grenade pluot.

I didn’t participate in this Produce Pulse survey, but it’s my opinion that some marketers need to be more careful when finalizing variety names that could provide some consumers with negative connotations.

For instance, I’m a fan of the NFL’s Chiefs and Broncos and can say, without fail, that no self-respecting football fan in Kansas City or Denver is ever going to buy Raider lettuce.

Smart produce marketers should want to do anything possible to avoid any association with Al Davis.

I’m also not touching grizzly spinach, which one survey respondent mentioned but I could find no evidence of elsewhere. I’ve already had more than my share of gristly hamburgers, and the only other connotation I get with this spinach product is the face of Grizzly Adams, the bearded mid-1970s film/television character, another image I don’t want in my mind when I’m preparing to eat.

Somehow, I think an even wider audience would have a problem shelling out hard-earned cash for a variety one survey respondent noted — something called “brain mushrooms,” which may or may not have been served as a side item in the second Indiana Jones movie.

However, with Harrison Ford, (possibly from a wheelchair?), working on the fourth installment of that popular series, perhaps there could be some brain mushroom cross-promotions in the offing?

Yes, I jest. But while it’s entertaining to make light of variety names and poke fun at some of them, at least I refrained from taking a stab at the pinata (apple).

MORE PRODUCE VENDING MACHINES NEEDED
By Dan Galbraith
From The Packer's July 23, 2007 edition

Not only do people love out of convenience and availability, they eat for those same reasons.

In college psychology classes, some of us learned the three most important factors increasing the odds that two people would fall in love: 1) proximity; 2) proximity; and 3) proximity.

While this phenomenon is overlooked by many searching for love in all the wrong places, it’s logical and true that a California woman’s chances of falling in love with a man living in the same apartment complex or even same vicinity are much greater than her chances of falling in love with, say, an Internet dating prospect in New York.

The same goes for fresh produce — if the industry wants children to “fall in love” with fruits and vegetable, why not pursue as many methods as possible of putting produce as near to children as possible?

That’s why the expanded effort to increase the number of fresh produce vending machines in U.S. schools (reported on Page A4 of the July 16 edition of The Packer) makes so much sense.

The fact that the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a joint initiative of the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation, and Dole Food Co. Inc. are collaborating on the expansion of this pilot program is not only a step in the right direction of diminishing childhood obesity, but is also something The Packer and the produce industry can applaud.

With the childhood obesity rate tripling in recent years by some estimates, it appears improbable that the foundation will stop ebb the tide of childhood obesity by 2010 as it aims to do.

However, a federally backed effort to supplement the efforts already being made privately will, without a doubt, make a serious impact.

HUNGER NOT A TOPIC FOR THE POLITICALLY CORRECT
By Dan Galbraith
From The Packer's Dec. 11, 2006 edition

Hunger, otherwise known by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service as “very low food security,” is not a topic for the faint of heart.

For those government officials who not only agreed to, but also stood behind, their word choice in the annual report “Household Food Security in the United States, 2005,” here’s a quick English language tutorial, courtesy of “Webster’s New World College Dictionary.”

Fainthearted means “cowardly, timid, shy” (See also: Trying to be politically correct in a report describing the food struggles faced by 35 million Americans).

Hunger means “the discomfort, pain, or weakness caused by a need for food.”

It’s that simple.

It’s cowardly and invalid for a government group to waste U.S. tax money by downplaying hunger’s effect. Watering down the term hunger does nothing to benefit those affected by it and, in fact, could limit charitable organizations’ efforts to help the hungry.

Hats off to Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive officer of America’s Second Harvest, Chicago, the nation’s food bank network, who said, “Words have meaning, and meaning matters. Referring to the state in which individuals and families do not have access to adequate food as anything other than hunger is simply demeaning.”

While the 2005 report provided some valuable information, any good that information may have done was eclipsed by the outrageous notion that political correctness could trump harsh reality and forthright truth.

USDA economist and report co-author Margaret Andrews’ argument that the word hunger can’t be pinned down to a specific meaning doesn’t hold water, especially considering that she also said it often stirs strong emotions.

How can a word be considered indefinable when it is so simply and clearly defined in the dictionary? And how can a word without a clear meaning stir emotion?

People don’t get angry about hunger, Ms. Andrews, or at least they don’t get angry enough about it. The nation and the world would be better if we did get mad about it.

What really angers people, though, is seeing injustice done and defended.

Trying to take negative spin off of a topic as undeniably ugly as hunger can do nothing but hamper the ability of food banks to motivate individuals and businesses to provide ample donations, particularly during the winter months.

The report could not have been timed more poorly, minimizing hunger’s impact just before the holidays, when Americans are most willing to give to worthy causes.

For more of Dan Galbraith's work, or more news and editorial coverage of the fresh produce industry, go to http://www.thepacker.com/

THERE'S PLENTY OF BLAME TO GO AROUND
By Dan Galbraith
From The Atchison Daily Globe's April 15, 2005 edition

With regard to the issue of school finance woes here, there's plenty of blame to go around.

Playing the blame game doesn't make the situation any easier for local teachers, administrators, students and taxpayers in general, but it seems appropriate.

Although state legislators have been the most targeted villains in the scenario that has some school officials wondering if they'll even have school -- let alone if they'll have to lay off teachers, increase class sizes and/or cut programs -- there are certainly plenty of other "bad guys."

They range from President George W. Bush and other national figures who have contributed to the decline of the American economy and education, to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, the Kansas Supreme Court and other idealists in the system demanding too much. Even Kansas voters should shoulder some of the blame.

The Legislature can take pride in the fact that the plan it has devised would add more new money to Kansas schools' payrolls since the current finance formula was originated back in 1992.

While the $127 million addition comes with numerous strings -- with schools having to use much of the money for specific, specialized programs -- it's at least an attempt to do a little something for public education.

If allowed to go into effect as law, the plan wouldn't revolutionize learning for Kansas kids, but it would at least apply a bandage to the bleeding suffered by northeast Kansas school districts in recent years.

It might allow Atchison-area schools, which are considered small and poor when compared to others in the state, a form of life support for another year, giving lawmakers and others more time to brainstorm how quadruple-bypass surgery might be done on the school finance system.

It's unfair to just turn our legislators into the scapegoats. Everybody from George W. Bush to the average Kansas resident should share the blame for how low our educational system has fallen.

Bush not only pushed for war in Iraq, costing the country billions of dollars that could have been more amply used for domestic programs such as education, he also championed the "No Child Left Behind" debacle that has helped get us into trouble.

Bush and other national politicians have also made poor policy decisions that have contributed to the explosion of fuel prices, not only weakening the U.S. economy in general, but also causing school operating costs to soar out of control.

Then, of course, there's Gov. Sebelius, the Kansas Supreme Court and others who have served as accessories to the school finance crime.

It's convenient for Sebelius to criticize the Legislature's plan at every opportunity, but then allow it to become law without her signature.

Meanwhile, the Kansas Supreme Court is doing its best in playing the role of "high and mighty," threatening lawmakers with strong-arm tactics and making unreasonable demands."

The key question is 'What is a suitable education?' and who is going to decide that?" USD 409 Superintendent Steve Pummel has said.

The Supreme Court would like to decide all of these things and more, yet it is unable to come up with clear, defined objectives that could actualize appropriate and useful mandates.

The Supreme Court also erred by refusing to comment on the Legislature's plan, before lawmakers finalized it or now -- after it has been passed and before it becomes law Saturday.

Previously, the court had taken an aggressive approach; now it backs off at the time it matters the most. If the court would have taken a stand one way or the other, giving some indication of what might happen next, it could have given our school boards and superintendents a heads-up.

A simple comment might have calmed teachers' fears of losing their jobs and parents' fears that Kansas' public schools might be shut down this fall. People like attorney Alan Rupe contribute to the negativity by imploring the court to reject the Legislature's proposal and force it to raise taxes.

Kansans, in general, should also share some of the burden for how school funding has gone wrong. We voted in the legislators and it is our own sense of fiscal irresponsibility in better economic times that has created the mess of this magnitude.

Kansas residents, forever complaining about high taxes, were all happy to wallow in budget surpluses several years ago. This mindset creates fear in legislators, who fully realize that if they vote for tax hikes of any kind, voters will not re-elect them.

It's reasonable to hope Kansas schools will end up in the black, but it's also important to recognize all the players in the blame game wearing clothing of that same color.

BLURRING DNA LINES RISKS VICTIMS' RIGHTS
By Dan Galbraith
From The Atchison Daily Globe's March 18, 2005 edition

The intentions are admirable -- to ensure criminals are held accountable.

But pushing the envelope on the boundaries of DNA data the way Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline suggests is a risky proposition -- for those Americans (including rape victims) who covet their privacy rights as granted them by the Constitution.

In an increasingly dangerous world of terrorist threats and escalating sexual violence, many would sacrifice rights to enhance safety.

But how far can we go before the DNA chalk lines are moved so far to the right and become so blurred that they no longer allow freedom we used to hold so dear?

DNA guidelines are being challenged this week in two matters -- one involving Kline's abortion clinic witch hunt; the other dealing with the rights of a man previously considered a suspect in the "BTK" murders.

Already, Kline appears to be backing off somewhat on his quest for legislation that would destroy the confidentiality of abortion clinic records.

Previously, Kline had said he had wanted full access to the records, including the names of those having abortions and sensitive medical information about them, because he wants an edge in prosecuting child rapists and doctors performing illegal, late-term abortions.

But on Wednesday, Kline clarified -- and appeared to soften -- his stance:

"We will never release the name of any woman or child who has received abortion services as we respect their privacy, as we do the privacy of all victims. The only people who are at risk of public exposure are those individuals who have raped innocent children or performed abortions not in compliance with Kansas law."

He added that such records "will be provided to the court, not to the attorney general's office," and Kline now says he has "offered to have the court remove the names or any identifying information from the files" before files are produced to him.

I'm as sympathetic to victims of child rape as anybody. In fact, I believe the current penalties are much too lenient.

But there are more effective ways to prosecute rape than the way Kline wants to do it.

Underage rape victims so embarrassed that they seek abortions in secrecy are not going to want to testify against abusive brothers or fathers at trial. If anything, Kline's proposal puts victims at risk of even more violent crime, such as murder.

DNA evidence can be compelling, but it's also important to look at the bigger picture. Many rapists are convicted with a limited amount or complete absence of DNA evidence. Tips to law enforcement, solid crime investigation techniques and testimony from family members and neighbors are what usually lock away criminals.

It's foolish to sacrifice victims' rights to prosecute offenders whose DNA could be obtained any way with probable cause established by witness testimony and other evidence.

If this Legislature passes, it is much more likely to cause Kansans to seek abortions outside state lines and expose victims of child rape to added endangerment than it is to increase the odds that rapists and unethical doctors are amply punished.

For those who don't see the risks of ideas like those proposed by Mr. Kline, consider Roger Valadez.

He's the man once accused of being the "BTK" killer, who is now asking that the DNA evidence taken from his mouth be destroyed. He's also among those wanting justification for the widening scope of DNA sweeps.

According to the AP, Valadez's mouth swab was just one of 1,300 DNA samples taken in the BTK investigation, and all that swabbing did little in comparison to what the AP dubbed "old-fashioned police work" in the capturing of suspect Dennis Rader.

Civil rights advocates appear justified in stating their outrage with regard to the blurring of the DNA lines. According to the AP, police in Miami collected 2,300 DNA samples while investigating the murder of six prostitutes back in 1994. And in November of 2004, Nebraska came under fire after unjustified racial profiling led to a DNA sweep targeting 32 black men in four rape cases. The men were later ruled out as suspects.

You may not care now, but only because you haven't yet been unjustly accused of a violent crime. I stress the word "yet."

Thanks to one new law, the AP reports that in 2008 California police will be able to take DNA from anyone arrested for a felony -- even those not convicted -- making for a situation that promotes trumped-up felony charges.

Kind of makes you wonder if the DNA chalk lines are being blurred or completely washed away.

EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW, I LEARNED IN LITTLE LEAGUE
By Dan Galbraith
Originally published in The Holton Recorder newspaper

It has occurred to me that the start of the youth league ball season has more significance than most people realize.

The children on today's sandlots will, after all, become tomorrow's adults. And they're just now learning some of the important life lessons many of us older folks seem to forget.

Many of my peers try to convince me that they learn something new every day, but I truly believe that everything I really needed to know, I learned in Little League.

For benefit of my fellow adults, especially those parents who might be chewing out young ones and umpires with fervor, I thought I would provide these few little reminders.

This is what I learned in Little League:

* Share, cooperate. Only rarely can an individual make all of the outs in an inning, score all the runs in a game, or achieve success in life without benefit of a "teammate."

* Get accustomed to using all of your playing equipment. This means your head and your body as well as your bat and your glove.

* In baseball and in life, sometimes being the superstar means doing little things right.

* Keep yourself open to all the possibilities. Sometimes it's the kid picked last for the team who ends up driving home the winning run.

* Don't drop the ball. Everybody's counting on you.

* At the plate as well as in life, always swing hard ... on the off-chance you actually make a connection.

* Look at things in a different perspective every so often. That little kid rounding the bases in reverse order always seems to be the happiest one of the whole bunch.

* In baseball and in life, be sure to know your enemy ... and, if at all possible, shake his hand.

* Physical mistakes are bad, but in baseball and in life, it's always the mental errors that really kill you.

* Remember that success is 90 percent participation and 10 percent perspiration.

* In fielding ground balls and in life, never hesitate. The bad hop is always the last hop -- the one you could have eliminated if you had been more aggressive.

* In fielding fly balls and in life, it's always better to position yourself so you'll be going forward.

* Remember that you can never outrun some things. Like the ball. Or a determined woman with enough of a grudge ... particularly an angry wife or mother who has it in for you because, once again, you forgot to take out the trash.

* Be able to distinguish the difference between style (Barry Bonds) and substance (Willie Mays).

* When you're in a bad situation, don't think of it as being "caught in a pickle." Instead, consider it an opportunity to develop moxie.

* In baseball and in life, always run out your ground balls. You never know who might be watching.

* Respect your parents. They're probably the only ones who will be patting you on the back if you get caught wandering off base, in baseball or in life.

* Always go down swinging.

* Love what you do, even if you aren't too skilled at it. Who knows ... if you aren't good enough to play sports for a living, you just might end up being able to write about them.

Yeah, everything I really needed to know, I learned in Little League. I just wish my batting average in T-ball would have held up in the big league otherwise known as real life.

BERRA, STENGEL REALLY DIDN'T SAY EVERYTHING THEY SAID
Famous quotes by baseball legend Yogi Berra

* Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.

* Think!?! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?

* You can observe a lot by watching.

* It's deja vu all over again.

* We made too many wrong mistakes.

* It ain't over 'til it's over.

* If the people don't want to come out to the park, nobody's going to stop them.

* I usually take a two-hour nap, from 1:00 to 4:00.

* I really didn't say everything I said.

Famous quotes by baseball legend Casey Stengel

* The secret to managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.

* Being with a woman never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.

* You make your own luck. Some people have bad luck all their lives.

* Good pitching will always stop good hitting, and vice versa.

* I heard it couldn't be done, but it don't always work.

IT'S TIME FOR BASEBALL TO FORGIVE 'SHOELESS' JOE JACKSON
By Dan Galbraith
Originally appeared in The Holton Recorder newspaper

Major league baseball was rocked by the 1919 "Black Sox Scandal," in which members of the Chicago White Sox ball club conspired with gamblers to purposely lose the World Series.

The American public has forgiven baseball for its many impurities - the strikes and ticket hikes and dome stadiums. Why can't baseball finally give back something to America and forgive "Shoeless" Joe Jackson?

After all, this is "the land of the free and the home of the brave" - or so they sing of it before every game I have ever attended. This is a nation of immigrants, of poor and huddled masses. We're all about second chances.

But it has been almost 90 years since Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis banished Jackson from the major leagues he so loved and so dominated during the 1910s.

Say it is so, baseball. Say you'll lift the ban and put Jackson's name on the Hall of Fame ballot. We could use a good comeback story right now.

Hoards of baseball gurus beg for Pete Rose's reinstatement, but Jackson should be first.

Without a doubt the greatest pure hitter of all-time -- and that includes Ted Williams, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb -- Jackson's absence from Cooperstown is an even greater disgrace than the one in which Jackson allegedly played a role back in 1919. This is the man who served as Ruth's role model.

It's probably true that Jackson accepted $5,000 (he had been promised four times that amount) to help facilitate Cincinnati's winning of the World Series.

Jackson wasn't a bright man, except when he stood at home plate with his "Black Betsy" bat, so named because Jackson's beloved pine turned a dark color after he treated it with fire to make it extra hard.

Although he could hit the dead ball of that era better than anyone, owning the No. 3 career batting average in major league history (.356), Jackson was known to be illiterate and ignorant of most everything lying outside the base lines.

He simply didn't know any better and he desperately needed the money to which he was rightfully entitled because of his great playing skill and because his club's owner, Charles Comiskey, was so tight-fisted that he wouldn't pay his players what they deserved - or even what he had promised them.

Is this justification for Jackson to take a bribe to throw the World Series? Certainly not. But baseball is no moral institution. The Hall of Fame is filled with cheats, liars, racists, alcoholics and womanizers - and men who have committed even more brutal crimes than those Jackson could conceive or comprehend.

Cobb, one of the game's biggest bigots, was once caught gambling along with another all-time great player, Tris Speaker. That was the least of Cobb's indiscretions. Even our beloved Ruth, credited with saving baseball from the scandal caused by Jackson and his teammates, got caught a time or two with his pants down ... literally.

And still the question remains ... Did Jackson actually try to throw the World Series? Sure, there are those who claimed the outstanding outfielder pulled up early on looping line drives he may have caught other times. But was that trying to throw the World Series or simply postseason jitters?

After all, Jackson finished the World Series with a .375 batting average and a then-record 12 hits. Furthermore, he was not officially charged with a fielding error.

"Shoeless" Joe would be worth $20 million a year of any organization's money today. As famed sports writer Damon Runyon once put it, Jackson "could drive a ball farther with the breeze on his missed strikes than most ball players can send it off their bats."

Jackson has already been immortalized in "Field of Dreams," but excluding him from the Hall of Fame any longer is, as Jackson's wife deemed the Black Sox scandal, "an awful thing to do."

NAPKIN TECHNIQUE
By Damon Runyon
1940 New York Daily Mirror column on Joe Jackson

The napkin in the lap has its staunch adherents. They are mostly skinny persons. However, we think that even they will concede the superiority of the napkin in the collar when they are advised of the origin of the napkin in the lap as explained by William Moffit. Mr. Moffit states that the napkin in the lap was born of skullduggery. He says it goes back to a most corrupt era in England in the 18th century, when Walpole was Prime Minister.

It seems that Walpole used to like to pass a little money around among his deserving political followers, especially those in the social set. He would give big dinners and the guests would find theirs in the folded napkins. It was much more genteel than just taking them into the powder room or up an alleyway and handing it to them in an envelope.

Before Walpole introduced this classy method of taking care of the boys, the napkin in the collar was the vogue. But naturally a guest at a Walpole dinner soon got leery of shaking out his napkin preparatory to unfurling it 'neath his second chin, lest he inadvertently strike a lady across the table in the eye with a flying pound sterling.

That would have caused gossip. The guests soon learned to drop the napkins unfolded in their laps and to transfer the packet to the pocket from there. As they were the hot men of society in those days, the rabble got the idea that this was the proper place to wear the napkin, and thus the napkin in the lap became a custom which endures to this day in many circles.

We do not recall any notable discoveries in napkins in our time, but we remember when some big league baseball players got to finding money under their pillows. It was wrong money, as it turned out. Twenty-one years ago, come next World Series, it was. The Cincinnati Reds had won the National League championship and were opposed to the Chicago White Sox of the American League and the Sox were as good a ball club as ever was mobilized and figured to massacre the Reds. Then gamblers made a deal with important members of the Sox to throw the Series. The ball players put it over, too. They were paid various amounts, the sum total a mere pittance compared to what the gamblers won, and when the expose came and the players had to explain where they got the money, some of them said they found it under their pillows. The explanation was deemed implausible. In those days, practically nobody was going around placing anything under anybody's pillow.

The guilty ball players were given the hoovus-groovus from baseball for the rest of their lives. Among them were some of the greatest players that ever laced on cleated shoes -- Buck Weaver, a third baseman, for one, and "Shoeless Joe" Jackson for another. "Shoeless Joe," as he was then, would now be worth $300,000 of any ball club's money. He was the greatest natural hitter we ever saw, not barring Babe Ruth or the mighty Ty Cobb.

Against the lively ball of today, "Shoeless Joe" would be hitting 'em across townships. He could hit .350 when he was just clowning and better .400 when he was serious. You talk about hitters -- why that old "Shoeless Joe" could drive the ball farther with the breeze on his missed strikes than most ball players can send it off their bats. Ask anybody that ever saw him in action, or look up the book on him.

We felt sorrier for Joe than for any of the others. He was not a smart fellow except at the plate. There he was the wisest man in the world. We do not remember now where he said he found his bit of wrong money. Maybe he was one of the pillow men. It is a cinch he did not find it in his napkin because "Shoeless Joe" was strictly a devotee of the napkin in the collar, a fact that causes us to doubt that the napkin there, protective and democratic though it may be, is always the badge of complete integrity.

DAN GALBRAITH'S BLOG

Friday, March 20, 2009

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