The Conservative Cave

Restaurant chain Cracker Barrel on Thursday announced reorganizational and leadership changes that included dropping the consulting firm that was behind its controversial interior and logo changes.

Cracker Barrel faced heavy backlash earlier this year over the changes, which included a new logo that removed "Uncle Herschel" from it in favor of a text-only design. The company has since pulled both the revamped interior and logo.

Julie Masino will retain her role as the company's CEO and president, but the chain promoted other corporate employees to more prominent positions and brought back a former employee who will oversee its menu strategy.

The Fraternal Order of Police in Charlotte-Mecklenburg is requesting that the National Guard be deployed in the city to help them get crime under control.

Well, that is a twist I didn't see coming.

I didn't see it coming, though, at least partly because murders in the City of Charlotte have become so common that 15 murders have been committed since the horrific attack on Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte light rail on August 22nd. 42 days ago, and none have gotten the kind of attention that hers did.

Things are worse there than I imagined.

Ironically, violent crime is down since last year, and no doubt local officials, who have so far not echoed the FOP's request, will point to that statistic as proof that the National Guard is not needed. What they won't add to that statistic is that the department is grossly understaffed and the murder rate is rising again. 15 in 42 days is quite the clip--that's about half the number of murders in New York City in the month of September, and New York City is about 9x as large.

American Eagle Outfitters’ chief executive has defended the retailer’s ad campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, saying the company will not retreat in the face of public criticism.

“You can’t run from fear,” CEO Jay Schottenstein said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We stand behind what we did.”
The campaign, which launched in late July, spotlighted the 27-year-old actress, best known for her roles in “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus,” modeling the brand’s denim line.
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The wordplay drew accusations from some critics who claimed the ads carried undertones of racism, sexism, or eugenics. The company declined to alter or withdraw the campaign.

Schottenstein, an Orthodox Jew, said he was surprised by such associations. He noted that his own family had endured the impact of Nazi Germany and said that if he and his team felt the campaign would be offensive in that way, “we never would’ve done it.”

The strategy appears to have benefited the company. Between July and September, the campaign helped attract nearly 1 million new customers, as reported by the Journal.