Take This Tune

Posted: Monday, February 14, 2011 by Travis Cody in
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A few weeks ago, my pal Jamie from Duward Discussion reintroduced her wonderful weekly feature.  Take This Tune provides a musical prompt each week, usually a video with the song lyrics.  The task is to write something inspired by the song or something in the lyrics. 

Regrettably, this week Jamie announced that this is the final regular TTT prompt.  She'll bring it back occasionally at Duward Discussion, but its presence as a weekly feature has ended.  I've enjoyed participating because the prompts combine music and writing, two of my favorite things.

This final prompt is the song Red Dirt Girl, a song written by Emmylou Harris.  Jamie says, "This is a beautiful but terribly sad song about two girls with dreams.  One made hers come true.  The other completely lost her way.  Your challenge is to Take This Tune and tell us about choices and outcomes."

I decided some time ago that I would not let popular convention dictate my decisions.  I don't follow fashionable trends or fads, no matter what they are.  I don't take the popular position, or the position of the majority, just to get a win.

I think.  I research.  I discuss.  I match my morality against the options.  I try to apply tests of fairness and reasonableness.  I ask myself what I want, and how does the data support or deny that desire.

Then I decide.

The degree of importance of any choice doesn't really change my process.  You might not think that there is a morality question involved when deciding where to grab a quick bite to eat.  

You'd be wrong to think that.


The WinShape Foundation is the charitable arm of the Chick-fil-A restaurant franchise.  The foundation is on record actively supporting the denial of equal rights to the LGBT community.

We don't always know the morality inherent in an organization.  It may not be something that occurs to us on a daily basis.  But it's there.  When you know the nature of that morality, does it matter to you?  Does the knowledge of that morality, and its measurement against your own, impact your decision whether to spend your dollars?


What's the impact of a decision not to purchase from a company whose morality doesn't align with your own?  These companies employ people.  Can we separate the corporate morality from the jobs it creates?

If you eat at Chick-fil-A, does that mean your morality can absorb discrimination against gays?  If you don't eat there, does that mean your morality is indifferent to people losing their jobs?  


Should those questions even come up?


Sheesh.  What really is the price of a chicken sandwich? 

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous says:
    14 February, 2011 04:30

    I admit that when I patronize a company or firm, I don't check out their moral stance. But when I find something out that doesn't agree with me and I feel strongly about it, I vote with my pocketbook.

    I didn't know that about Chick-Fil-A. I don't do business with them anyway. They don't offer a product that interests me. So, it's no loss to them.

    You're right. It is a tough decision. People can lose jobs because of boycotts. But that's the free market. I do not take that decision lightly.

  1. Akelamalu says:
    14 February, 2011 04:37

    Like Lois if I find out something about a company that doesn't resonate with me I no longer patronise them.

    Thougth provoking post Trav.

  1. Charles Gramlich says:
    14 February, 2011 06:38

    I think one problem these days is that most companies have their fingers in so many pies that it's hard to know where they end. I might chose not to support a particular company but I buy product X at the store and find out only later that X is made by some subsidiary of the company I'm not supporting. This has happened to me a couple of times. I do send letters and emails to companies related to their policies at times, though.

  1. Vinny "Bond" Marini says:
    14 February, 2011 11:24

    I honestly did not know they held that position. I am a so-so fan of their chicken sandwich (though I love their chicken biscuit for breakfast), but I might...MIGHT...pass them by when trying to decide where to eat.

    This saddens me that they support this lousy cause.

  1. Durward Discussion says:
    14 February, 2011 16:57

    Excellent thought provoking answers and I truly appreciate your support on Take This Tune. I hope that by putting it on Durward Discussion every once in a while it might garner more interest. In the meantime we always have 5 on Friday. :-)

  1. Coco says:
    15 February, 2011 05:24

    I never thought about morals influencing our choice of fast food restaurant but I realized that my son and I frequent Wendy's in part for that reason. (We also prefer their healthy menu choices, but that's not the point here.)

    See, the Dave Thomas Foundation actively supports and promotes adoption in Canada. (Do they do that in the USA, too?) In this province alone, there are more than 6000 kids between the ages of 3 and 15 waiting to be adopted. For such a small population (approximately 755,000), that number is inconceivable. My son is adopted and it was the best thing that I ever did. For obvious reasons, this is my own personal soapbox. Every time we go to Wendy's, the paper placemat on the tray reminds me that there are other kids out there still waiting. Blood is not thicker when it comes to this. When a child places his life in the palm of your hand, you place your heart in theirs. I guess that's about as close as I can get to describing how adoption feels. I just wish everyone felt that way about their kids.

    But that's fodder for a different rant ...

  1. j says:
    15 February, 2011 11:58

    *Type*type*type*

    *Backspace*backspace*backspace*

    Yikes Travis, this one was hard to leave a comment on. Let me just say I eat at places that support same sex families and places that don't support same sex families. I don't think either choice makes me good or bad, just hungry.

  1. TopChamp says:
    19 February, 2011 10:09

    I don't know where I'd stand on that. I heard last week about the different green movements linked large controversial companies (like Nestle). I suppose you just weigh up the pros and cons.

    I have a friend (pls note this is pretty much the opposite of moral!) who won't shop at Pret any more because he found out the organisation they use to donate their uneaten sandwiches at the end of a day is a Christian organisation that provides ministry along with the food.

    For him - the preaching outweighs the bit where they feed starving people.

    Crazy.

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