Hardee's ad in good spirit

Shelter Inc.'s demand for an apology about Hardee's "The Six Dollar Burger. Around $3.95" place mat takes the issue a step too far. The place mat lists 38 suggestions for what you can do with the $2 you will save when purchasing the burger for $3.95. "Make a homeless person really happy" follows "replace your shoelaces" on the list. This ad hardly comes close to many others we see everyday on television and print media that are obviously degrading to various groups of people.\nThere is little need for Hardee's to make a public apology for an advertisement that isn't even close to being as offensive as so many others.\nBut a local homeless shelter feels otherwise.\n"Is this to say that you can make a homeless person really happy for the same price as it takes to replace your shoelaces?" asked Cortne O'Neil, executive director of Shelter, Inc., in a letter to The Herald-Times asking Hardee's to rescind the article and apologize. The letter was signed by more than 100 people.\n"Wow, that's hard to believe. The piece is meant to be humorous and, if anything, it draws positive attention to the homeless," said Larry Brayman, director of corporate affairs for Hardee's in St. Louis.\nO'Neil and others also protested that putting such a statement in a humorous context further added to the humiliating aspect of the advertisement.\nCertainly, $2 cannot be expected to make a homeless person happy. And the plight of the homeless is not to be trivialized. But improving the living situation of the homeless should be placed in the hands of concerned citizens.\nTo the general public, the suggestion may not be so much humorous as it is thought-provoking.\nMany have had the experience of a person on the street asking them for change. The image of a person smiling as he accepts $2, at least, creates a more inspiring reason to give.\nThe reality of insensitivity toward the homeless is sometimes more brutal than humorous. Often, the response to, "can you spare some change?" is, "get a job." The homeless are often thought of as people who are too lazy to get work rather than to individuals who, in a set of unique circumstances, have found themselves without work and a place to live -- and therefore are needy.\nThat this advertisement offends is as if to say that any advertisement to give to the homeless is potentially humiliating. It all depends on how deeply one wishes to take the offense. At the bare minimum, the Hardee's place mat, at least, emboldens a sense of positive spirit in giving to the homeless.