Tag: Hero

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Business

Pizza Was the Restaurant Hero of 2020

Pizza Was the Restaurant Hero of 2020

A few times a week, Elizabeth Reninger strolls to lunch at a pizza place near her job. She orders the same thing every time: a slice of cheese and chips for $ 6. For a little adventure, she sprinkles parmesan and paprika flakes on top.

Before the coronavirus pandemic hit the country, Ms. Reninger, a criminology student at Northern Arizona University who also works at a dog daycare, estimated that she only ate pizza once every few months. That changed late last summer when she strolled into a pizzeria with slices and ice cream.

“Maybe the warm, sticky cheese is a kind of comfort food for me with the pandemic,” Ms. Reninger said. “I go a couple of times a week, maybe three times a week, which is kind of embarrassing.”

For many Americans, pizza has been a perfect pandemic option, a comfort meal for a time that is far from pleasant. Whether it’s a thin crust version topped with fresh vegetables or a filled crust tart piled with sausage and hot peppers, pizza has ticked a lot of boxes in those strange times, mostly because it’s easy on the way and light – sometimes quite inexpensive – can feed a whole family. In the first nine months of 2020, Domino and Papa John’s combined revenues soared that they roughly equaled sales of about 30 million more large cheese pizzas than the previous year.

In a year when restaurants across the country struggled to stay afloat and many were unable to cover rent payments and pay employees due to government-mandated closings, those who split pizza fared Generally better. According to Technomic, a research and consulting company in the food industry, sales of pizza rose by up to 4 percent in the past year. Pizza and chicken are the only food categories expected to grow.

“The overall pizza category was a big winner,” said Sara Senatore, an analyst who covers restaurants in Bernstein. Ms. Senatore noted that it may have turned into a meal for families on tight budgets due to falling wages or lost jobs.

For big pizza chains like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and the privately owned Little Caesars, the pandemic turned out to be a sales boon. Technomic said the four controlled 43 percent of the $ 44 billion market that fell into the pandemic. Some analysts say the big chains, most of which have not yet reported fourth quarter profits, have almost certainly gained more market share because of their size, hiring additional problems like paying rising prices for cheese and other ingredients Cope with help or rent coverage better after particularly lean weeks as an independent pizzeria owner.

For the first nine months of last year, combined sales at Domino and Papa John grew nearly 12 percent, or $ 434 million. Pizza Hut revenues were slightly below 2019 levels over the same period. The chain was in the middle of a turnaround plan as it faced closings and restrictions related to Covid at its restaurants across the country. Even frozen pizza did well during the pandemic. According to NielsenIQ, sales rose almost 21 percent to over $ 6 billion.

“Pizza was the perfect food for the pandemic, but I think it’s the perfect food for all time, too,” said Ritch Allison, chief executive officer of Domino’s, who immediately saw double-digit sales growth in the same store in the US last year Spring. Last year, Domino stock rose 40 percent to $ 385 per share. In the fall of 2008 it was trading at a low of $ 3.

“We are fortunate to have entered the pandemic,” said Allison, noting that the company has a robust delivery service and has invested in its digital capabilities over the past decade.

But as demand increased during the pandemic, Domino rushed to hire 30,000 people. increased the production of fresh dough sent to all of its locations; and there was an occasional shortage of ingredients as meat producers closed their facilities due to coronavirus outbreaks. TV commercials, which typically take months to plan and shoot, were re-started within days to allow drivers to wear masks during deliveries.

Mr Allison said his company has also gotten pretty nimble to respond to pandemic customer behavior. When cheeseburgers and tacos were also found to be popular pandemic options, two specialties were quickly made: cheeseburgers and chicken tacos. Both are going to be big sellers, Allison said.

“My new favorite is the chicken taco, and I’m adding extra jalapeños to give it a zipper,” he added.

The pandemic has devastated the catering industry overall. Last year, more than 68,000 restaurants closed permanently, with buffets, French bistros and soup and salad bars being hardest hit, according to Datassential. 11,000 restaurants were opened during the pandemic. Pizzerias led the way with almost 2,000 openings.

Justin Morse and his partners were hoping to have their version of escargot (served in small baking cases with salt crackers) and steak fries for guests when they opened Brasserie Brixton, a cozy 45-seat French bistro in Denver in July. However, they grew increasingly nervous as the city’s food restrictions increased in late fall, and they were unable to apply for government assistance programs like the paycheck protection program due to no evidence of any loss of revenue.

Mr. Morse and his co-owners knew they had to focus on delivery. When they realized that items like French onion soup didn’t travel very well, they made a U-turn. On Thanksgiving weekend, they built and installed a wood stove.

“Which industry is already set up for delivery and take-away? Pizza, ”said Mr. Morse. “We said, ‘Let’s imitate an industry that people are already familiar with in terms of delivery and take-away. ‘“While their restaurant, temporarily renamed (Le) Brix Pizza & Wine, offers a classic Margherita pizza, it also sells pizzas with a French flair. One comes with white anchovies and thyme and one with potatoes, crème fraîche and rosemary.

“We don’t sell enough pizzas to cover all costs, but it’s better than the alternative,” said Mr Morse, who supplies most of the pizzas himself. He said the group hopes to get back to French cuisine in a few months but is considering continuing the pizza business elsewhere.

Domino’s Mr Allison said he believes demand for pizza will remain robust even after the pandemic ends.

“We were given the opportunity to serve many new customers during the pandemic who had never or had not ordered from us for a long time,” he said. “We hope we have done a great job of serving them and that they will become loyal customers.”

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Business

In Myanmar Coup, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Ends as Neither Democracy Hero nor Navy Foil

In Myanmar Coup, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Ends as Neither Democracy Hero nor Military Foil

During the years when Myanmar was intimidated by a military junta, people hid secret photos of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, talismans of the heroine of democracy who would save their country from a fearsome army despite being under house arrest.

But after she and her party won historic elections in 2015 and last year through a landslide that cemented civilian government and her own popularity in Myanmar, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was seen by the outside world as something entirely different: as a fallen patron saint, the had made a Faust pact with the generals and no longer deserved their Nobel Peace Prize.

In the end, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 75, was unable to protect her people or appease the generals. On Monday, the military, which had ruled the country for nearly five decades, took power again in a coup d’état and disrupted the governance of their National League for Democracy after just five years.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, along with her top ministers and a number of pro-democracy figures, were arrested in a raid before dawn. The round-up of the military’s critics continued until Monday evening, and the country’s telecommunications networks were constantly disrupted.

Government billboards across the country still carried their image and that of their party’s struggling peacock. But the army, under Major General Min Aung Hlaing, was again responsible.

The disappearance of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who represented two completely different archetypes in front of two different audiences at home and abroad, proved that she was unable to do what so many expected: a political balance with the military with whom she shared power.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi lost the military’s ear when she halted negotiations with General Min Aung Hlaing. And by defending the generals in their ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims, she lost the trust of an international community that had campaigned for them for decades.

“Aung San Suu Kyi dismissed international critics, claiming that she was not a human rights activist but a politician. But the sad part is, she wasn’t very good at it either, ”said Phil Robertson, assistant Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “It failed a major moral test by covering up the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya. But detente with the military never materialized, and their landslide election victory is now being undone by a coup. “

President Biden made a strongly worded statement in the first test of his response to a coup designed to turn a democratic election upside down, which appeared to be different from the way his predecessor handled human rights issues.

“In a democracy, violence should never attempt to override the will of the people or attempt to obliterate the outcome of a credible election,” he said, using language similar to his own after the January 6 siege of the US Capitol Choice to overthrow. He called on the nations to “come together with one voice” to urge the military in Myanmar to give up power immediately.

“The United States takes note of those standing together with the people of Burma at this difficult hour,” he added, using the former name for Myanmar as it is still used by the US government.

The speed at which Myanmar’s democratic era was disintegrating was staggering, even for a country that had been under direct military rule for almost half a century and spun with coup rumors for days.

In November, its National League for Democracy put pressure on the military’s proxy party as many voters once again selected Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political force as the best and only weapon to contain the generals. Her army placement for the past five years has been viewed by some as political jujitsu rather than appeasement.

The military, which retained significant power in the “discipline of flourishing democracy” that it had designed, complained of mass fraud. On January 28th, representatives of General Min Aung Hlaing sent a letter to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi ordering a recount and a delay in the opening of parliament.

The military’s takeover of full power on Monday went hand in hand with a year-long state of emergency declaration that shattered any illusions that Myanmar was providing the world with an example of democracy on the rise, however flawed it may be.

“She’s the only person who can stand up to the military,” said U Aung Kyaw, a 73-year-old retired teacher. “We would all have voted for her forever, but today is the saddest day of my life because she’s gone again.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had close ties with the best of the military from the start, and her National League for Democracy was formed in alliance with senior military officials. After emerging from house arrest in 2010, she often dined with a former junta member who had imprisoned her.

Her followers said the coziness was more than Buddhist equanimity or political tactics. The daughter of the founder of the modern Myanmar army, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, has publicly said that she has a great affection for the military.

When the military stepped up its attack on Rohingya Muslims in 2017, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi appeared to display a synchronicity of emotions with the generals that exceeded mere political benefit.

According to United Nations investigators, the slaughter and village burnings, in which three quarters of a million members of the Muslim minority fled to neighboring Bangladesh, were carried out with genocidal intent. At the International Court of Justice in 2019, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who served as Myanmar Foreign Minister and State Advisor, dismissed the violence as an “internal conflict” in which the army may have used disproportionate force.

Her tone towards the Rohingya seemed almost scornful, and she followed the example of the military in not mentioning her name so that her identity would not become human.

“Some will be tempted to believe that she has unsuccessfully enlisted in the military, that she has defended and still lost genocide for political favor,” said Matthew Smith, founder of Fortify Rights, a human rights watchdog. “Aung San Suu Kyi did not defend the military in court to maintain the balance of power. She defended the military as well as her own role in the atrocities. She was part of the problem. “

Even when Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi apologized to the military for decades of persecution, her relationship with General Min Aung Hlaing was frayed, according to her advisors and retired military officials. Her increasing popularity with Myanmar’s Buddhist majority has been increasingly viewed as a threat by the generals, and she has not spoken to the army chief in at least a year – a dangerous silence in a country where politics is deeply personal.

The normal precedent was that General Min Aung Hlaing, whose family and acolytes benefited from his decade in power, should relinquish his position as army chief in 2016. He extended his term and vowed to retire for good this summer.

Due to the poor communication between the commander in chief and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, it became increasingly difficult for him to secure an outcome in which his patronage network would survive, military and political analysts said. General Min Aung Hlaing announced through his proxy that he may also have political ambitions. Some even announced his name as president, a position Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is constitutionally prohibited from holding.

After the coup on Monday, the army chief will have ultimate authority in his hands for at least a year after the coup on Monday. You have put yourself back into full relevance, no matter how many voters chose Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. By Monday evening, the army had announced the outline of a new cabinet staffed with active and retired military officers.

The brazen return of the military is a reminder that despite all of the abuses Myanmar’s general coupling committed during its decades-long takeover – systematic repression of ethnic minorities, massacres of pro-democracy demonstrators, dismantling of a once promising economy – not a single high-ranking military officer came before Court fully accountable.

Barbara Woodward, the United Nations Ambassador to Britain, who holds the presidency of the Security Council in February, said the council would meet on Tuesday on the crisis in Myanmar. “We want to have as constructive a discussion as possible and examine a number of measures,” she said, and she would not rule out possible sanctions against the putschists.

“We want to respect the democratic will of the people again,” the ambassador told reporters.

In Washington, Mr Biden’s testimony clearly indicated that the US government would also consider reimposing sanctions if the coup was not reversed. The United States had “lifted sanctions against Burma over the past decade as a result of progress made towards democracy.”

However, some officials, who spoke in the background because they were not authorized to speak to the press, noted that the effects of Western sanctions could be cushioned by China, even if they were restored. Chinese telecom giant Huawei is building Myanmar’s 5G telecom networks over US objections, and China has dominated dam, pipeline and energy project construction.

On Monday, as dusk fell on a nation still in shock from the military takeover, the old fears and survival tactics resurfaced, untrained but still in muscle memory. Individuals took their flags from the National League for Democracy. You spoke in code.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Minister of Health, appointed by the National League for Democracy, submitted his resignation “according to the evolving situation”. In the evening, the military began rounding up the National League for Democracy legislators from their homes in the capital, Naypyidaw.

“We are concerned that the military will cast a wider web of their arrests,” said Smith of Fortify Rights. “I’m afraid we’re only just seeing the first stage.”

Late on Monday afternoon, U Ko Ko Gyi, a former student democracy activist who had spent more than 17 years in prison, posted on Facebook that he had so far evaded the magnet that had captured high-ranking politicians.

But he took a family photo as a precaution, he wrote. He said goodbye. His children didn’t know what was going on.

“I have to do what I have to do,” wrote Ko Ko Gyi. “Let’s face it tomorrow.”

David E. Sanger contributed to coverage from Washington.

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Entertainment

Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Has a Black Hero. In Denmark, a White Actor Dubs the Voice.

Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Has a Black Hero. In Denmark, a White Actor Dubs the Voice.

COPENHAGEN – Like most of their peers around the world, Danish film critics first hailed “Soul,” Pixar’s first animated feature film that enthusiastically focused on black characters and African American culture, and praised the sensitive, joyful portrayal of a jazz musician on a quest for one meaningful life.

The film has been described as “a miracle” by one reviewer in Denmark and “beautiful and life-giving” by another.

What the Danish press, by and large, initially failed to focus on was the race of the characters. However, that changed after the film was released on December 25th, when the knowledge spread that the Danish-language version had been dubbed mainly by white actors. This is also the case in many other European-language versions of “Soul”.

While the movie’s voice-over casting is barely public knowledge in most countries, in Portugal more than 17,000 have signed a petition asking Pixar to redesign the local edition with color cast members. “This film is not just another film, and representation is important,” the petition said.

Joe Gardner, the main character in “Soul”, is Pixar’s first black protagonist. The studio took steps to accurately portray African American culture by hiring Kemp Powers as co-director and establishing a “cultural trust” to ensure the authenticity of the story. Actor Jamie Foxx, who voices Joe in the English-language original, told the New York Times: “Playing the first black lead in a Pixar movie feels like a blessing.” (To make matters worse, due to various plot machinations, Joe is voiced by Tina Fey for a decent portion of the film, a decision that has generated some criticism.)

In the Danish version, Joe is voiced by Nikolaj Lie Kaas, who is white. When the national newspaper Berlingske interviewed scholars and activists who expressed their disappointment with the fact that the casting was an example of structural racism, a heated controversy erupted which led Lie Kaas to issue an explanation as to why he was accepted the role.

“My position in relation to any job is very simple,” he wrote on Facebook. “Let the man or woman who can do the job the best they can get the job.”

Asta Selloane Sekamane, one of the activists who criticized the casting in the Berlingske article, said in an interview that no one could say there wasn’t enough black talent to star because color actors were hired to cast some of the votes express smaller parts. “It can’t be the constant excuse, this idea that we can’t find people who meet our standards,” she added. “It’s an invisible bar that connects qualification with white.”

Mira Skadegard, a professor at Aalborg University in Denmark who studies discrimination and inequality, said resistance to allegations of structural racism was not surprising. “In Denmark we have a long history of denial about racism and a deep investment in the ideal of equality,” she said.

“We don’t really see this as a criticism of institutions and structures. We see it as a criticism of who we are, ”she added.

In Denmark and Portugal, dubbing is generally reserved for animation and children’s programs. In other European countries, including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, most mainstream foreign films are dubbed and the practice is viewed as an art in its own right – one based on practitioners’ ability to be inconspicuous.

“The best dubbing should go completely undetected,” said Juan Logar, a leading Spanish dubbing director and voice actor.

“My job is to find the voice that best fits the original,” said Logar. “Black, white, Asian, it doesn’t matter.”

The German voice actor Charles Rettinghaus expressed a similar feeling. In his 40-year career, he has been the voice of actors such as Jean-Claude Van Damme and Javier Bardem, but he said he feels a special connection with Jamie Foxx, who he has featured in more than 20 films, including the German version of “soul”.

Despite being white, Rettinghaus said he didn’t feel compelled to abstain from any black roles, adding that the same opportunities should apply to actors of all races. “It doesn’t matter if you’re black, you should and are allowed to synchronize everything,” he said. “Why shouldn’t you play a white actor or an Indian or an Asian?”

Kaze Uzumaki, a black colleague from Rettinghaus, said it was more complicated. Uzumaki names the character of Paul in “Soul” and has lent his voice to the German versions of dozens of other American films and TV series. Almost without exception, his roles were originally played by color actors.

“I really didn’t like it at first,” he said. “But I thought I would feel more comfortable doing the role than many other white colleagues who don’t have a good command of the English language and can’t really tell what a black person sounds like.”

Uzumaki said he called color doctors on hospital shows only to learn from the director that he sounded “too educated.”

“They don’t even realize that they are racist,” said Uzumaki. “But every time a director says something like, ‘No, you sound too polished. You know how to talk, right? ‘I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a stick. “

Discrimination is often double-edged. Ivo Chundro, a Dutch color actor who named the role of Paul in “Soul” for distribution in the Netherlands, said: “The directors will only cast white actors for white parts and tell the color actors: ‘No, your voice is not’ . t know enough. ‘”

Some directors say demographics limit choices. “We don’t have a second generation of immigrants in Spain,” said Logar. “Except for a few very young children, there aren’t many black actors born here who speak Spanish without an accent.”

Color actors like Chundro and Uzumaki claim that these directors just don’t look too closely. But there are signs that things are gradually changing. In 2007 a voice actor in France told actress Yasmine Modestine that her voice was wrong for a role because she was a mixed race. Following her complaint, the French Equal Opportunities Commission examined the dubbing industry as a whole and found a culture of prejudice and stereotypes.

Since then, the possibilities for voice actors of color have expanded there. Fily Keita, who voiced Lupita Nyong’o in the French-language version of “Black Panther”, said that she didn’t feel held back as a black actor working in the industry. She has also cast roles that were originally played by white actresses such as Amanda Seyfried and Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

“I love to dub because it’s a space of freedom,” she said. “Where you are not limited by your looks.”

Chundro, the Dutch actor, said the Black Lives Matter movement was starting to shift the conversation around race and representation in the Netherlands. He cited a demonstration in Amsterdam in June to open eyes to ongoing racism.

“I used to have a lot of discussions about racism that people just didn’t understand,” said Chundro. But the protest “was like a bandage torn from a wound and it’s been a lot easier to talk about since then,” he added.

With that greater awareness, there are more possibilities, he said. “There’s more work out there and I’m getting a lot more busy.”

Sekamane, the Danish activist, also attributed changes in attitudes to the movement. “I’m 30 years old and all my life I’ve been told that racism is on my mind,” she said. “It wasn’t until last year that the conversation changed thanks to Black Lives Matter.”