"from here" news and stories

It's the core of a summer promotion called "From Here" running in western Washington state: McDonald's is using TV and print ads, billboards and a website to hype the local potatoes, apples, fish and milk it uses.

True? Yeah.

A wee bit disingenuous? Yeah. Since McDonald's was 1) Already using all this stuff anyway, and 2) The region in question happens to be the largest national supplier of most of these products.

A McDonald's spokeswoman said "From Here" grew out of focus groups last spring with customers in western Washington, who said they wanted to know more about where their food came from. (Did they really need a focus group to know "local" is hot?)