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MORFORD: One Happy Big-Box Wasteland
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/17/5 | Mark Morford

Posted on 08/17/2005 7:49:12 AM PDT by SmithL

Oh my yes, there is indeed one force that is eating away the American soul like a cancer.

Do you want to feel like you might as well be in Tucson or Boise or Modesto or Wichita or Muncie and it no longer freakin' matters, because we as a nation have lost all sense of community and place? Why, just pull over, baby. Take the next exit. Right here, this very one.

Ah, there it is, yet another massive big-box mega-strip mall, a giant beacon of glorious community decay, a wilted exclamation point of consumerism gone wild. This is America. You have arrived. You are home. Eat it and smile.

There is the Target. There is the Wal-Mart and there is the Home Depot and the Kmart, the Borders and the Staples and the Sam's Club and the Office Depot and the Costco and the Toys "R" Us and of course the mandatory Container Store so you may buy more enormous plastic tubs in which to dump all your new sweatshop-made crap.

What else do you need? Ah yes, food. Or something vaguely approximating it. There is the Wendy's and the Burger King and the Taco Bell/KFC hybrid (ewww) and there is the Mickey D's and the Subway and the Starbucks and the dozen other garbage-food fiends lined up down the road like toxic dominoes, all lying in wait to maul your arteries and poison your heart make you think about hospitals.

And here's the beautiful part: This snapshot, it's the same as it was 10 miles back, same as it will be 10 miles ahead, . . .

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bigbox; buttboy; homedepot; morfordite; nomorekeywordfun; walmart
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Morfordite Alert

This rant is a little different in that it doesn't mention Bush, recreational drugs, or unnatural acts.

1 posted on 08/17/2005 7:49:16 AM PDT by SmithL
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To: SmithL
Does he suffer from heavy-metal posioning or something? He's so miserable
2 posted on 08/17/2005 7:51:09 AM PDT by agere_contra
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To: SmithL

How dare shopping for daily necessities be convenient and consistent!


3 posted on 08/17/2005 7:51:26 AM PDT by writmeister
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To: SmithL

Sheesh. Vintage Morford...San Cramcrisco is the center of the universe and normal Americans are all evil and bad and boring. And, Mrs. Morford NEVER met a run-on sentence she didn't like.

I'm surprised she didn't manage to work in a chocolate-sauce-drizzling-on-a-tailbone reference this time, though.

}:-)4


4 posted on 08/17/2005 7:52:19 AM PDT by Moose4 (Richmond, Virginia, where our motto is "Will Riot For Cheap Laptops")
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To: SmithL

Any community where Missy doesn't want to live is alright by me.


5 posted on 08/17/2005 7:52:41 AM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Now that taglines are cool, I refuse to have one.)
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To: SmithL
This rant is a little different in that it doesn't mention Bush, recreational drugs, or unnatural acts.


6 posted on 08/17/2005 7:52:52 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-G-d, PRO-LIFE..." -- FR founder Jim Robinson)
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To: SmithL
Actually he does wind up getting a dig in at the President:

In a nation that has lost all sense of direction and all sense of pride . . . whose incompetent warmongering leader makes the world gag. . .

7 posted on 08/17/2005 7:53:20 AM PDT by AK2KX
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To: SmithL

Gee.

And I even tend to agree with him on this one!


8 posted on 08/17/2005 7:53:41 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (-I contribute to FR monthly, but ABBCNNBCBS supports Hillary's Secular Sexual Socialism every day.)
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To: SmithL
...and clearly zero planning went into any of these megashops, except to space them so obnoxiously that you have to get back in your goddamn car to drive the eighth of a mile to get to the Target to the Best Buy to the Wal-Mart to the Super Foods and back to your freakin' sanity.

I think Miss Morford actually has a point here. A lot of these mega-chains have way too much parking lot for the business they get. My pet peeve is fast food joints with acres of blacktop surrounding them, like they're expecting every high school kid in town to show up at the same time.

9 posted on 08/17/2005 7:55:13 AM PDT by randog (What the....?!)
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To: KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
File photo of cops finding Morford's stash.


10 posted on 08/17/2005 7:56:15 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: randog

I agree - I tend to avoid cheesy strip-mall areas and the clusterscrew of traffic that goes with them.


11 posted on 08/17/2005 7:57:27 AM PDT by over3Owithabrain
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To: randog
My pet peeve is fast food joints with acres of blacktop surrounding them, like they're expecting every high school kid in town to show up at the same time.

"... wheat germ... must... have... wheeeeeaaaaat... gerrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm..."

12 posted on 08/17/2005 7:57:49 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle ("As a conservative site, Free Republic is pro-G-d, PRO-LIFE..." -- FR founder Jim Robinson)
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To: agere_contra
Does he suffer from heavy-metal posioning or something? He's so miserable. Rush had a great one on this yesterday. Liberals...not happy, and don't want anyone else to be. Liberalism...the fear that somebody, somewhere, is fractionally worse off than you, and the need to feel guilty about it.

What would it be..."Manifest Miserable"?

13 posted on 08/17/2005 7:58:07 AM PDT by 50sDad (Star Trek Tri-D Chess: http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~abartmes/tactical.htm)
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To: SmithL
Is there anything about America that these people like?
14 posted on 08/17/2005 7:59:34 AM PDT by clintonh8r (Liberals preach comity and practice calumny.)
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To: clintonh8r
Is there anything about America that these people like?

I'd be willing to bet ole Morphie likes the bath houses in San Fran.........

15 posted on 08/17/2005 8:07:42 AM PDT by federal
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To: SmithL

Well, I have heard the same tripe since the 50's when suburbs just started. The hateful left has always scorned suburnites because they flee the filth that liberals make in the cities. The list goes from "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit", "The Organization Man", "The Stepford Wives", "Pleasantville", and to "American Beauty". All of it gutter trash.


16 posted on 08/17/2005 8:08:21 AM PDT by KC_Conspirator (This space outsourced to India)
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To: clintonh8r

No. America is the worst nation on earth to these sick minded people. They hate the family, they hate Republicans, they hate mom, they hate dad, they hate morality, and they hate you, Mr. Klinton hater. However, they don't hate terrorists.


17 posted on 08/17/2005 8:11:04 AM PDT by KC_Conspirator (This space outsourced to India)
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To: SmithL

[i]"Sameness is in"[/i]

I never thought I'd say it, but I agree with him. The typical lifestyle is now the same with most Americans. We live in our spec houses - they all look the same. It's hard to give directions to our houses because most of them do not have any distinguishing features. We get up in the morning, get in our SUV's, and drive through traffic to our job in our cubicle -which looks like every other cubicle. After work we get in our SUV, drive through traffic, passing through developments that look just like our development. We stop at Walmart, and pick up our daily DVD - dose of Hollywood (this is our diversion from sameness supposedly.) We get home, sit in front of the tube, and finally go to bed. The next day we repeat the process.


18 posted on 08/17/2005 8:11:29 AM PDT by loreldan (Lincoln, Reagan, & G. W. Bush - the cure for Democrat lunacy.)
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To: SmithL

Wouldn't it be great to have someone tail (ok, bad word choice, seeing how Miss Morford writes from San Fran...) Miss Morford to see how often it goes to the evil-big-box-strip-malls he so hates? Exposing the hypocrisy would be so delicious!


19 posted on 08/17/2005 8:12:56 AM PDT by JRios1968 ("What are you doing in England?" "Mind your own business!")
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To: SmithL
When I went to the University of Michigan, back in the 1980s, there was a wonderful independent bookstore. Incredible selection, wonderful surroundings. The staff tended to be politically left-wing -- maybe even radically so -- but the service was excellent.

That wonderful college indie bookstore was called Borders. It was from that one store that Borders has become a chain.

Funny thing is, the layout may change from store to store, but the feel of that place is still like the one I knew in Ann Arbor.
20 posted on 08/17/2005 8:13:18 AM PDT by Celtjew Libertarian (Shake Hands with the Serpent: Poetry by Charles Lipsig aka Celtjew http://books.lulu.com/lipsig)
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