[SalukiLawyer]

I don't like Wal-Mart either. But I don't like any franchises. There is hardly a town so small that is not cluttered up with identical, garish chain restaurant signs. Truthfully, compared to the typical greasy spoon you used to find, the food is better, the service more efficient and you probably get more for your money. Still, towns used to have more character.

You have to be a geezer to appreciate the fact that you used to go to a family-run store to buy your clothes, not Penny's, and restaurants were something somebody in the town opened up on their own without slick franchise marketing. And, hey, MacDonalds, I have an idea. If you are going to profit from selling bagged food to people in automobiles when you know a certain percentage of that convenient packaging is going to end up on the side of the road as MacLitter, how about being a good neighbor and send the hired help out every week or so to pick it up? (Is wanting companies to take care of the detrimental consequences of their own profit-making decisions non-conservative?)

Oh well, aesthetics are an intangible, and I'm sure there are people who derive comfort from every little town looking exactly like every other little town, and who enjoy all the bright colors from the Burger King and Appleby's signs at night.

[rwilson99]

Do family run convienence stores in your area send out crews to pick up soda bottles and snack wrappers that inevitably come from thier operations.

Just because a company is big is not reason to wish for additional government regulation.