In A Wal-Mart Kind Of Hell

SF Chronicle ^ | Wednesday, June 18, 2003 | Mark Morford, confused liberal

[presidio9]

Stop. You've found it. This is the place. Americana HQ. Patriotism in a giant tin bucket. This is where souls recoil, children wail, dreams die.

This is Wal-Mart. The glorious consumer mecca, the epic wonderland/wasteland of prefab landfill merch, not only the world's largest and most powerful retailer and the most aggressive snarling frightening happy-place marketer and quite possibly the most hideously overlit soul-draining monster empire you will ever know in your entire lifetime, but also the very multibillion-dollar pseudo-Christian kingdom that censors their offerings and refuses to sell certain music CDs and bans "risqu

[Labyrinthos]

I was parked outside for about 10 minutes people watching and discovered that some statistics are correct. About 90% of the population is overweight.

And dress in polyester clothing two sizes too small. And of course if you asked them why they are overweight, they would blame genetics, even though their shopping cart is stuffed with oversized bags of cheeze doodles, fritos, and other healthy snacks.

[FITZ]

some areas Walmarts are taken over by kids whose parents leave them there so Walmart can babysit

That was being done very often here until a man walked out with a little 5-year old girl who was happily playing and wandering through a Walmart ---she was very brutally raped and murdered, now you see a bit less of that.

[discostu]

So go to the other stores. Our culture has only become vanilla and boring for the people to lazy to do some investigation. things are the same way they've been since the mass market and mass publishing came to be, if you only look on the surface you'll only see a flat expance with no depth, if you look beneath the surface you'll find the various aspects of the entertainment business are still producing a wide variety of things and the culture is fine. Stop griping and start searching, it's easier now than ever to find the interesting stuff being made off the beaten path.

[dogbyte12]

I don't have a solution honestly. It is tilting at windmills, and delaying the inevitable. One day soon... you can get top 10 items of anything at wal-mart, and if you want anything else, you are going to have to pay a premium.

That is just the way things are going to be. I am really not faulting Wal-Mart, Mcdonalds, Starbucks, Home Depot here. They are in the business of making money, not of upholding micro cultures in the US. It makes more sense for them to sell 100,000 Brittney Spears albums then to try to sell 1,000 records each of 100 more talented people. Their business is not music appreciation, it is making money.

It's going to end up being a choice you have to make. Are you willing to pay more for more variety, or will you accept the trade-off. It's a tough decision. Wal-Mart saves you money on the basics, but then the basics are the bread and butter of the smaller stores.

I do think we should for the most part buy locally when traveling. It is convenient to go the big names, but when out of your area, I think one should support local restaurants, stores, supermarkets. It is a vacation. Something out of the ordinary. We should all be adventurous when away from home. Back home, if you must, go fill up on a coffee at Starbucks, get and egg mcmuffin at McDonalds, before picking up your drycleaning, getting your tires done, and your eyes checked at Wal-Mart.

[Labyrinthos]

That's the great thing about this country: If you want to subject your 8 year-old to Maxim, you are free to buy him a copy. Wallmart has determined that it customer base would rather steer their kids clear of that garbage. They are free not to sell it.

I agree with you. Walmart can sell what they want. Don't like it, don't go there. And I haven't and won't, not because of the so-called Maxim controversy, but because I don't like Walmart. BTW, there are a lot of things that are inappropriate for eight year olds, but that doesn't mean they're pornographic.

[steve8714]

Wal-Mart decides what to sell based upon what makes the most money for Wal-Mart. Period. They do however at times reflect a sensitivity to their base rural market. This reflects a respect for the customer that I think is the last remaining legacy of Sam Walton, and is a good thing. Wal-Mart will not offer in their urban stores that which they COULD NOT in their rural outlets. However, maybe Mr. Morford should read inside some of the romance novels sold there..as he seems to be really in touch with his feminine side. At any rate, Wal-Mart does not "decide what America needs". Americans make billions of those decisions themselves daily.

[A_perfect_lady]

There are no more bookstores in town. Wal-Mart sells tens of thousands of copies of the top booksellers at low margins, that a smaller store can't compete with at all.

Wow. I sympathize, but I'm baffled. I'm living in a small (20,000) town in southern Illinois -- well, it is a college town, so that might make a difference -- but anyway, we have a Super WalMart. We also have a Barnes & Noble, but then we also have three used bookstores, all doing very well from what I can see, and those aren't even affiliated with the three other bookstores that carry textbooks. So we have two superchains, three used, and three University bookstores. Do you just live in a really, super-tiny town?

[m1911]

We have a great hardware store in town, and a Wal-Mart Super Store. I still go to the mom-n-pop shop, but only for certain items. They both carry Ames yard tools, but the mom-n-pop charges nearly twice as much for exactly the same item. So the tools get bought at WM, and seeds etc. get bought at the local store. It's a balance.

[Brookhaven]

>>hiding the covers of Elle and Cosmopolitan tells me that Wal-Mart may be getting just a little bit carried away.<<

I did a quick search on Elle covers on google. They included:

Video Erotica for Women Only
Men, Sex, and Jealousy
The Elle Sex Survey
Couples that go to bed with their sex therapist
Married With Lovers
Sex and body issue

Cosmo covers included:

That bedroom trick that will blow him away
Your hottest holiday sex confessions
Know what he's thinking during sex?
The last sex taboo
His butt
Sex-clusive
7 deadly sex positions
Lust lessons

I could go on forever, but you get the idea.

Getting carried away? Wal-mart doesn't cover this up because they are prudish. Like most big companies, they have no real morals, they just follow the money. They know their typical customer doesn't want to deal with this (or have their children confronted with it), so they cover it up.

[BlueLancer]

"While the Wal-Mart in Peekskill might be a great place, I can authoritatively say that the one on Delaware Ave in Philadelphia (and apparently those in Houston too) are a nightmare."

Having had the misfortune of residing (.. I won't use the word "living" because of the truth doctrine ..) in Philadelphia for two years, I would say that the reality of the nightmare is Philadelphia itself, probably not just the Wal-Mart.

[bert]

....Wal-Mart manipulates the culture.....

And what does the SF Chronicle do? The lefties there stay awake nights scheming how to manipulate the culture. They are professional culture manipulators.

[MineralMan]

"What solution do you propose, other than boycotting Wal-Mart (which doesn't work, unfortunately)."

While Wal Mart may have hurt a few small bookshops, there's a Barnes & Noble, a Borders, or another large chain bookstore nearby, unless you live in a truly isolated area. It is those chain bookstores which have really put the small bookseller out of business, not Wal Mart, which sells only bestsellers...not nearly enought to satisfy the book-buying public.

However, if you want a copy of the new Harry Potter book on Saturday, head for Wal Mart. They'll have tons of them, and at the lowest price in your area.

[CSM]

I agree, I always check with local businesses for any item that I am looking for. If the premium cost is low enough I won't try to negotiate. However, they all know that if I am there to buy an item I am prepared and knowledgeable of the cost, therefore if it is grossly overpriced I will try to bargain down. I usually don't try to get it at the level of the chains, but I won't be grossly overcharged!

I look at it the same way for services, lawn service, plumbing repairs, tree trimming, etc. Always try to use a local guy rather than a chain like sears.

[Paulus Invictus]

She also has a severe case of Bush-hate disease. How does she relate W-M to Bush when it was Hitlery who was on the W-M board of directors? Hmmmm? W-M also paid mega-bucks for the Klintoon campaigns in Arkansas and for the big prize in DC too.

Why am I not surprised that this piece of trash in print was published in that paragon of liberal/homo/RAT media called the San Francisco Chronicle?

[dogbyte12]

No, belive it or not I live in the burbs of Los Angeles. There is a Barnes & Nobel 12 miles away that I run off to to get books. But in my town, the town to the south, east, and west, there are no bookstores left. We have 4 Mcdonalds in town though, a WalMart, 2 other Wal-Marts, closer to me than the book store, a Home Depot, 5 starbucks. 2 sets of them only a few blocks from one another, etc.

5 years ago, there were 4 bookstores within 5 miles. The last one, a used book seller closed down 6 months ago. I am in a heavily populated area. the 4 adjacent towns have a population of over 150,000. No bookseller other than the Target and the Home Depot. Some of the supermarkets sell the Top 10 bestsellers too in addition to Wal-mart. We do have a wiccan store that has a small rack of new age books, but I am not sure if that counts, since that really isn't their business.

Yes, I can drive 12 miles every time I would like to buy a non top 10 book, it's just frustrating.

[Poohbah]

Marky Mark needs when to be silent and merely be thought a fool, because every time he opens his mouth, he removes all doubt.

[gridlock]

Having said that however, hiding the covers of Elle and Cosmopolitan tells me that Wal-Mart may be getting just a little bit carried away.

I don't know. Maybe you would like to explain to a seven-year-old girl what it means to "BE THE BEST SEX OF HIS LIFE: To Tease Him Mercilessly, To Seduce Him Slowly, And Then Rock His World In Ways He Has Only Dreamed About."

As for Shania, I wouldn't kick her out. But that's not the point.

[SpinyNorman]

This is the very definition of "verbal diarrhea," something that afflicts most liberals.

[MineralMan]

"They both carry Ames yard tools, but the mom-n-pop charges nearly twice as much for exactly the same item"

And there you have it. In the same building where I have my offices there is a copy center/stationery store. The woman there whines constantly about the others in the building not patronizing her store....ruining local business.

Seems they're going 12 miles into town to Staples. She was whining to me the other day about this. I told her that I was in business, too, and that I could not afford to pay twice as much for copier paper in her store as at Staples. I could not afford to pay $2.79 for a shipping carton I buy for $.79 from U-Line in quantity 100.

She's a local business, but so am I. Yet, she seems to think that I should come to her for things and pay exorbitant prices for them, just because she's local. Phooey on that! Business is competition. She cannot compete with Staples in any way, so she loses out.

Sorry, but I've got my own business to run, and I'm in competition with every other business in the world that does the same thing I do.

[Salgak]

Easy. To use the Rumfield Analogy, California (and the rest of the 'blue zone') is "old America", Texas and the rest of the Red Zone is "New America". . .