Month: May 2005

From a Plain Deal­er Edi­to­r­i­al:

There’s much to crit­i­cize about Wal-Mart’s busi­ness prac­tices, but let’s be hon­est: Wal-Mart is already in this mar­ket. City res­i­dents reg­u­lar­ly trek to its sub­ur­ban stores. Why should­n’t they be able to shop clos­er to home — in stores that employ their neigh­bors and pay tax­es to sup­port city ser­vices — if they choose? A full-ser­vice Wal-Mart at Steel­yard Com­mons sure­ly will hurt some city mer­chants, includ­ing gro­cery stores. Any new enter­prise may hurt some­one’s busi­ness; that’s called com­pe­ti­tion.

This is not much more than an argu­ment for con­ve­nience, while at the same time stat­ing that there are local busi­ness­es already fill­ing the need. It also seems to be say­ing that if Wal-Mart hurts local busi­ness­es then that is good for Cleve­land. Right.

And in Sam Ful­wood III’s col­umn:

“Fight­ing Wal-Mart and keep­ing real jobs in Cleve­land was a top pri­or­i­ty for us,” he said. “Yes, they seem to have got­ten by us for the moment, but we’re still going to fight them.”

Nah, that bat­tle is like­ly over. Give Wal-Mart its lau­rels and watch the small neigh­bor­hood busi­ness­es die.

What is all this giv­ing up crap? What is all this spread­ing our legs for ubiq­ui­tous big box­es? “Oh, please, Wal-Mart, smack me around and treat me like a two-bit whore! Move in with me, I’ll pay for your every need, just give it to me good.”

Bah.
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