It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

WALMART EMPLOYEES BUY FULL RETAIL… Not merchandise, but rather for their 401(K) plans. The Walmart management that drives the hardest bargain in retail when it comes to merchandise, takes a lackadaisical attitude when it comes to the 401(k) plans it offers employees. Keep reading…

JONATHAN: WHAT”S UP WITH YOUR STATE…? It takes a particularly Scrooge/Potter kind of heart to legislate a minimum-wage decrease in times of financial troubles. I”d really like to know who sponsored the amendment and who cast their votes in favor of the clause in Colorado”s minimum wage law. Keep reading…

A WALMART BLOG TO WATCH IN 2010…? Jose, the blogger at Cornelius, OR the Road to Wal-Mart has an interesting concept on what he wants to blog about. It reminds me just a bit of Peter Bogdanovich”s 1971 film The Last Picture Show. Cornelius will never be the same. Keep reading…

THE WALMARTING OF ART… I have friends who either make, or strive to make, their livings from their art. It”s a tough gig for a number of historic reasons – taste, wealth, influence – but photographer Jon Katz has noted one reason I”d not seen before: the reality of living in a Walmart World. Keep reading…

IS SHE SHOPPING AT OUR WALMART…? Before anyone slams me for the plural possessive, I mean that in a universal, real-world way. Cathy Applefeld Olson over at The Motley Fool is pushing Walmart and Walmart stock, but as I started reading and wondered: what Walmart world is she living in? Keep reading…

WALMART”S PRIVATE LABEL FRENCH VODKA…? I”ve been staring at this story for 15 minutes and I just don”t know where to begin. We”ve all written over the years about Walmart”s growth into sales of adult beverages, but private labeling vodka? From France? Can the yellow cans of beer be far behind? Keep reading…

MY FIRST WALMART BOOK OF 2010… I just ordered a copy of Tom Slee”s No One Makes You Shop At Wal-Mart from my library. I”d ask for a review copy, but the book is nearly four-years old, way past the review stage, but I find Slee”s thesis intriguing and I expect it to be worth the read. Keep reading…

Last evening, on my way home from my last student, I listened to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s As It Happens and heard security technologist Bruce Schneier eviscerate every fear-driven panic strategy for combating terrorism.

I won’t attempt to speak for Schneier, he does very well for himself. Give a listen to Part I.

We must stop attempting to close the barn door after the horses are running free.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it. — A congressional candidate in Texas

Warning: never trust an Internet quote without checking something other than Google. I’m willing to bet that less than 10 percent of these are real or accurate.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

These collaborations could hardly have been simpler. There was no prior discussion of plot, no careful development of outline. One of us sat down and wrote a first chapter and gave it to the other, who wrote a second chapter and gave it back. The book loped along in this fashion until ten chapters had been written and it had come, as things do, to an end. p. 69

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

I suppose that in some distant corner of the Bizarro Universe it make good political sense for a military dictator seeking the cover of free elections and democracy for his oppressive regime to announce, on the 62nd anniversary of his country’s independence, that voters should make the correct choice when they go to the polls.

From the BBC:

In his annual message read out by another military general at a ceremony in the remote new capital Nay Pyi Taw, Senior General Than Shwe said his seven-step “roadmap to democracy” was “the sole process for transition”.

Than Shwe did not spell out exactly what he meant by “correct choices”, but many in Burma will interpret his comments as an implicit warning, our correspondent says.

The underlying message appears to be that the military government’s plan is the only game in town and it will be played according to the generals’ rules.

Well, that’s that.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

Mayor Frank Jackson”s inaugural talk was uninspiring, tedious and lacking the very essence of what it said it was about – the future.

Jackson offered Clevelanders nothing.

We face consistent population loss and job market breakdown. The city”s outlook is dismal. Cleveland has fewer people though more poor people as a percentage of the shrinking population.

This is the situation for most Ohio cities.

But you don”t see the political leaders of the major cities getting together to find solutions. They should be a powerful political coalition.

However, they seem to be each drowning in a downward spiral. Continue Reading »

I’ve been a customer of AmTrust Bank, nee Ohio Savings since November 1984. I’ve talked with tellers at my Lee Road branch and they tell me that the sale to New York Community Bancorp a month ago has gone smoothly and that they’re happy.

Today I came across a Wall Street Journal story that says the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation scored a neat $23.3 million dollars out of the take over by NYCB.

[T]he FDIC collected $23.3 million this month [December, 2009, JH] from New York Community Bancorp Inc. as part of the regional bank’s recent acquisition of AmTrust Bank, a Cleveland thrift that failed.

Now here’s the interesting bit, I did a check on cleveland.com (the sacrafices I make for my readers) and guess what? The Plain Dealer has no mention of the story. Imagine that. The FDIC must have forgotten to send the PD‘s business editor the news release.

Roldo Bartimole writes:

After a conversation about Cleveland”s past and present problems a friend asked me the other night – what about solutions. Do you have any solutions? It is a question I”ve been asked before.

No, I don”t have any solutions. I”m not looking for solutions. I don”t believe it”s my job to come up with such answers. I have one answer: We have to stop doing what we”re doing. Then we can concentrate on our problems. Then there would be time, resources and energy to deal with our real problems.

But so much energy and so many resources are expended on tasks that are not only necessary but are damaging to our communities.

Our leaders want to build too much of what we don”t need, that conflicts with what we already have and damages community that is already viable.

Forest City Enterprises Al Ratner once bragged to me about how many federal subsidies he has been able to get for projects all over the U.S.

This Brooklyn project is soaked in subsidies, not unusual for these unnecessary projects. This one, as others, includes a new arena for a Ratner family professional sports team.

Isn”t it wonderful that all over the nation we are spending billions of dollars to provide work places for multi-millionaire owners and millionaire sports players while so many ordinary people have no access to a paying job?

Washington Post columnist George Will tackles just that problem in a recent column and it has a link to Cleveland. He is talking about the Ratner project in Brooklyn, N.Y. Here”s is how he starts: Continue Reading »

Robert Reich writes:

Issue Number One – the overriding concern that will determine more than anything how many seats the Dems lose next fall – is jobs. If unemployment is 10 percent or more next November, the Dems are in danger of losing the House and will almost certainly be short of the 60 votes they need in the Senate.

But why would employment be 10 percent or above next November? Surely, you say, there are enough signs of recovery that we can count on a lower rate. Don”t be so sure. Here are likely scenarios, with my probabilities…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. — Mayor Marion Barry, Washington , DC

Warning: never trust an Internet quote without checking something other than Google. I’m willing to bet that less than 10 percent of these are real or accurate.

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook.

Pen names hurt me professionally in two ways that I can thing of. They diluted my efforts and thus kept me from building a following as quickly as I might have, and they allowed me to spend more time writing recognizably inferior work than I might otherwise have done. p. 66

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

The lesson that North Korea, and to a lesser extent Iran and Israel, has taught us over the past 20 years is that if you don’t have nuclear capability, then you are subject to massive invasion by the your enemies. Even a single kiloton range nuclear weapon is enough to deter others, including the United States, from jumping down your political throat and kicking your ass.

Now, imagine a nuclear Myanmar…

The weather reporters can just shut up now… it is, after all, WINTER!

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body. — Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

Warning: never trust an Internet quote without checking something other than Google. I’m willing to bet that less than 10 percent of these are real or accurate.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

I got a kick out of the element of deception that is inherent in pseudonymous writing. Pen names provided me with a vehicle for escaping the prison of self. The lure of false identity always appealed to me, and there was a time when I traveled around the country under a pen name, acting out in a rather bizarre fashion. p. 65

From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.

Aung San Suu Kyi has 15 more days of waiting, but at least she has an event to anticipate. I don’t hold any great hopes for a change in her status because dictatorships don’t allow judges, even supreme court judges, to oppose them. The process, however, moves forward and provides a window into the generals’ way of thinking.

From Voice Of America:

A lawyer for Burma’s democracy leader says the Supreme Court will review Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal against her house arrest on January 18.

Lawyer Kyi Win told VOA (Burmese service) Saturday the court will hear the final arguments of both the defense and prosecution.

Aung San Suu Kyi is challenging a lower court decision upholding her sentence of 18 more months of house arrest.

Burma extended her 14 year-long detention last year after she was convicted of briefly sheltering an American man who swam uninvited to her lakeside home.

The Nobel laureate’s legal team says it is not lawful to extend her house arrest because the decision was based on provisions from the 1974 Constitution, which is no longer in force.

Aung San Suu Kyi can not participate in next year’s elections if she is under house arrest. The vote will be Burma’s first elections in two decades.

Her National League for Democracy swept the last elections in 1990. The country’s military leaders never recognized the results and later went on to detain Aung San Suu Kyi, regarded around the world as an icon for democracy and peace.