American Life

Save My Money or My Soul


I have never been a fan, or even a more than occasional patron, of Walmart. I find their products to be of questionable to crappy quality, and their loyal customers, for the most part, to be trailer trash or just too cheap for words. Harsh? Uh-huh, extremely harsh, but the kind of low prices and discounting that have been the foundation of the Walmart building empire can only really come from underpaying employees and cornering markets in an effort to stamp out retail options for local residents. A lot has been said, and will be said again, about Walmart’s generous and competitive wages, opportunities for employee advancement and their benefits packages. Little is said about the fact that most employees are not full-time anyway, the rather sexist way employees are promoted, or not, and that the benefits it provides, health insurance for example, are so meager that in the state of Iowa for example the largest working group that makes use of state funded health care programs is Walmart employees and their families. Will used to joke that a person couldn’t go into a Walmart, day or night, and not find at least one customer with visibly missing teeth. He wasn’t really joking though because the two  or three times we ever went into a Walmart during our entire marriage, sure enough, we encountered toothless patrons. I know people will scoff and call me an elitist. I don’t really care. Walmart does not deserve my patronage or my money ,and I am ashamed to say that since moving to Canada, I have had to shop multiple times at their store as it is just about the only thing going in this town. Not the only thing, Rob’s younger daughter would argue and she is right, but for width and breadth of goods, pretty dang close.

I have read more than one article about the “evil ways” of Walmart. While I don’t dispute them, it is only fair to point out that all retailers take advantage of their employees to one extent or another, but every time I think I have heard it all where Walmart is concerned I manage to be shocked and deeply ashamed of ever having crossed the Walmart threshold all over again. This evening the “cover story” gracing MSNBC was the revelation that Walmart’s Mexican grocery stores are employing fourteen to sixteen year olds as baggers for tips only. Though it is apparently a deeply regretted custom that has managed to survive the unenlightened days of yore. How “yore” is my question, and if it is regretted why does the Mexican government allow it to continue? Regardless, it is clearly wrong to profit off of what is basically the exploitation of children. Not that Walmart is too concerned about that since they were last fined for breaking U.S. child labor laws as recently as 2005 according to this same article for “24 child-labor violations. Some of the accusations involved minors who operated forklifts, chain saws and other potentially dangerous equipment.”

In the face of this most recent article, I can’t be as nonchalant about my occasionally lapses anymore. Walmart is not somewhere a person can shop in good conscious. They don’t treat their workers with respect and dignity due all persons when they hire themselves out as labor. They look out for the bottom line, and the personal fortunes of Sam Walton’s heirs. But isn’t that what all businesses do? Sure and when I read about their flagrant abuses, I will reassess my patronage of them too. For today though, I have more than enough information to safely cross this retailer off my shopping list.

Happy Fourth of July


Rob had to remind me what day it was this morning. I had completely forgotten that today was the fourth. Not that I have become so Canadian in my short tenure here but mainly because I tend to lose track of the days when I am not working. If it weren’t for steady employment over the years, I wouldn’t have been aware of the month, day of the week or even the specific time of day. These are artifices created for the good of businesses  and religions for the most part, I think. 

I haven’t kept up much with the news of late. I know that the ’08 presidential election candidates continue to plague Iowa with their presence and that Hilary now feels secure enough in her manhood to fetch her husband out of the kitchen to join her on the campaign trail. Scooter was predictably pardoned by the President. Enraged liberals bemoaned this latest blow to the constitution at the hands of the current administration, but The Founders wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. They did the best the could at the time but the system they created was, and continues to be, a work in progress. Some generations work harder at improving it than others is all. The boomers are not proving to be hard-workers, at least not for the people, but they have always been a fairly short-sighted and selfish lot. 

People are still dying in Iraq but since it is mainly Iraqis, no one cares much or at least not enough to ask the hard questions and take to the streets when they don’t get answered. Oh, that was a boomer thing, wasn’t it. I guess they can’t take to the streets to protest themselves out of office, can they?

Michael Moore’s latest pseudo-documentary on the secret shame of health care in America is in the theaters. Day late and a dollar short. No one is truly ignorant of the inequities of the system. Those without know the reality too well, and those with enough health care at present are like the people in that story who stand silent as all their neighbors are hauled away because they rationalize that as long as it’s not me, it’s okay. 

Fat people are taking over the country even as  the people who design the clothes they wear try to shame them into slimming down with all sorts of fashions that accentuate their gelatinous bellies and rubbing thighs. The fat know that they are the true inheritors of the earth simply because they are willing to eat more of it and off it, despite the chemicals it contains (and the fact that when they are finally stricken with fat-related diseases their combined weights will crush the health care system for good.)

The U.S. is still not well liked by other countries. They see us as loud, arrogant, hedonistic and stupid. Even Canadians are none too fond of us and given their natural bent towards politeness, this should concern us. If the most easy-going kid on the block thinks you are an asshole, then maybe you really are.

What would the founding fathers think if they could see their country at 230 years of age? Would they be impressed or horrified? I guess that would depend on the individual founder. They were very different men with ideas and ideals that didn’t always match up. They fought, dirty sometimes, and they schemed, dreamed and committed treason against their own government for the independence to build a completely new one. They weren’t saints, so it stands to reason that the country they created would not be a haven for saintly people.  I imagine they would think that there is a lot of room for improvement, but then there always was. 

The fathers created a democracy that flew against the conforming natures of most human beings and for some reason, it worked. Not perfectly then and not perfectly now, but that’s okay. Have yourself a Happy  little Fourth of July.

Don Williams State Park


Maquoketa Caves State Park

Image by Phil Roeder (lots of comments to catch up on) via Flickr

I love my sister’s in-laws. They are a large, friendly bunch who lay waste to every bad in-law joke you may have ever heard. BIL and his twin were actually high school classmates of mine, and I actually knew him before he and my sister even met.

 

BIL has six brothers. All but the youngest is married. All but two have children. When even a couple of them gather in one place with their families, you know they are there. The last time I saw them all together in one place was nearly 7 years ago when DNOS and BIL married. I remember at my parents house the next day while the grown-ups were outside watching the newlyweds unwrap gifts I walked into the kitchen to find a half-dozen or so of BIL’s nieces and nephews pretending to mix drinks using various concoctions of soda pop.

 

My sister is actually the “oldest” of the sister-in-law’s even though she was the last one of them to marry into the family. DNOS and BIL dated for about fifteen years. They got engaged The Christmas after Will and I got married. In fact, the first time we visited after our engagement BIL’s comment to Will was “Thanks a lot.” Even with the occasionally clash of personalities, I have always thought my sister to be extremely blessed as far as in-laws are concerned. Because Will was an only child and not really comfortable with either side of his family, I knew I wouldn’t have what DNOS did but I had high hopes for pleasant holidays and other such gatherings. I didn’t get that. As we circled the park today trailing after P’s wife K as she scouted about for a picnic site in what is essentially a campground, I had brief flashes of the Mathes family celebrations. A room ringed with people on folding chairs, eating off paper plated balanced precariously on their knees while engaged in the awkward small talk that periodically broke the silence. My sister has not always taken her in-laws in stride, but her observations of mine have made her more grateful for them than she already was.

 

My daughter loves to visit with her cousin’s cousins. She is just beginning to understand that she is not related to Uncle BIL’s family, but she stubbornly maintains that his youngest nephew is in fact just as much her cousin as N2, BIL and DNOS’s son, is. They are quite the trio. No is the oldest at six and a half, followed by N2 who is just six and then my Dee at not quite five. They ran themselves silly, played on the swings and argued over the camping chairs. No tried to convince the other two to play “runway model” on top of one of the picnic tables. N2 was game but Dee hung back and merely watched. I don’t think she knows what a model is and the look on her face indicated that she wasn’t quite certain that this was an activity for boys. My daughter is a bit archaic in her ideas about gender. As I watched I remarked to my sister that her husband would not have permitted a game like that to played for long. He is very archaic in his ideas about gender, but as the two boys sashayed up and down the table top, wiggling their bums like girls in a hip-hop video, everyone but Dee and I pretended not to notice.

 

After a dinner of grilled animal and assorted junk food of which Dee partook and I demurred politely, we said our good-byes. Real good-byes I realized when Dee pointed out to No that it was very unlikely he would ever see my Dee again. It’s interesting the people who are connected to your life, but who you have such a little bit of contact with over the course of it. I wonder if a person is richer or poorer for it?