no apparent reason

JAJA, UPYACHKA! UG NE PROIDET, BLYA!

You're probably right. And I don't care if Walmart sells Jon Stewart's book...being a red-stater I only have a vague awareness of who he is anyway.

Thanks for weighing in on the EW issue. I didn't even know there were Walmarts in Europe. I have to say, I do like the convenience of having everything in one place, but I also frequent at least 5 different places for grocery type items, now that I think about it. The Walmart near us doesn't have a grocery store, and it's only open until 10, so if I need cat food at midnight I'm horribly inconvenienced by having to drive 3 miles to the nearby Meijer, horrors!

Having been on the inside for three years as a somewhat faithful, yet critical, employee of EW I've seen the hypocracy first-hand. Their philosophy is actually pretty simple. They are now a political entity. They will drift in the direction that will land them the most customers. EW's base is in the south and the midwest. If you draw an imaginary square from Kansas down to Texas, acroos to Florida and up to Virginia, this is EW heart and soul. The stores in this region consistantly are at the top of profit margins. So, when they pull Jon Stewart's book or bleep the §%"$%& out of Emminem, this is the reason. They can't afford to piss these people off. If they upset a few shoppers in Seattle, they can life with that. The angry 18 year old does not spend $300 a month, every month. They are an acceptable loss.

What is interesting is how some products slip through the moral cracks. What happens is this. If a product doesn't generate sales, it often doesn't get noticed. I would guess there weren't many people asking for "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" so it didn't appear on the EW morality radar screen. You also have to keep in mind that while EW is a highly centralized company, many things happen at the store level than upper management never hears about. That can be both good and bad.

I read a little of the EW debate from August, and one of the answers to a more fair pay scale does exist, but it depends on individual stores doing their own thing. As long as they make a large enough profit, a store can get away with any number of things. For example, in the store where I was, overtime was an incentive. If you worked hard, you were given the option to work more, make more money. You were also given raises, sometimes as frequent as every three months. By the time I quit I was actually making pretty decent money, but to me, it was "just a job" and not a career. For many though, it is, and for a person with little or no education after high school, it can be a very good career. For a line or two I have to defend EW on that point. They honestly do provide an viable avenue for a great number of people who have no desire to go to college. They just want to work and live their lives. You can live with an EW job. You'll get halfway decent insurance, even dental, and if you manage your money intelligently, buy into the stock options they provide, you can even retire pretty well.

However, for that system to work well, local control must be there. A store that toes the Bentonville line does not necessarily serve its employees or its customers very well. This is one of the problem EW is having in Europe. They have little or no local knowledge. Aesthetics matter over here when it comes to...well...everything. The most profitable and popular chain of Grocery stores, Aldi, are small stores than fit nicely into the community. They are simple, cheap and there is almost always one within walking distance. EW are almost always outside of town, requiring one to own a car to get to them, and then when you arrive, they look like airplane hangars. I would guess that EW will survive here, but it will never turn the profits that it does in the US. It also doesn't help them that American businesses aren't very popular here at the moment, with GM pulling out 12,000 jobs.

Also, Germans would be offended by EW deciding for them what they can and can't buy. Naked judges wouldn't bother them a bit.

On a personal note, I like little stores. I like hardware stores than smell like hardware stores. I like people who can answer questions and not say.."Umm....Hmmm....dude...let me get a manager.." I like stores that may only have two kinds of apples and three brands of canned corn. It's okay to be small. It's okay to have to leave the store to buy a Mig Mac (not sure why anyone would...but..) or get your hair cut or rotate your tires. Convenience often destroys connections. For example, I went shopping yesterday, went to three different grocery stores, a video store, a drug store, a pharmacy and a bakery. Now, back in Lincoln, that would be one stop, maybe two. But, I got to see fives times as many people and have a nice talk with the woman at the bakery. At EW, you get to have a nice talk with the sign on the glass doors that show off the donuts.

Ahh..anyway...you take the good with the bad.