What I would give to throw my shoes at George Bush

Just sayin’.

Wal-Mart Brings its Soul-Suckiness to Zion’s Crossroads

News briefs on the local Air America affiliate (WVAX – 1450 AM) are heralding the construction of a new Wal-Mart east of Charlottesville. A local woman is quoted saying that it’s a great thing because there’s nowhere around there to buy coffee. Right.

Where have these people been? If Wal-Mart is coming to your town, your town is in serious trouble. Are they aware that Wal-Mart extrudes about $100,000,000 from local economies through each of its stores annually? Do they know that the money is then shipped off to China, with a short stopover in Arkansas for a brief skimming?

Wal-Mart is a monster and it should be stopped. Frankly, after the tragic Black Friday fiasco, I had hoped the behemoth would be swimming in criminal neglect lawsuits. (They clearly knew what was coming and did nothing to prepare.) I guess Chinese money buys a lot these days, including large-scale legal protection.

DOWN WITH Wal-Mart! If they insist on ruining communities, playing around with local zoning laws, syphoning off tax dollars and draining regional economies, all the while returning all the benefit to China (remember them? – the red menace?), and screwing suppliers and workers in one fell swoop, I, for one, will protest their very existence until the bitter blue-light end.

Buy American! Buy local. Support yourselves, not some monolithic money trap.

stark

Open Letter Opposing Re-Bricking of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall

(Note from Duck: The following is a letter written by Brandon Collins, circulated downtown to alert City Council to problems businesses face due to the exorbitant and poorly planned re-bricking of the Downtown Mall.)

Honorable members of Charlottesville City Council
and City Manager Gary O’Connell,

We concerned citizens, taxpayers, and working people of Charlottesville call on you to cancel or alter the planned re-bricking and renovation of the Downtown Mall. It is our belief that maintenance and repair, rather than complete replacement, of the mall bricks can be done with less impact on business and workers, at a lesser cost to taxpayers.

Furthermore, we call for the 7.5 million dollars made available for the re-bricking project to be diverted, along with the attentions of city council and city manager, to an effort to seriously address the cost of housing in our city.

The estimated 7.5 million dollar cost of replacing the bricks will put an undue burden on taxpayers at a time when city government anticipates a budget crunch – perhaps even a shortfall – for next year, is reckless, and hard to fathom.