What is behind the idea that Wal-Mart is an evil corporation? I never fully grasped this concept, and I would love to know so I could either stop buying its products or abolish it with my totalitarian regime.
– Wonder Wally
I hate to pull the “being a politics minor” card yet again, but here I go. Being a politics minor, I’ve heard and considered all the talk about the “evil corporations” and have formed a pretty solid theory.
It all comes down to human nature, really. I’ve never completely understood the saying “have your cake and eat it too,” but I’m pretty sure that is what’s going on here.
Everybody loves the low prices and relatively high quality products Wal-Mart is able to offer. From wind pants that look just like Adidas pants, except for the extra line, to great big storage bins that never seem to save the space the ads promise, we can’t get enough.
The problem is, much of Wal-Mart’s ability to offer such great stuff at such low prices depends on cheap labor.
This situation creates two basic groups of Wal-Mart oppositionists.
On the one hand, we’ve got the people who morally oppose subjecting people in poorer countries to hard labor with low pay. These people have been banging their drum for awhile, refusing to buy clothing from certain countries as if their symbolic protest will inspire change.
The other side of this coin, and I think the more amusing side, are the people who complain that Wal-Mart’s outsourcing of labor deprives hard-working Americans of employment in the production sector. You know the “they took our jobs” guys from South Park? That’s them.
And yet, for all the complaining, the average American still can’t abstain from purchasing almost everything at Wal-Mart. And therein lies the truly sinister aspect of Wal-Mart: whatever we may think of the place, we can’t give it up.
How feasible would it be to hang glide from the top of the Hill each morning to get to class? If they would just build one of those ski lifts in Eau Claire, maybe we would have have a way to avoid that damn hill.
– Flying Free
If you want to try hang gliding down the hill, I’m not going to stop you. But if you end up dead, don’t come complaining to me.
As far as the ski lift, I’m all about that. I don’t think there’s a single UW-Eau Claire student who didn’t rue the day they said, “Oh, the hill isn’t that bad. I’ll go to Eau Claire.”
As long as we’re on the topic, does anyone have a relative or family friend who went to Eau Claire? If you do, then you know they’re extremely into saying things like “How about that hill?” or “Did you gain the freshman 15, or did the hill keep you even?” or whatever stupid variation they think is the most clever.
If you haven’t figured it out, the reason they say those things is because they find it pretty damn amusing that you are walking the hill and they aren’t.
So I guess to wrap up my rant, I’m pretty sure we’d have the popular support to build a ski lift to circumvent the dreaded hill, but not the funding. Maybe you should send this letter to the state Legislature and apply some pressure. Tell them if they don’t send some funding for a ski lift that you’re going to take up hang gliding. That’ll do it, I’m sure.