In A Wal-Mart Kind Of Hell

SF Chronicle ^ | Wednesday, June 18, 2003 | Mark Morford, confused liberal

[presidio9]

Stop. You've found it. This is the place. Americana HQ. Patriotism in a giant tin bucket. This is where souls recoil, children wail, dreams die.

This is Wal-Mart. The glorious consumer mecca, the epic wonderland/wasteland of prefab landfill merch, not only the world's largest and most powerful retailer and the most aggressive snarling frightening happy-place marketer and quite possibly the most hideously overlit soul-draining monster empire you will ever know in your entire lifetime, but also the very multibillion-dollar pseudo-Christian kingdom that censors their offerings and refuses to sell certain music CDs and bans "risqué" beer-'n'-babes mags like Maxim and FHM and Stuff, because, you know, pretty girls are evil.

[presidio9]

But... but... but... Ms. Morford, don't you know that pornography like Maxim objectifies women and reinforces the cultural glass ceiling in our society?

[foreverfree]

bump

[Xenalyte]

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Not that I like Wal-Mart, mind you. I'd sooner stick needles in my eyes than shop there. Down here in Houston, Wal-Marts are dirty, cluttered, loud, and generally zoolike.

[Alouette]

This guy is on some dangerously bad crack.

[RippleFire]

Gee Markie, why don't you shop somewhere else?

[maeng]

"Wal-Mart is, in short, deciding what America needs based on the shockingly uptight whims and intolerant perspectives of the hard Right"... So much better than the uptight whims and intolerant perspectives of the hard Left!

[randog]

I had no idea that Wal*Mart was the only department store in SF. There are a lot of different stores in my town where you can shop if you don't like Wal*Mart or you can't find what you need there. We even have a JC Penney's and a Sears. Maybe I'll write a letter to them and suggest they put some stores in San Francisco so the people there have a choice other than the almighty Wal*Mart.

[presidio9]

suckass

Is this a pratice you are familiar with Mark?

Not to worry, I'm told the pets department at Walmart has a wide selection of furry rodents.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

Ms. Moford has a permanent case of PMS.

[RMDupree]

Do you understand? Do you see the danger?

Mr. Morford needs his nappy changed in aisle 5.

[Little Ms. FReepette]

I think I was at a Wal Mart like 11 years ago to some kind of crap.

I remember it the same way you describe.

[tcostell]

The Walmart on Rt 6 in Peekskill NY is clean, the service is decent, and ammunition is 20% to 40% cheaper than the sporting goods store down the street.

My wife just bought me a Winchester Turkey Vest there (retail $60), and only spent $20 on it. How can you not love something like that?!

I know how entertaining it is to bash the big bad consumer giant, but in my personal world where cash is not limitless, price matters, and I'd rather buy a name brand at a 2% markup than a 10% markup. You gotta love a place that does volume (and has does "end of season" discounts on hunting supplies).

[axel f]

Are there any writers on the right who write columns this bizarre or have mental problems to this degree? I can't think of any.

[nyconse]

I love Walmart. My 13 year old son is only allowed to buy video games and CDs at Walmart. If Walmart didn't exist, he wouldn't be allowed to buy them.

Walmart is the #1 company in the country; it appears Walmart is giving people what they want. This is Christian bashing: those dangerous pseudo-Christians at Walmart are censoring magazines and CD's!

Since Walmart is not a publisher of CD's or magazines, I fail to see how they are censoring anything. Also, Walmart has a right to cater to their customers who do not want their kids exposed to filth.

Leftist are so strange. If this guy doesn't like Walmart, he can always shop in a different store. I can't imagine working up that much speen over a store!

[jwalburg]

Only in SF will you get the term "Bible-lickin' censorship." Man is this one out in left field! Funny read.

[TontoKowalski]

"...groups like the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association (AFA), one of those desperately hyper-Christian anti-choice anti-gay anti-porn asexual pseudo-ethical groups representing "traditional" family values..."

Where do I sign up!?!

[presidio9]

While not technically a "writer," I find that Michale Savage has a pretty high bullsh*t threshold. What a coincidence, they're both from SF.

[Quilla]

My daughter had dropped some film off at Walmart's one hour photo. We were passing by and she asked that I pull in while she retrieved it. I was parked outside for about 10 minutes people watching and discovered that some statistics are correct. About 90% of the population is overweight.

[OpusatFR]

Liberals can't figure out what they stand for at this juncture. Is he insulting the lower tiers because they shop at Walmart? Is he be condescending to the less educated who spend their pennies carefully? Is his disdain directed at the mothers who would prefer their nine year old daughters not demand explanations for oral sex after looking at the blurbs on Cosmo? I don't really know where he is heading with this article other than appear to be some intelligentsia or classic bourgeouise from Czarist Russia. Oh, how clever you are, Mark. Bet you stop at 7-11's every day and just put the coffee in an old Starbucks container.

I pretty much think the prices on T-paper are great.

[TheBigB]

It's a...store. You go in. You buy stuff you want or need. You walk out. I have yet to notice any soul-sucking.

Somebody help me out here...I've been in Wal-Mart numerous times. I buy lots of stuff there because I can the SAME things you'd see in other stores for less cost. I get the feeling that an American flag would have the same effect on Morford as a cross to a vampire.

And fergoshsakes..."dystopian mega-ethos"? "asexual pseudo-ethical"? "A karmic shower and soul de-lousing"? "Cultural myopia"? Are people in San Francisco really stupid enough to be impressed by a bunch of hyphenated words that really don't mean anything?

Do you understand? Do you see the danger? Really, no. I don't.

[zx2dragon]

I worked for Wally world and called them the evil empire when I did. :) However, any store has the right to carry whatever products they wish. You can buy Maxim at almost any magazine store or bookstore.

[Gone_Postal]

This is so funny
the confused liberal is not confused but just liberal.
This boy needs to go to Canada and get married.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Super Wal Mart in Osage Beach, Missouri, has to be the filthiest store I've ever visited. I do not shop there.

[AngryJawa]

"This guy is on some dangerously bad crack."

Well, being that he's a flaming queen from SF...yup, I'd agree that he's had some really, really bad crack. :0)

[babyface00]

Strange.

I bet the author would have no issues with a Gay Sex Toys retailer in SF deciding not to sell the "Christian Science Monitor".

[presidio9]

and isn't it just wickedly telling that the state with the largest number of Wal-Marts in the entire country is, by a wide, wide margin, Texas? Pretty much says it all, really.

I was thinking that y'all might have taken a bigger offense to this glib arrogance. No?

[spodefly]

Maybe Morford would feel better about it if Wal Mart would start selling dildos and eze-glide lube.

Morford hates everything that isn't a buns-up, sex-obsessed, alternative-lifestyle, psuedo-utopian circle-jerk.

[Gone_Postal]

Here is the danger in the authors eyes.

but also the very multibillion-dollar pseudo-Christian kingdom that censors their offerings and refuses to sell certain music CDs and bans "risqué" beer-'n'-babes mags like Maxim and FHM and Stuff,

you see walmart seems to want to apeal to Christians and liberals can't have that no way no how.

[chimera]

Shows what kind of useless rag the SFC has become, to waste space on this kind of rant. So Morford doesn't like what Walmart sells, how they do (or don't) display it, the environment of the store. So, big deal, don't go there. Oh, but that's not good enough, because Walmart "shapes ideas". Well, only for mindless liberals who can't think for themselves. Shapes culture? Hell, I'm a lot more concerned about rap music that glorifies violences, or sodomites and pedophiles who prey on defenseless children and then seek to have society as a whole validate their perverted choices. I'd say Walmart is the least of our worries on that score. I mean, here'a a guy who complains about Walmart not displaying porn magazines to kids, and then would have no problem going out tonight to a bathhouse and having homosexual intercourse with a dozen or so partners, AIDS, VD, and whatever other filthy illness that might come of it be damned. I'll tell you, its a world gone mad...

[hang 'em]

Morford is apparently a victim of AIDS dementia.

[Owl_Eagle]

we shall concentrate on the censorship issue.

Yet again, another liberal confusing private industry with the government.  The line blurs for them since they believe that the means to production should belong to the state.  However, Wal-Mart is free to sell anything not prohibited by law and it is also free to not sell whatever it wants to.  This is not even close to being an example of censorship.  Speech codes, criminal prosecution of "hate" speech, stealing and destroying campus newspapers with unpopular or non-P.C. articles, and disrupting university sanctioned speeches by conservatives, that's all censorship.  And it's right in your own back yard, Mark.

But a couple of other suggestions for you, Mark, since you seem to need them so badly.  It just so happens that I really dislike Wal-Mart too (at least the one in my neighborhood), so you know what I do?  Nope, I don't write poorly reasoned screeds in the S.F. Comical, I shop somewhere else.  Problem solved.

And as for your whining that you can't see the covers of your favorite magazines, Elle, Cosmo, and Mademoiselle, well, Wal-Mart isn't a library.  Either buy them or go read them at your taxpayer funded local library and quit your whining.

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”

[nyconse]

Both my husband and I are college educated (maybe over-educated). We don't have pennies to waste as we are raising 3 children (the fourth is out of the house, a college grad and a conservative Republican-sorry can't help but brag-proud Mom alert). The stores hear in Atlanta are nice:clean and well stocked. I appreciate the quality and the low prices. I redecorated my daughter's room in flower-power using Walmart products and saved a bunch of money. The room is too cute (lime green walls etc).

[nyconse]

Both my husband and I are college educated (maybe over-educated). We don't have pennies to waste as we are raising 3 children (the fourth is out of the house, a college grad and a conservative Republican-sorry can't help but brag-proud Mom alert). The stores here in Atlanta are nice:clean and well stocked. I appreciate the quality and the low prices. I redecorated my daughter's room in flower-power using Walmart products and saved a bunch of money. The room is too cute (lime green walls etc).

[strela]

Wal-Mart shapes ideas. They affect mind-sets. They influence cultural perspectives. This is frightening and wrong.

Dear Ms. Morford,

Get a life. Soon.

Sincerely Yours,

strela

[nyconse]

Sorry, I made corrected a typo and somehow double posted!

[Tacis]

This guy's REAL interest is in advancing fagitude. Any person/organization that acts to maintain some moral certainty will oppose the perversion and deviance of fairidom. Most outfits have folded, all the churches, many governments, and ALL left-wing newspapers.

But, the end objective is not universal perversion, "every male a tinkerbell," the objective is the destruction of capitalism and the destruction of America. As all these rules are broken down, what is left will be anarchy. The US stands almost alone. The fairies, the UN, the left-wing socialists, the educators, the old timee media and the no borders folks want the fabric of the country to be destroyed. Don't know who is doing it and, maybe, it isn't a conspiracy. But, every attack serves the same end.

Once this guy gets the these magazines in front of the public, the Penthouses will follow and then the faggot pubs and then the faggot pubs will demand to replace all others.

[presidio9]

And as for your whining that you can't see the covers of your favorite magazines, Elle, Cosmo, and Mademoiselle, well, Wal-Mart isn't a library.

I believe Mark's favorite magazine is something like "Man's man."

[Inspectorette]

I don't care much for Wal-Mart - too big and impersonal, I tend to Target instead.

However, after reading Morford's hysterical screed, I plan to shop Wal-Mart more often.

[Ditter]

I agree completely with you, I dislike WalMart too, but then this California creep has to go & bash Texas. I don't think about California very often one way or the other, until they bash us. That makes me wonder why they do it. Do they feel threatened in some way?

[wimpycat]

...this prosaic Bible-lickin' censorship...

Mine's peppermint flavored. How about yours?

[PhiKapMom]

Here in Norman, OK, we have two super Walmarts -- very clean, very friendly, and low prices on a lot of items I buy for the house. Not going to pay higher prices when I get the same item cheaper at Walmart.

I have noticed while traveling across the Country that in some areas Walmarts are taken over by kids whose parents leave them there so Walmart can babysit and their video section along with others are pretty much trashed if you go there first thing in the morning. Makes me proud of the area I live in even though flyover Country gets knocks from both coasts!

Not that way here in Norman -- shelves are stocked, nothing on the floor, and I don't see groups of teenagers and pre-teens roaming the aisles.

Maybe it is the mindset of the area and its people that makes crummy Walmarts! Noticed also in those same areas that their Mall stores have clothes on the floor where someone was going through the stack and knocked them off and they lay there as other people walk over them.

[wimpycat]

The Wal-Mart that I shop at is crowded at times, but generally well-kept.

Talk about censorship, Target doesn't carry any tobacco products, at least not the one in my area.

I like Target for certain things and Wal-Mart for certain other things. Wal-Mart usually has a bigger selection of mundane, everyday items.

[pabianice]

... as opposed to the Stinking Urine and Feces in the Streets and Parks, AIDS-infested, Drug Needle Liberal Paradise of San Francisco?

[Xenalyte]

I know how entertaining it is to bash the big bad consumer giant . . .

How is it "bashing" to note that a store is unclean and unkempt? Truth used to be an affirmative defense.

[Xenalyte]

To be honest, I didn't get that far . . . the article was kind of incoherent.

[Xenalyte]

They're jealous. :)