Watermelon: (Ever)Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside

Couple of interesting quotes from the Opinion page of today's Summer Watermelon, "Pullman's paper of record:"

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”

– Karl Marx

Depressed about the elections? So is Karl.

And

The American people themselves are “the greatest obstacle to progressive change” in America.

Still not too late to stage a takeover, conservative Cougars.

PALOUSITICS EXCLUSIVE - Wal-Mart: What's Next? Part Three

This is Part Three of a series of articles that will explore what happens when a Wal-Mart Supercenter comes to town.

The information contained below is being made publicly available on the web for the first time.

I've always dreamed that one day the opponents of Wal-Mart in Pullman will make a factual argument to support their case, rather than resort to "special-interest propaganda," "symbolism over substance," "pejorative labels," and "playing on the average citizen's distrust of corporate America," as detailed by Richard Carson. I'm still waiting.

"Progressive" Amir Hassan writes in today's Summer Watermelon:

Likewise, small businesses find themselves unable to compete with Wal-Mart’s rock-bottom prices. A Pullman Supercenter will choke and kill much of our beloved local commerce.

I suppose one can't argue with a self-styled "expert" on Pullman economics who is also a Rhetoric and Composition grad student from Seattle who uses apocryphal stories and far-left websites to support his arguments. Nevertheless, let's take a look at some hard data anyway.

The Simeon Partnership, an economic and public policy consulting firm in Bainbridge Island, WA, prepared a study in 2005 of long-term economic impacts of the Wal-Mart that opened in the small coastal Washington city of Aberdeen back in 1994. The study examined impacts on local businesses, as well as tax revenue and worker wages. The brief summarizing the study can be downloaded here.

Some highlights:

“Not one business went out of business because of Wal-Mart,” says Michael Tracy. He should know. Tracy heads up the Grays Harbor Economic Development Council. His organization has tried to identify and help businesses affected by Wal-Mart’s decision to locate in Aberdeen in 1994.

“Understand,” says Tracy, “there was high unemployment at the time and businesses were going out of business right and left. But, not because of Wal-Mart.” Wal-Mart slowed the flow of people leaving Grays Harbor to do their shopping in Olympia, he says.

Aberdeen and Grays Harbor County had real gains of 13 percent and 7 percent, respectively in taxable retail sales from retail trade from 1995 through 2003.

“The threat to locally owned businesses is not Wal-Mart,” Tipton says, “it’s I-5 to Tumwater, Lacey and Portland. Wal-Mart has slowed [Aberdeen’s retail sales leakage] considerably.” When local shoppers stay in town to buy their basics at Wal-Mart, he says, they are more likely to look locally first for their other needs and to comparison shop at home, given the opportunity.

Wal-Mart captured an increasing share of a increasing retail sales base in Aberdeen and Grays Harbor County between 1995 and 2002. As Figure 3 shows, taxable retail sales from retail trade in Aberdeen and Grays Harbor County kept pace with inflation even without Wal-Mart over this period, demonstrating that Wal-Mart not only increased its market share, it helped grow the size of pie.

...the city’s revenues have grown in all categories since 1994. Sales and Use Taxes have been a good source of revenue growth – up 9 percent after inflation from 1994 through 2003 – but the big growth category for the city’s general services has been Business and Utility Taxes, which was up 16 percent after inflation. These are taxes levied by the city on various special services like water, sewer and garbage.

Adjusted for inflation, Wal-Mart’s sales tax contribution to the city grew 89 percent from 1996 to 2002. At the same time Wal-Mart’s share of city sales taxes paid doubled as its tax contributions grew well ahead of overall city sales tax growth.

Total wages in Grays Harbor County paid by stores in the general merchandise category, like Wal-Mart, grew from $4.6 million in 1993 to $6.5 million in 1994 the year Wal-Mart opened – a 39 percent increase after inflation. And, average general merchandise employment went from 345 to 477 jobs.

On average general merchandise stores in Grays Harbor County paid their employees about $13,263 annually in 1993 before Wal-Mart came to town. By 2003 this average annual wage had grown to $21,432. Even after adjusting for inflation, general merchandise workers experienced 21 percent growth in their real average wages.

Tuesday: We'll take a look at what happened over in Sequim, after much controversy in opening a Wal-Mart Supercenter there.

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They Call Me MISTER Hussein

I am now demanding that I be called Thomas Hussein Forbes. My middle name does start with an "H," but to paraphrase one starstruck suburban worshipper of the Obamessiah quoted in the New York Times, “My name is such a vanilla, white-boy American name.”

Speaking of the New York Times article, don't these poor brainwashed slacker rejects from Superbad II realize that the poster of the Obamalord that they are holding up is a little too reminiscent of the controversial Cuban flag featuring Che Guevara hanging in Obama's Houston headquarters?



Maybe this is the one I'm thinking of:

Say What?

Sadly, the reality of living in a capitalist society is that not everyone can “make it” the way Rossi did. A lot of people work their entire lives and never see the same type of success. For that reason, it makes little sense for someone in Rossi’s position to represent a working-class public.

- Amir Hassan, "Rossi needs to tell the truth to voters," Summer Watermelon, June 23, 2008

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

- Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

You see Amir and his fellow Marxist-Leninist "progressives" wish to turn the words of our Founding Fathers around completely backwards. They believe that all men are not created equal but all men are guaranteed equal happiness (at least happiness as the government defines it.)

Rather than someone from an immigrant family who has "made it" in the private sector like Rossi, Mr. Hassan would prefer Queen Christine, who has never worked a day in her life outside the bureaucracy of state government, to represent the "working class" as Governor.

And they say Republicans are bigots.

"WSU WATER RIGHTS: Group to appeal board's decision; State's Pollution Control Hearings Board denies request to reconsider earlier ruling"

We're just puttin' on the green and filin' frivilous lawsuits. Where all the money for this is coming from, nobody knows.

From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

A group of conservationists intend to appeal a ruling in their water mining case against Washington State University and the state Department of Ecology.

The appeal will be filed in Whitman County Superior Court, said Rachel Paschal Osborn, a Spokane-based attorney with the Center for Environmental Law and Policy who represents the group of conservationists.

The group contends WSU's attempts to consolidate its wells will adversely affect other wells in the area, arguing that the university will annually draw more than three times the amount of water it currently does.

In 2006, Ecology granted WSU's request to consolidate its seven wells. The Washington State Pollution Control Hearings Board reviewed the conservationists' initial appeal in January, and ruled April 17 that the Palouse Water Conservation Network, the Palouse Group Sierra Club and Pullman-area resident Scotty Cornelius did not prove that the consolidation would negatively affect other wells in the area.

Osborn said the appeal to Whitman County Superior Court is necessary because the three-judge hearings board denied her request to re-evaluate its decision.

Osborn asked the board to reconsider specifically because the Department of Ecology was not required to analyze the declining Grand Ronde aquifer. The analysis would determine how low aquifer levels can drop before the state intervenes. The outcome of the analysis, called a "reasonable and feasible pump lift," could lead the state to limit the amount of water used by major pumpers such as WSU, or put a freeze on water rights applications.

"Our reaction is that we're going to appeal," Osborn said. "We think that this is the final decision in a series of decisions where we think justice has not been done, so we're going to pursue review.

"They said they properly interpreted the case. They said there's not a problem with the declining aquifer," she added. "If you don't have to do the test in this situation, where would you ever have to do it? It's abundantly obvious there is a problem with the Grand Ronde aquifer."

Osborn has 30 days from Friday to file the necessary paperwork in Whitman County.

The conservationists claim WSU's ability to consolidate its water rights will allow it to annually pump more than three times the amount of water it currently does. The group argues that the university has contributed to the dropping levels in the Grand Ronde aquifer, and claims that the 18-hole Palouse Ridge Golf Club will create more drawdown of the area's primary water source.

The group was forced to prove that the consolidation interrupts or interferes with the availability of water in the Grand Ronde aquifer for residents throughout the Palouse. The hearings board determined that the general decline of the aquifer, claims that the university is mining water and the role of the golf course in the aquifer's declining levels were not relevant in the case.

"The board is operating on two assumptions: That they're requiring us to show causation ... but they have interpreted the law in a way that we can't prove that," she said. "We have to appeal."

Quote of the Day II

The existence of private property rights and the ability to do things with your land as you see fit is often not fully appreciated. The United States of America would not be the county it is without these rights. John Adams, one of the founding fathers of our country, said, "The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." (I bet John Adams told some really good I-remember-when stories.)

Lots of people want to tell you what you can do with property they do not own. The challenge is to allow development of private property in ways that provide profit to the landowner and facility to the community. It is often difficult to find the middle ground, and it is never possible to make everyone completely happy. If the community is not alert, small groups of vocal and active people can be very obstructive and do great harm to the future of the community.

- Steve Busch, "The ever-changing face of the Palouse," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, May 28, 2008

Moscowans should be glad that Steve and other individuals with common sense founded the Greater Moscow Alliance and saved the city from the clutches of those "small groups of vocal and active people."

Quote of the Year

There is no really good area outside of what’s on campus.

- WSU architecture professor Ayad Rahmani passsing judgment on Pullman, "Architecture students protest on Bishop Boulevard," The Daily Evergreen, April 1, 2008

Rahmani hopes his imperious and insulting comments will "generate some intelligent discussion."

Runner-Up:

Each building is completely independent from one another

Quote of the Day

Angela Congdon thinks the city of Pullman could have done better when planning Bishop Boulevard.

The 21-year-old Washington State University student said the boulevard's box stores (?) and strip malls add no quality to the Pullman community and detract from the well-planned, pedestrian-friendly downtown area.

"There's no cohesion," she said of recent construction along the boulevard. "Everything is random."

[...]

Congdon, who came to Pullman from the north Seattle area, said she likely wouldn't have initiated the protest without Rahmani's leadership. But she wanted to leave her mark on Pullman, since she soon will leave town to finish her degree at WSU-Spokane.

-"Students protest city's 'architorture'," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, March 28, 2008

Bye Angela. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Don't forget to e-mail Professor Ayad Rahmani at arahmani@wsu.edu and WSU President Elson Floyd at floyde@wsu.edu and let them how you feel about the taxpayer-funded insulting of Pullman during "Cougar Pride Days."

Quote of the Day

He simplified a really complex idea. It was frustrating because it’s not as easy or as simple as he made it out to be.

- WSU Progressive Student Union member Chelsea Tremblay, "Best-selling author talks about race", The Daily Evergreen, March 27, 2008

Apparently, however, the issues of globalization, international trade, and manufacturing in developing countries are pretty cut-and-dry for Ms. Tremblay.

What the Big Box Battles On the Palouse Are All About

Even though his frequent self-congratulatory egocentrism makes me blanch (e.g. "I'm a university professor with a large, successful, corporate-funded program that advises them on their business,") I generally enjoy Chuck Pezeshki's online comments because he cuts through all the usual bullshit our local liberals spout and reveals the unvarnished thoughts of a leftist in public. Take for example this recent comment on Dnews.com:

It's pretty shallow to define life in America as some kind of enhanced shopping experience. I don't think that the Founding Fathers meant 'pursuit of happiness' to mean price-shopping in a small geographic area. Sadly enough, with the collapse of anything resembling an external life in this country, shopping and over-work have turned into the few available pastimes. Lest ye think that I lament only for liberal pastimes, look at the fate of groups like the Lions. And try to buy a beer in an outdoor venue in the US. Not allowed-- because we're all supposedly hooligans. Even though there are whole continents where such a simple pleasure is a way of life-- not an exceptional activity.

For the last 12 years, this country's hit the skids. People are afraid, and now many are queued up for losing their homes. The collapse is on its way. It ain't gonna be pretty...

Bubba definitely had something to do with it. But GWB hammered the throttle down.

Besides demonstrating a terminal case of Bush Derangement Syndrome, Chuck's comment perfectly illustrates what Professor James Twitchell of the University of Florida in an article in Reason magazine called "Marxism Lite:"

Since the 1960s, the primary "readers" of the commercial "text" have been the well-tended and -tenured members of the academy. For any number of reasons--the most obvious being their low levels of disposable income, average age, and gender, and the fact that these critics are selling a competing product, high-cult (which is also coated with its own dream values)--the academy has casually passed off as "hegemonic brainwashing" what seems to me, at least, a self-evident truth about human nature: We like having stuff.

In place of the obvious, they have substituted an interpretation that they themselves often call vulgar Marxism. It is supposedly vulgar in the sense that it is not as sophisticated as the real stuff, but it has enough spin on it to be more appropriately called Marxism lite. Go into almost any cultural studies course in this country and you will hear the condemnation of consumerism expounded: What we see in the marketplace is the result of the manipulation of the many for the profit of the few. Consumers are led around by the nose. We live in a squirrel cage. Left alone we would read Wordsworth, eat lots of salad, and have meetings to discuss Really Important Subjects.

In cultural studies today, everything is oppression and we are all victims. In macrocosmic form, the oppression is economic--the "free" market. In microcosmic form, oppression is media--your "free" TV. Here, in the jargon of this downmarket Marxism, is how the system works: The manipulators, a.k.a. "the culture industry," attempt to enlarge their hegemony by establishing their ideological base in the hearts and pocketbooks of a weak and demoralized populace. Left alone, we would never desire things (ugh!). They have made us materialistic. But for them, we would be spiritual.

To these critics, the masters of industry and their henchmen, the media lords, are predators, and what they do in no way reflects or resolves genuine audience concerns. Just the opposite. The masters of the media collude, striving to infantilize us so that we are docile, anxious, and filled with "reified desire." While we may think advertising is just "talking about the product," that packaging just "wraps the object," that retailing is just "trading the product," or that fashion is just "the style of the product," this is not so. That you may think so only proves their power over you. The marginalized among us--the African American, the child, the immigrant, and especially the female--are trapped into this commodifying system, this false consciousness, and this fetishism that only the enlightened can correct. Legendary ad man David Ogilvy's observation that, "The consumer is no fool, she is your wife" is just an example of the repressive tolerance of such a sexist, materialist culture.

Needless to say, in such a system the only safe place to be is tenured, underpaid, self-defined as marginalized, teaching two days a week for nine months a year, and writing really perceptive social criticism that your colleagues can pretend to read. Or rather, you would be writing such articles if only you could find the time.

See, the problem with Chuck's ascetic Waldenesque utopia is that he and his elitist and enlightened academic chums who share his vision don't just want to decide what goods, stores, leisure pursuits, lifestyles, thoughts, feelings and beliefs are worthy for themselves, they want to decide for you also. This is the path to a totalitarian society.

Another example of Chuck's line of thinking is the book "The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism" by Michael Lerner. This book and its message have been enthusiastically embraced by Hillary Rodham Clinton ("It takes a village to raise a child"), among others. Jonah Goldberg in his #1 bestseller "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning" states that modern American "progessives," like Chuck, share the same nostalgic tradition as the communists and fascists in that they want to use political power to reestablish in the alienated modern city the lost innocence of community and kinship of the pre-modern village.

This is what the fight over Wal-Mart and Hawkins in our community is all about, not water, traffic, or stormwater runoff. I thank Chuck for reminding everyone of that.

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"Forum on Hawkins deal brings questions, answers"

Let me sum up last night's Moscow Com, er, Civic Association forum on the Hawkins development.

Moscow will receive $170,000 a year for selling Hawkins the same water Hawkins could have been pumping themselves, versus nothing.

Leftists still view national chain retail as some sort of capitalistic murder-suicide plot versus an investment.

And Gerard Connelly is still against any retail development in Pullman.

Now, can everyone please shut up? It's a done deal.

From today's Lewiston Tribune:

MOSCOW - Secrecy in government and a hurried business deal became fodder here Tuesday night for a bevy of questions and answers, some lengthy explanations and at least one concession.

"Has the council learned a lesson? Absolutely," Councilor Wayne Krauss said during a public forum about the city's recent closed-door deal with Hawkins Companies developers. "Should there be more public process? Absolutely. I agree with that."

The city council voted 5-1 last month to provide water and sewer service across the state line to Hawkins' proposed 714,000-square-foot shopping center. The action came after 22 hours of secret mediation and no public input.

"We got bad results from a process that was dubious at best," said Dennis Baird, owner of the Wine Company of Moscow.

Krauss and Baird were joined on a panel by Councilor Tom Lamar and Tri-State business owner Gerard Connelly. The forum, attended by about 100 people at the 1912 Center, was co-sponsored by the Moscow Civic Association, the Moscow Chamber of Commerce, and the Palouse Water Conservation Network.

Lamar, the only council member who voted against the agreement, said while the city council was on firm legal ground, "morally I feel like we should have done a lot of things differently."

Connelly defended the intentions of all elected officials. "I believe that every single person on the old council and the new council, and the mayor, acted honorably. And don't question anybody's motives."

But he said retail development is not economic development. "Retail follows economic development," Connelly said, adding he couldn't think of a more important vote taken by a Moscow City Council than the rushed decision with Hawkins. And yet there was "woefully inadequate public comment."

Krauss pointed out the lack of public involvement and secrecy started when Mayor Nancy Chaney and members of the old city council went into executive session last year and apparently came to a consensus to appeal Hawkins Companies attempts to secure water rights for the development. Then the city, without public input, decided to enter into mediation, Krauss said.

"We suddenly found out, guess what, we're going to mediation next week," Krauss said of how the process was sprung on new council members. He, Chaney and Councilor Walter Steed attended the mediation session with Hawkins in Spokane. All had to sign a confidentiality agreement.

"We felt that the Hawkins development, it was coming no matter what Moscow did," Krauss said. If the city didn't supply sewer and water, Hawkins would drill its own well and sewer system. "So the next best thing was hammer out the best deal we can."

Krauss estimated Hawkins will pay the city upward of $170,000 annually for water and sewer service on top of thousands more for hookup fees.

Most of the written questions at the forum focused on details of the water and sewer deal, rather than the secrecy of the decision making.

Baird expressed his doubts about the development, saying local businesses will lose out. "And then the place will close ..., and the whole community will be stuck with less business and less tax revenue than we have right now. That's the scenario that I'm really afraid of, that the mall will succeed just long enough to sink a whole lot of ships in Moscow and Pullman ... and then fail."

Connelly predicted the shopping center would amount to the latest exercise in "economic displacement," not growth. Nonetheless, if the development is inevitable, he'd rather have it right next to Moscow than farther away. "The closer you can be to your competition, the better."

Concerns about the development using too much water, Krauss said, should be less under the proposed agreement because Moscow will be able to regulate the amount. He also said people who fear excessive water use by Hawkins need to be more concerned about residential developments that go in with little or no discussion about their drain on groundwater supply.