We Used to Be Weird

About ten years ago, merchants on South Congress just south of the Congress street bridge in an area that was then known as 'the strip'started feeling the pinch of rising property values and big box stores. Some of them came up with a slogan. "Keep Austin Weird" started showing up on bumperstickers, T-shirts, beer cozies, etc. It then got co-opted by the bigger businesses and the city government, who have pretty much made it meaningless. A case in point- these three bulidings. One is brand new to Austin, one is in Sydney Austrailia, one is in Tampa, and one is in Atlanta.

I borrowed the shot of the one in Sydney from Pam's blog. The others are from commercial sites promoting the buildings or the design firm.

Soundtrack for this post: Chris Chandler's United States Of Generica

Are We Really This Greedy?

I have been working with the Law Of Attraction since before I had a name for it. The essence of the Law is that we are in some way responsible for everything that comes into our lives. ( Living and working with it is a little more complicated than that, but that is because we make it so.) In theory, this means that GW, the war in Iraq, the mortgage crisis, etc. are manifestations of our consciousness. Of course, so are beautiful music, flowers, great food and all the other things that we love. One of the ways that I have been using this information is by becoming aware of what I give my attention to. Because of that, I have given this story the least amount of attention that I could manage. I have focused on a good outcome for everyone involved. While it seems that there has been a positive resolution for the family involved, I am still appalled by the sheer greed of the corporation I usually refer to as 'the Evil Empire'. It appears that the corporation had to become fearful of the negative publicity it has been receiving due to the major media finally picking up the story and publicly shaming it before it was willing to reverse its direction in this matter. In reading the company's comments, I couldn't find anything that remotely says that the people directly responsible feel any regret toward what this family has been put through or that they are taking steps to make sure that this does not happen again. I wonder how many other people have been treated this way and the media either never found out or did not report it. At any rate, critical mass as to what our society will put up with in the amount of greed targeted toward individuals in such a blantant manner appears to have been reached. I hope that other corporations which have been engaging in this behavior sit up and take notice. In the meantime, I am sending am email to my congressman asking that he consider introducing or supporting legislation to stop this.

Soundtack to this post: Stephen Taylor's Better World

Stuff

I came accros this at Taexalia and feel it is just too good not to pass on to you.

http://taexalia.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.

BigBox

The following post was inspired by a situation with my sister. She is in a very fearful place right now with her financial situation. Fearful enough to take as a client a company which

has applied BigBox marketing to the massage business. Fearful enough to become very upset with me when I expressed my objections, thus providing me with yet another opportunity to decide who I want to be in relationnship to the situation. I have had quite a struggle with it. (The photo from http://www.jibjab.com/ )

Bill had a hardware store. He had bought his father out when he retired. The hardware store had been on operation in this town for more than 45 years. Bill wasn’t rich, but he made a comfortable living and provided a needed service to his community.

Then the BigBox opened on the outskirts of town. People found that they could get the things they usually bought from Bill at a much lower price than Bill could offer on the same items. Everything was so cheap at the BigBox. Pretty soon, Bill went out of business and filed bankruptcy as well.

Joe bought Bill’s house at auction for a fraction of its worth. He had been going to build a house for himself and his family but Bill’s house was very nice and it was so cheap. Besides, it was a good investment. Joe figured that in a couple of years, he could double his money on the house and use it to buy more investment property.

Since Joe bought Bill’s house, he did not need the services of Bob, the local contractor. Bob also did not to get to hire Jerry and George to help him build the Joe’s house. This also was a blow for the local lumber yard and plumbing supply business who were still in business because BigBox Home Improvement has not come to town just yet.

Jerry decided to go fishing. However, when he got to his favorite fishing place, the creek was full of trash. Several BigBox plastic shopping bags were caught in the trees. Cans, bottles and other debris had washed downstream from the BibBox parking lot.

Out of desperation Bill and his wife both took jobs at BigBox making minimum wage for 30 hours a week. They signed up for food stamps to feed their children. They use the county clinic for medical care. It doesn’t look like they will be sending the kids to college as planned so they will most likely work at BigBox, too.

Their old customers kept making their purchases at BigBox. At first, they could get everything Bill used to have but, little by little, that changed. BigBox only stocked the things that sell the fastest and at the most volume, so the special things that Bill used to keep on hand because he sold a few of them a year and he knew that his customers really needed them are nowhere to be found. Some of them don’t even exist anymore because BigBox did not see fit to set up manufacturing in China to make them and the small companies that made them here are gone because they could not compete with the slave labor wages that the companies BigBox buys things from can get away with overseas.

Two local grocery stores and several clothing stores also went out of business after BigBox came to town. If anyone in town minds that all their clothes look alike and that they don’t have as much variety in food choices as they used to, nobody says much about it. After all, everything at BigBox is so cheap.

They do gripe about taxes going up due to the clinic being suddenly busier than before, more kids needing free school lunches and more families needing food stamps. Few people see the connection between their higher taxes and the fact that everything at BigBox is so cheap.