This is an op-ed essay I wrote for the History News Service distribution service.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/~hns/articles/2003/120203a.html

Is Retailing's Death Star Vulnerable After All?
By Bob Batchelor
History News Service

You think that Americans' national pastime is baseball, football, or Nascar? You're wrong. It's shopping.

The United States is a country filled with passionate shoppers. Nothing is more American than finding a bargain. If you want to see an economic juggernaut in action during the holiday shopping sprint from Thanksgiving to Christmas, head over to the local Wal-Mart. The company's promise of "everyday low prices" is music to the ears of every shopper.

For better or worse, we're living in a Wal-Mart World. The company now produces an astonishing 2.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Last year, Wal-Mart sold a record $1.43 billion the day after Thanksgiving. This year the number jumped to $1.52 billion.

Yet, even with millions of people entering the doors of the world's largest company, things are not all rosy for its stores. Public outcry against the company is growing stronger.

This shopping season could be critical for Wal-Mart, given the criticisms leveled against it. The notion that Wal-Mart's aggressive expansion has destroyed small-town America is nearly universal. Recently the store has faced censure for paying its employees substandard wages and for hiring illegal aliens. Public outrage could reach a point where shoppers turn away from Wal-Mart and give their business to retailers viewed as more employee -- and consumer -- friendly.

Wal-Mart is in danger of becoming corporate America's Darth Vader, master of an all-but-impregnable Death Star to execute its strategies while ignoring the forces massing against it. Shoppers openly declare how much they hate Wal-Mart, but say they must shop there because it stretches their budgets. Notice how, in contrast, consumers rave about Target and Costco. This disparity in consumers' attitudes could be Wal-Mart's fatal defect.

Given its size and scope, Wal-Mart's ultimate demise may seem inconceivable, but the death of a bargain retailer is not unprecedented. >From the original giant retail empire founded by Frank Woolworth in Utica, N.Y., in 1879 to regional powers such as New York's E.J. Korvette and Pennsylvania's Fisher's Big Wheel, many discount retailers have been discarded into history's dustbin.

While many discounters failed because they didn't adopt technological innovation quickly enough or because they pursued ill-advised diversification projects, others disappeared as public perception shifted. Surely Woolworth executives didn't imagine that Kmart would upend the company, just as Kmart never really viewed Wal-Mart as a threat in the 1960s and 1970s. Will there be a retailer that can out-Wal-Mart Wal-Mart? History suggests that the answer is yes.

Woolworth wasn't the first merchandiser to offer cut-rate prices. Like many of the world's greatest businessmen -- think of Henry Ford's assembly line or Bill Gates's computer operating system -- Woolworth didn't invent what made him famous. He recognized the beauty of the discount concept and then built an empire.

Woolworth's work to establish bargain shopping apart from traditional retailing was revolutionary. Retailers were just beginning to understand the psychology of shopping in the late 19th century. Using dramatic displays and offering a broad selection of goods, his stores transformed simple marketplaces into edens where shoppers fulfilled their dreams. Woolworth's five-cent promise gave almost everyone buying power. By 1918, a billion people entered Woolworth's stores each year, and more than 820 million left with a purchase.

Looking back at the history of discount shopping in the United States, it's easy to visualize a line from Woolworth's to Wal-Mart. Today's discount retailers use the same methods Woolworth pioneered. They build stores in prime locations, squeeze distributors and offer low prices.

Wal-Mart has mastered its gargantuan supply chain and used its size to force vendors to cut their prices. Technological innovations have driven down overhead. Savings have then been passed on to shoppers. Wal-Mart's high-tech infrastructure is the real engine driving the company's revenues.

Public protest, however, has put Wal-Mart at a crossroads. On its present course, it can continue gobbling up the hundreds of billions of dollars shoppers spend there annually and keep expanding until a store sits on every corner. As it does so, the company will battle challengers and constantly look for threats to its throne. Traditionally, this is the way large corporations function.

But given the heavy criticism Wal-Mart faces, a better strategy would be for the company to use its power to become a corporate revolutionary, utilizing its influence to set new merchandising standards as the country continues its shift to a service economy. A simple first step would be to pay employees better, which would immediately improve the lives of 1.4 million people and their families. With such actions, Wal-Mart has the chance to change the way corporate America operates.

The economy goes as Wal-Mart goes. Will it do something visionary or risk eventual extinction as did Frank Woolworth's great innovative retail enterprise? This may be the company's only chance to offset its damaged reputation.

It's not unreasonable for the world's largest company to aspire to be its most compassionate. That might make Wal-Mart a place where people would want to work -- and love to visit again.

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Bob Batchelor is the author of "The 1900s" (2002) and a writer for the History News Service.

[Bob Batchelor, 1100 Clayton Court, Novato, CA 94945. Telephone: (415) 892-4025; e-mail: bob@bobbatchelor.com]

The Schooling of King James

Wow! Watching the Cleveland Cavs get beat up 93-89 by the lowly Denver Nuggets was tough. For young LeBron "King" James, however, the game could be instructive. All he needed to do was check out the whirling, blur that is Earl Boykins.

The Cavs clearly don't have an offensive plan. Either that or Coach Paul Silas can't get his players to understand that ball movement wins games in the NBA. Most of the game, James was the highest paid spectator in the house(outside of luminaries like Jay-Z, Ken Griffey Jr., and Phil Knight, all of whom showed up courtside). The hoops phenomenon was relegated to the weak side wing, watching from behind the three-point line as the action took place.

On the other bench, however, sat Earl Boykins, waiting his turn in his own homecoming (Boykins is a Cleveland native and starred at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan). When he got his chance, Boykins put on a show, even though he stands only 5'5" and weighs in at about 120 lbs. soaking wet.

Boykins racheted up the offense by pushing the ball up the court and deftly pulling up for a variety of jumpers -- long threes and soft floaters off the run. While LeBron mentally checked out as his teammates threw up repeated junk, Boykins took control of the game. His secret: play smart and hit your jump shot.

There it is LeBron...the key to you fulfilling all your unlimited potential. Play smart and hit your jumper. Right now, and into the near future, you'll excel at the former and forget the latter.

Until you've had a summer or two to turn the jump shot into a lethal weapon, ala Jordan, Coach Silas needs to actively work you into the offense through posting up or giving you the space to take the ball to the hole.

Right now, everyone wants James to be the next Jordan, but it might never happen. He does not have the offensive skills to be Michael. However, there is nothing wrong with being the next Magic. Magic was a leader and won championships.

Time will tell if James can live up to the standards set by Magic or Michael. His freshman year in the NBA is going to be one long study hall and hopefully he learned something from little Professor Boykins.

M. Night Shyamalan

My wife Katherine and I were eating breakfast this morning and just kind of cruising through the TV stations. One of the cable stations was replaying M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, so we watched the last half hour or so. Watching this movie again, I was struck by how well it was filmed and the layers of storyline involved. Seeing it again (disclaimer: I've seen all or parts of it about 6 to 8 times), I realized that Shyamalan is probably never going to be fully recognized for his brilliance by today's shoot-um-up, blow-um-up audience.

On the cinematic side, the things Shyamalan did with the camera were amazing. For example, when David is choking out the home invader/murderer, he actually looks like he is flying around the room. Earlier in that scene, when David enters the room where the mother is dead, the director shoots the frame from outside the house, looking through the blowing curtains. It seems as if David appears out of thin air, like one would expect from a superhero. The camera work in the movie is superb. One look at the coloring, the angles, and the lighting reveals that Shyamalan is going places that most of his contemporaries can't touch.

There are so many great scenes of raw emotion in Unbreakable. Bruce Willis' David carries his angst on his sleeve and the emotion is palpable. Robin Wright Penn is so good as Audrey, the wife who is trying to understand why her family is disintegrating around her. She plays a physical therapist who spends her days piecing people back together, but her own family is broken -- seemingly beyond repair.

Take a look at the scene where Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) loads the gun and threatens to shoot his father. David tries several psychological tricks on the boy before finding the one that works...the threat of permantly destroying the family unit, despite the fact that it is already crumbling around them.

It is inconceivable that the Academy Award voters could pass on the roles played by any of the main characters in this film. Willis, in particular, shows his skills as a dramatic actor. Notice the look of fear on his face when he realizes he must act when his superhero instincts kick in at the train station. Whenever he is untying the children from the radiator, his hands are shaking more than the victims. Like Tom Hanks' Forrest Gump character, I can't imagine another Hollywood star filling David's shoes in Unbreakable. It is a career-defining role for Bruce Willis.

Quite frankly, Shyamalan may simply be too intelligent a filmmaker to be fully recognized by the general public. There is an inherent war between philosophers and kings in American society. Philosophers are people, generally, who ponder emotions and the implications of events by placing them within some version of a worldview. These people are the creative types in society. On the other hand, kings are the people who make snap decisions, often based on gut feelings or instincts and see events as processes. The kings are CEOs, managers, and administrators. Kings are rewarded for making decisions.

In our society, the battle for control between the philosophers and the kings boils down to a fight over vastly different views of what it means to live justly and correctly. Not only do the two sides not understand each other, they can't even visualize how the other side lives.

I would hazard that most people who don't see the beauty of Unbreakable are in the King camp. The make a snap decision about whether or not they like the movie based solely on what they perceived they saw on the screen. Trained to conclude, then stick to it, they write off a multi-layered film like this one. Philosophers, however, sensing the nuances of the characters, the skill of the actors, and the stunning originality of Shyamalan's take on the superhero genre, revel in a move like Unbreakable.

Here's a Web site that has a lot of great Shyamalan info: http://www.shyamalan.cjb.net/

Okay, you heard it here first...The Cavs should hire Michael Jordan to coach them next year. Who in the basketball world could do a better job of guiding young Mr. James, while rebuilding an ailing franchise? And, although Cleveland has a love/hate relationship with MJ (the shot -- twice), he would add instant respectability and cachet to the organization.

Dear Mr. Gund, please go out and get MJ.

LeBron James

As a former Clevelander, I'm so psyched that the Cavs won the rights to LeBron James. It is a perfect scenario: James (from Akron) gets drafted by his hometown team, then leads the Cavs back to respectability. If I still lived in the Land of Cleves, I'd have already plunked down the money for a season ticket subscription.

For those hoops junkies out there, I've written an essay on LeBron James for the book I'm editing, Basketball in America: From the Playgrounds to Jordan's Game and Beyond, which will come out next year. The book examines the modern history of basketball from every angle, literally from the playgrounds to the professional circuits.

Annika

I'm so psyched that Annika Sorenstam played a great round at the Bank of America Colonial tournament on Thursday. It's a level playing field and she showed the world what she could do. Congratulations to the men's tour players who welcomed her into the tournament, particularly Tiger Woods, who made positive statements in a situation in which he didn't have to do so.

Why would anyone criticize Annika's entry into the tournament -- especially professional golfers. Pro golfers now earn about triple the amount of money they used to (pre-Tiger) because Woods has brought such a high level of excitement to the game. If Annika brings people out to the tournaments and gets butts in front of the tube, then it will benefit all the pro players.

Plus, why would a professional golfer ever complain. Unlike weekend duffers, they don't carry their bags, they have their yardage marked off for them, they don't pay for clubs, balls, etc., and they make a ton of money. Play your game and welcome all the publicity that you can get, particularly when Woods is not in the field. Every player in the field should shake Annika's hand and thank her for the added spotlights she's brought to the game.

Thoughts on the War in Iraq

Like many other people I have discussed the war with over the last several days, I am completely torn between my left-leaning political inclinations and my feelings of patriotism. I wish the Bush Administration would have done a better job explaining why we needed to go to war, particularly beyond simply demonizing Saddam Hussein. Now that the troops are in the Middle East, however, I think that they deserve our support and prayers for a quick end to the fighting with as few deaths as possible.

Bush's main challenge, as usual, is one of communications. He could have presented the reasons war was necessary at this specific point in history in a clear, concise way, showing that war was the only logical conclusion. A nationally-televised address that logically presented this evidence would have gone a long way toward giving the public the reason war was inevitable and unavoidable.

Protesting the War

On one hand, I support the anti-war protesters organizing against the conflict and exercising their right to free speech. However, it seems that there are factions within the protests that have agendas far beyond the scope of protesting.

While I did not witness it firsthand, several close sources related stories of being threatened with violence in and around office buildings in San Francisco's Financial District by protesters. Others were verbally harassed for the simple offense of trying to get to work. This kind of action is ludicrous on many different levels and actually turns people against the protesters cause. Obviously, everyone is concerned about the war in Iraq and what it means for all nations around the world. However, the simple fact of the matter is that people still have to go to work, make money to support their families, and continue to meet everyday responsibilities.

We're all cogs in the machine. I don't think that regular people should suffer at the hands of the protesters for justing trying to get by. The act of going to work is not political...it's a necessity. For better or worse, no matter how one feels about the fighting in Iraq, the mortgage still has to be paid each month.

When Amanda Davis, author of the novel Wonder When You'll Miss Me, told a group of writers in the Readerville (www.readerville.com) community that her father was flying her around North Carolina on a mini-book tour, more than a few had immediate chills, thinking about the danger inherent in such a journey. Our darkest nightmare became a reality when Amanda and her parents died in a crash on March 15. Not only has the world been robbed of a stellar human being, but Amanda (only 32 years old) was an outstanding talent. Her book has already received rave reviews and her teaching career was underway at Mills College in Oakland, CA. My prayers go out to Amanda's family and friends. Like others in the Readerville community, I would love to see Amanda's book show up on the NY Times best-seller list as a tribute to her. I urge you to buy copy(ies) of Wonder When You'll Miss Me and give them out to anyone you know who enjoys great writing.