It has been 12 months since my last blog post. In a way, that blog post was the exposition and summation of an experiment perpetrated upon an unwitting society through this very blog. If there is one truth about humanity that I have gleaned from that experiment, it is that we are extraordinarily self interested and perhaps rightly so in terms of our need for survival. However, yet another truth that was revealed is that we have a tendency to perceive those things that are completely tactile as having more of an effect upon us than those issues that are more complex and harder to pin down. That makes sense.
Late last year, I took a dreadful tumble down the stairs that rendered me both incapable of driving and a whole slew of physical activity. I'm not good at being unproductive and disability, well, makes a person feel pretty useless. In fact, feeling useless has been my number one nemesis over the last year. I have to be doing something productive for society or else, I'll quite potentially implode. What can one do, though, when, as I so often put it, the only useful thing left in a person is the fact that they have a brain. Well, in my case, I accepted that personal truth and decided to try to glean whatever I could at all that is currently going on to get to the heart of all those matters.
Research, listening, observing, and examining history for correlation. Pouring over patents, scholarly articles and more. Some days, it literally felt like I was the Eye of Sauron but instead of being eyes of corruption, I willfully chose to become the eyes of objectivity. Considering how much there is a prevalence of a sort of "us v. them" mentality when it comes to just about everything that gets churned out in the media, the thing that I perceived the greatest need for was a voice of objectivity and reason. After all, an effective democracy inherently requires that its electoral base is informed.
For some who read this, they may find that to be incredibly arrogant to think that I can try to be a voice of reason and objectivity. To those, I say that you couldn't be further from the truth. I do have my own set of biases. I am more prone towards living in an environmental conscientious way. Although I do not belong to any political party, I do have a tendency to lean towards the left. Due to what occurred to my own family's business and its demise, I do have a prejudice against very large corporations and well, like many, I really don't like Walmart. However, I do not let myself get carried away with those biases to the extent of closing my eyes to the opposition's arguments.
There's a tendency to want to simplify a variety of matters into an almost black and white thinking. Just because I do have an environmentalist concern, that does not equate that I do not support business. Just because I am not fond of very large corporations, that does not mean that I do not hold some appreciation for them. Even Walmart has its function and positivity within our society as what other entity, throughout these troubled economic times, have made it so that so many people could afford to eat (though perhaps not their own employees). In other words, I do actively set aside my personal biases on a regular basis to acknowledge that each one of those oppositional views has value. In fact, I'd argue that if something did not have value within our society, then it would not exist. To me, that hits on yet another truth: it is very rare that anything is truly evil or good. In reality, there is very little that is black and white. Most things are shades of gray.
I have had people ask me why it is that I haven't written anything new on my blog over the last year. The truth of that matter is that so much of what I have uncovered in this last year has been sometimes so startling and so disturbing that words literally left me. I simply did not know what to say or even how to say it. I'm not sure if I am, in fact, capable of expressing what it is that I have seen or uncovered even now. The only thing that I know is that I have to try because to do otherwise simply renders this last year as meaningless and without point. Zero productivity. I'm not going to lie though and pretend that I'm absolutely confident that I can do adequate justice to report some of what I see as the key problems within our society today, the sources of those problems and why they exist. If anything, I feel pretty small, insignificant and uncertain and that's on a good day. On the bad days, I simply am terrified.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Fallacy of Being Human
Nothing fascinates me more than going ahead and seeing what is getting views on my blog and what isn't. I aced both the midterm and final of my statistics class so it's a no brainer that I'm a stats junky. Give me the stats tab for a blog and I can, fairly naturally, see so much. The stats of a blog and popularity of a blog post (or comparative unpopularity) tells me not just what people are willing to read but also tells me what people are interested in. After one year of reasonably active blogging, there are two posts that account for almost half of all my blog's views. The first one is my market breakdown of why jeans may be tearing at the thighs (2244 views). The second is my breakdown of Congress' discretionary spending (1010 views). In comparison, the third highest viewed post is on free speech (The Symbolism of Tents with 408 views).
In general, most of my posts are involving what I call "social dynamics", whether they be in a specific market, economy, media, legislation, or society, itself. They are all, at least through my eyes as the writer, involving societal interactions. Out of all of my posts, I would say that the jeans post is the least important and yet, the number of views it has is double that of even the more important breakdown of discretionary spending. The natural question that arises in me is "why is that?". Why these three posts?
As the writer, I find it very plain to see that what interests people are those things that they perceive as having the most direct affect on them. This plays out as very true when I look at the specific subject matter of these top three posts. Jeans are something that many people wear on a daily basis. Congress' spending, especially due to the media driven debates and fiscal cliff talks, also has been a subject that people can see as having a possible direct effect on their lives. And the tents? Well, that had a very specific affect on the lives of Occupy protestors and was the chief complaint of detractors from the movement. Hence, the premise that people are interested in what they perceive as affecting their daily lives turns out to be true, at least according to the stats of my blog. However, they also watch the news on a daily basis (media). They share images on Facebook that expand a generational divide (society). They worry about the safety of their children in schools and so on. Yet, the further away the subject gets from what they perceive as their own personal lives, the less interested they are. Is it that individuals within a society are self-serving or is it simply harder to comprehend how more complex subjects may affect them?
One of the things that I see come up so often as of late is the discussion of "free will". We, myself included, have a tendency of disengaging ourselves from society by perceiving ourselves as individuals who may or may not be affected by the movement of societal interactions through the process of free will. Nevermind the fact that society is, in fact, comprised of individuals interacting and influencing each other on a constant basis. When I explain to my children how it is that I view people within a society, I compare it to being rather like water molecules in a pond. Each individual water molecule is separate and may bump into each other from time to time but, when taken as a whole, we see a pond,(a city) a lake (a state) or an ocean (global humanity).
Some may balk at seeing themselves, with all their free will, as being relegated to the status of a water molecule. However, the comparison does stand up. Is not a law like a dam to prevent water from flowing into a specific area and if there should be holes or failures within that dam, doesn't some of the water escape past it? And do we not flow like water, at times, following down certain streams of affiliation that could represent the flow of a river or a current within the ocean? Or some idea or invention, such as the internet, may have the same effect as a child tossing a pebble into a pond, causing a ripple of change amongst the whole. And as water molecules, our perception of the world around us would be those other individual water molecules that are the closest to us of all and not necessarily the scenery through which we traverse or that our course may have changed entirely. Our scenery would be those other close by molecules, not the forest that we cut through or the mountain from which we descend. To us, the change of scenery would not be felt until it touches our lives in the most direct of ways. Like the ripping of jeans at the thigh.
In general, most of my posts are involving what I call "social dynamics", whether they be in a specific market, economy, media, legislation, or society, itself. They are all, at least through my eyes as the writer, involving societal interactions. Out of all of my posts, I would say that the jeans post is the least important and yet, the number of views it has is double that of even the more important breakdown of discretionary spending. The natural question that arises in me is "why is that?". Why these three posts?
As the writer, I find it very plain to see that what interests people are those things that they perceive as having the most direct affect on them. This plays out as very true when I look at the specific subject matter of these top three posts. Jeans are something that many people wear on a daily basis. Congress' spending, especially due to the media driven debates and fiscal cliff talks, also has been a subject that people can see as having a possible direct effect on their lives. And the tents? Well, that had a very specific affect on the lives of Occupy protestors and was the chief complaint of detractors from the movement. Hence, the premise that people are interested in what they perceive as affecting their daily lives turns out to be true, at least according to the stats of my blog. However, they also watch the news on a daily basis (media). They share images on Facebook that expand a generational divide (society). They worry about the safety of their children in schools and so on. Yet, the further away the subject gets from what they perceive as their own personal lives, the less interested they are. Is it that individuals within a society are self-serving or is it simply harder to comprehend how more complex subjects may affect them?
One of the things that I see come up so often as of late is the discussion of "free will". We, myself included, have a tendency of disengaging ourselves from society by perceiving ourselves as individuals who may or may not be affected by the movement of societal interactions through the process of free will. Nevermind the fact that society is, in fact, comprised of individuals interacting and influencing each other on a constant basis. When I explain to my children how it is that I view people within a society, I compare it to being rather like water molecules in a pond. Each individual water molecule is separate and may bump into each other from time to time but, when taken as a whole, we see a pond,(a city) a lake (a state) or an ocean (global humanity).
Some may balk at seeing themselves, with all their free will, as being relegated to the status of a water molecule. However, the comparison does stand up. Is not a law like a dam to prevent water from flowing into a specific area and if there should be holes or failures within that dam, doesn't some of the water escape past it? And do we not flow like water, at times, following down certain streams of affiliation that could represent the flow of a river or a current within the ocean? Or some idea or invention, such as the internet, may have the same effect as a child tossing a pebble into a pond, causing a ripple of change amongst the whole. And as water molecules, our perception of the world around us would be those other individual water molecules that are the closest to us of all and not necessarily the scenery through which we traverse or that our course may have changed entirely. Our scenery would be those other close by molecules, not the forest that we cut through or the mountain from which we descend. To us, the change of scenery would not be felt until it touches our lives in the most direct of ways. Like the ripping of jeans at the thigh.
Friday, January 11, 2013
The Rise of Conspiracy
On his namesake show on January 8th, Jon Stewart made the claim that he understood what was happening in the US in regards to gun control and stated that "their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present." After Alex Jones' volatile appearance on the Piers Morgan Show, it is quite easy to dismiss the clear fears that Jones presented as mere paranoia yet, I found it riveting to hear Mr. Stewart's claim that our present is actually dystopian in itself. Of course, his definition of dystopian was the number of gun related homicides per annum, but what he failed to see was that these people who he is dismissive of are not truly responding in paranoid fear about a possible dystopian future but are instead, responding to fears of a very much current dystopian present.
The very idea of what makes a society dystopian is subjective in nature. For some, it could be presented in an over-reaching regime with intense personal intrusions, for others it could be one in which sloth, decadence and perversion are the mainstream. In Jones' appearance on Piers Morgan, he makes it quite clear that he is afraid of a variety of things from chemtrails to pharmaceutical drugs--fears that are very much rooted in the here and now, not the future as Stewart chose to focus on. Unfortunately, what Stewart later calls "a few" is actually more than just a few Americans. Whereas Alex Jones tends to be the right wing conspiracy theory reporter, the left wing also has its share of conspiracy theorists that are also growing in both prevalence and presence. The interesting thing about the growing capacity for people to accept or consider conspiracy theory is that, where it was once confined to an isolated corner, it is now becoming more accepted by the mainstream. Whereas most of us would most likely balk at Alex Jones' behavior and statements, I would like to see the portion that thought that Jones may have hit upon a subject that they were themselves concerned about. What the hell happened?
First of all, I am not going to voice my opinion on any particular conspiracy theory. What I am instead going to look at are those things that are rooted in the rise of conspiracy theory within society, itself. What things within the fabric of society have changed that have led more people to listen and pay attention to conspiracy theories to the point where Alex Jones is present on a CNN show? Oddly enough, my most immediate thought would be mainstream media, itself, for three reasons. First of all, one cannot argue that there are a great deal of shows gaining in popularity over the last several years that would embody what would be the fringe of science, pseudoscience, or even conspiracy, itself. Once upon a time, a show like the The X-Files was rather unique. Today we have shows such as Fringe, Alphas, Touch, Supernatural, and more bombarding our televisions with their novelty. Or, on the more "serious" documentary side, we have shows like Ancient Aliens or Dark Matters, or,, worse yet, mockumentaries that overlap into reality in an ARG like manner such as the mermaid mockumentary earlier this year that also included two websites purported to have been taken down by the Department of Homeland Security. If we're a society who believes that video game violence can lead to real life violence, then what does the bombardment of pseudoscience and conspiracy theory lead us to? Why, pseudoscience and conspiracy theory, of course. What we watch affects us and, considering the increasing prevalence of these kind of shows, they are clearly appealing to the television viewing public. Mainstream media has been doing a bang up job of shredding the box that generally encapsulates most people's thinking. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it also opens the door to possibly formulating ideas that may have no foundation in actual science or history or perhaps a little foundation in either but are spun in such a way as to be wholly wrong.
Even more interesting, however, is the fact that viewership of mainstream media news has actually been declining and the way that it is presented has altered entirely quite possibly in response. Whereas previously, news articles would be written by a journalist writing through either AP, Reuters or on behalf of a news agency, now they may have tweets from perhaps relevant or rrelevant Twitter users on the subject matter on the same page as the news article, itself. Or, they may grab a blogger's article and present it as an article, itself, instead of as it should be--an op-ed piece of dubious origin (ironic, considering that's what I am, I know). I was really very humoured when a blogger whose post went viral was put on television to talk about Invisible Children. I can very well imagine that they were slightly horrified to find that who they had brought forward as an expert was a teenaged boy, who seemed slightly horrified at what they had done, himself. The inclusion of what would be basically heavily truncated and sometimes the anonymous textual equivalent of soundbites and op-ed from anonymous source actually further contaminates our journalism and allows the inclusion of potentially improperly sourced material as evidenced by the string of misreports in regards to the Sandy Hook shooting.
The other issue, that I have mentioned previously in this blog, is that mainstream media has allowed itself to become increasingly polarized and sometimes, pushing more radical material in order to increase viewership. Just last week, I came across an article on Fox News that discussed the possibility of an upcoming Civil War. In fact, when Jon Stewart also jokingly stated on his show that "a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of imaginary Hitler", he obviously wasn't paying attention to where that Hitler may have come from, which is relatively surprising--Fox News. It's been a pretty consistently reported comparison that has been repeated multiple times by the news agency and this truly highlights the issue of the polarization of the press. We have a nasty tendency of being a reactive society as opposed to being a reflective one and both sides of the party-polarized media are terribly guilty of it. You'd think that Jon Stewart could have made the connection of who their imaginary Hitler was but he didn't, did he? Doing so would've posed a problem about him stating that they were in fear of a possible dystopian future.
The liberal media has been just as bad in regards to cultivating conspiratorial leanings and worries. The Huffington Post is always very quick to post articles that are worded in such a way as to promote fear of a conspiracy or a totalitarian style regime even. Even more ironic is the frequent usage of RT as a news source. RT tends to use fear tactics in an almost anti-government frenzy which then gets shared over and over again by a variety of more liberal groups. The reason why it is ironic is that, some of the conspiracy claims are that Communists are attempting to take over the US. Considering that RT stands for Russia Times and was initially started by the KGB, it doesn't take long to figure out how that idea came to be. Regardless, most news agencies are very quick to report the indiscretions and corruption of the government and its agencies. Earlier today, there was an article on CNN about a DEA agent who had procured prostitutes for a Secret Service agent. Clearly, we're in corruption hell though there is no word on the majority of other agents working in the field and whether they deal with prostitutes as well.
Regardless of which lens one views the mainstream media through, the end result is oddly consistent: a corrupt, frequently over-reaching government with a Congress that seems to be better at making gaffes than actual pertinent legislation and who are not properly representing their constituents anymore. A very dystopian present. What we do not see are the more moderate representatives and senators being written about or aired on television--what we are seeing are the provocative and inflaming members of Congress, a relatively small portion. In the end, the mixture of the media presentation and their own failed and questionably successful endeavors ended up creating the most hated Congress in history. And if you can't trust our government to protect and represent you and if you can't trust the mainstream media for reporting things properly, then who do you trust? Apparently, conspiracy theorists, bloggers and tweets--and that's dangerous. I don't know how many times I have seen someone say something on facebook that I was able to trace back to a conspiracy theory and generally one of highly dubious source. The issue is that, once anonymity reigns the day, and many of the sources of this kind of thing are just that--fairly anonymous--, then nearly all accountability is lost. I could declare that I have a phd in Sociology from Cambridge and, whereas those of my readers who know me personally would know that I was full of it, the majority of my readers wouldn't be any of the wiser. (I have a B.S. in accounting and an associates of science: biology, for the record--true, I swear! lol).
At the end of the day, the primary reason why we are in this mess here in the US isn't because of some all conspiring entity or even entities. The reason is you. Until we can start becoming a public that can read or view something through a critical lens instead of a reactive one, we'll continue to be in this mess. It's not to say that we have to lose the shows that we love or anything like that but we have to maintain a level head. Question the hell out of everything but when you're throwing out the slants, skews and spins of media--don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater opens the door to more dangerous territories that could ignite this country like a powder keg because that's precisely what was seen on Piers Morgan's show. In its March 2011 issue, Rolling Stone reported that Alex Jones had more viewers than both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck combined and that his youtube channel has had over 80 million views. As of today, January 11, 2013, his videos have had over 264 million views. Zeitgeist, a movie under a similar type of genre, has had incalculable views and has even made it to Netflix. It's not to say that conspiracies have never occurred or do not exist for conspiring is within human nature. However, spin doctors also exist and, through the internet, are gaining a greater prevalence and influence than ever before. This, Jon Stewart, is MY dystopian present.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/talk-radios-alex-jones-the-most-paranoid-man-in-america-20110302
The very idea of what makes a society dystopian is subjective in nature. For some, it could be presented in an over-reaching regime with intense personal intrusions, for others it could be one in which sloth, decadence and perversion are the mainstream. In Jones' appearance on Piers Morgan, he makes it quite clear that he is afraid of a variety of things from chemtrails to pharmaceutical drugs--fears that are very much rooted in the here and now, not the future as Stewart chose to focus on. Unfortunately, what Stewart later calls "a few" is actually more than just a few Americans. Whereas Alex Jones tends to be the right wing conspiracy theory reporter, the left wing also has its share of conspiracy theorists that are also growing in both prevalence and presence. The interesting thing about the growing capacity for people to accept or consider conspiracy theory is that, where it was once confined to an isolated corner, it is now becoming more accepted by the mainstream. Whereas most of us would most likely balk at Alex Jones' behavior and statements, I would like to see the portion that thought that Jones may have hit upon a subject that they were themselves concerned about. What the hell happened?
First of all, I am not going to voice my opinion on any particular conspiracy theory. What I am instead going to look at are those things that are rooted in the rise of conspiracy theory within society, itself. What things within the fabric of society have changed that have led more people to listen and pay attention to conspiracy theories to the point where Alex Jones is present on a CNN show? Oddly enough, my most immediate thought would be mainstream media, itself, for three reasons. First of all, one cannot argue that there are a great deal of shows gaining in popularity over the last several years that would embody what would be the fringe of science, pseudoscience, or even conspiracy, itself. Once upon a time, a show like the The X-Files was rather unique. Today we have shows such as Fringe, Alphas, Touch, Supernatural, and more bombarding our televisions with their novelty. Or, on the more "serious" documentary side, we have shows like Ancient Aliens or Dark Matters, or,, worse yet, mockumentaries that overlap into reality in an ARG like manner such as the mermaid mockumentary earlier this year that also included two websites purported to have been taken down by the Department of Homeland Security. If we're a society who believes that video game violence can lead to real life violence, then what does the bombardment of pseudoscience and conspiracy theory lead us to? Why, pseudoscience and conspiracy theory, of course. What we watch affects us and, considering the increasing prevalence of these kind of shows, they are clearly appealing to the television viewing public. Mainstream media has been doing a bang up job of shredding the box that generally encapsulates most people's thinking. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it also opens the door to possibly formulating ideas that may have no foundation in actual science or history or perhaps a little foundation in either but are spun in such a way as to be wholly wrong.
Even more interesting, however, is the fact that viewership of mainstream media news has actually been declining and the way that it is presented has altered entirely quite possibly in response. Whereas previously, news articles would be written by a journalist writing through either AP, Reuters or on behalf of a news agency, now they may have tweets from perhaps relevant or rrelevant Twitter users on the subject matter on the same page as the news article, itself. Or, they may grab a blogger's article and present it as an article, itself, instead of as it should be--an op-ed piece of dubious origin (ironic, considering that's what I am, I know). I was really very humoured when a blogger whose post went viral was put on television to talk about Invisible Children. I can very well imagine that they were slightly horrified to find that who they had brought forward as an expert was a teenaged boy, who seemed slightly horrified at what they had done, himself. The inclusion of what would be basically heavily truncated and sometimes the anonymous textual equivalent of soundbites and op-ed from anonymous source actually further contaminates our journalism and allows the inclusion of potentially improperly sourced material as evidenced by the string of misreports in regards to the Sandy Hook shooting.
The other issue, that I have mentioned previously in this blog, is that mainstream media has allowed itself to become increasingly polarized and sometimes, pushing more radical material in order to increase viewership. Just last week, I came across an article on Fox News that discussed the possibility of an upcoming Civil War. In fact, when Jon Stewart also jokingly stated on his show that "a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of imaginary Hitler", he obviously wasn't paying attention to where that Hitler may have come from, which is relatively surprising--Fox News. It's been a pretty consistently reported comparison that has been repeated multiple times by the news agency and this truly highlights the issue of the polarization of the press. We have a nasty tendency of being a reactive society as opposed to being a reflective one and both sides of the party-polarized media are terribly guilty of it. You'd think that Jon Stewart could have made the connection of who their imaginary Hitler was but he didn't, did he? Doing so would've posed a problem about him stating that they were in fear of a possible dystopian future.
The liberal media has been just as bad in regards to cultivating conspiratorial leanings and worries. The Huffington Post is always very quick to post articles that are worded in such a way as to promote fear of a conspiracy or a totalitarian style regime even. Even more ironic is the frequent usage of RT as a news source. RT tends to use fear tactics in an almost anti-government frenzy which then gets shared over and over again by a variety of more liberal groups. The reason why it is ironic is that, some of the conspiracy claims are that Communists are attempting to take over the US. Considering that RT stands for Russia Times and was initially started by the KGB, it doesn't take long to figure out how that idea came to be. Regardless, most news agencies are very quick to report the indiscretions and corruption of the government and its agencies. Earlier today, there was an article on CNN about a DEA agent who had procured prostitutes for a Secret Service agent. Clearly, we're in corruption hell though there is no word on the majority of other agents working in the field and whether they deal with prostitutes as well.
Regardless of which lens one views the mainstream media through, the end result is oddly consistent: a corrupt, frequently over-reaching government with a Congress that seems to be better at making gaffes than actual pertinent legislation and who are not properly representing their constituents anymore. A very dystopian present. What we do not see are the more moderate representatives and senators being written about or aired on television--what we are seeing are the provocative and inflaming members of Congress, a relatively small portion. In the end, the mixture of the media presentation and their own failed and questionably successful endeavors ended up creating the most hated Congress in history. And if you can't trust our government to protect and represent you and if you can't trust the mainstream media for reporting things properly, then who do you trust? Apparently, conspiracy theorists, bloggers and tweets--and that's dangerous. I don't know how many times I have seen someone say something on facebook that I was able to trace back to a conspiracy theory and generally one of highly dubious source. The issue is that, once anonymity reigns the day, and many of the sources of this kind of thing are just that--fairly anonymous--, then nearly all accountability is lost. I could declare that I have a phd in Sociology from Cambridge and, whereas those of my readers who know me personally would know that I was full of it, the majority of my readers wouldn't be any of the wiser. (I have a B.S. in accounting and an associates of science: biology, for the record--true, I swear! lol).
At the end of the day, the primary reason why we are in this mess here in the US isn't because of some all conspiring entity or even entities. The reason is you. Until we can start becoming a public that can read or view something through a critical lens instead of a reactive one, we'll continue to be in this mess. It's not to say that we have to lose the shows that we love or anything like that but we have to maintain a level head. Question the hell out of everything but when you're throwing out the slants, skews and spins of media--don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater opens the door to more dangerous territories that could ignite this country like a powder keg because that's precisely what was seen on Piers Morgan's show. In its March 2011 issue, Rolling Stone reported that Alex Jones had more viewers than both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck combined and that his youtube channel has had over 80 million views. As of today, January 11, 2013, his videos have had over 264 million views. Zeitgeist, a movie under a similar type of genre, has had incalculable views and has even made it to Netflix. It's not to say that conspiracies have never occurred or do not exist for conspiring is within human nature. However, spin doctors also exist and, through the internet, are gaining a greater prevalence and influence than ever before. This, Jon Stewart, is MY dystopian present.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/talk-radios-alex-jones-the-most-paranoid-man-in-america-20110302
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Another Nail in the Coffin for the American Dream
"Location, location, location" is one of the most important rules when it comes to owning and operating a retail business. When opening a store, regardless of type, you want a location that has a high amount of traffic, has appealing neighboring stores that may bring in new customers to your own store, is recognizable and convenient to a large number of customers. Finding a premium location to open a store is incredibly important as the costs of opening a store can be sizable. Open a "dog"--a store that fares terribly-- and it can end up operating at a loss, adding to the financial injury of the initial capital outlay. My father was generally the master at finding what he called a "primo" location. His very first gas station was one of the busiest in the Pacific NW and its sales volume constituted roughly 50% of all of Texaco's gasoline sales for the region west of the Willamette River. Once upon a time, however, he forgot the importance of location and thought the success of his businesses were due to him having a Midas touch. He could turn any dog into a golden goose. I'll never forget when he drove me out to look at his latest location acquisition out in Sandy. It took me just a second to glance at how the traffic flowed in the area and, knowing my dad did value my opinion, I blurted out "you just opened a dog". Sure enough, when Equilon started to squeeze my father out of the retail gasoline market, his Sandy location, which had been barely profitable, sank to running at a monthly operating loss of up to $250,000 a month.
For a small to mid-sized business owner, because there are fewer locations that one is operating at, a loss of a single store can have significant financial impact. Worse yet, if the store that closed was in a "primo" location, the loss of that particular location can be fairly devastating. My dad was slowly pressured out by Equilon, a joint venture between Texaco and Shell, after being invited to attend a meeting where he was informed that every one of their franchised locations in the Portland market would become a "company-owned" store. Essentially, the individual dealers would be weeded out and Equilon would instead operate all of the locations under the banner of Texaco or Shell. It was basically a case of the big guy obliterating the little guy for years afterwards and, locally, Chevron engaged in the same activities. It eventually came under the notice of Sen. Ron Wyden, who attempted valiantly to protect the "Mom and Pop's", but even he couldn't stop the wrecking ball of large corporate progress. It was literally the death of small gasoline dealers in the Pacific Northwest. My dad finally closed his doors permanently in 2008 after years of struggling.
That was ten years ago. Today, the same thing is occurring but this time, it isn't with gas stations. This time, it is occurring with just about any other retail store in large shopping malls. If you go to a store in Phoenix, you're going to most likely see the same stores as you'd see in Portland or Seattle or even Philadelphia--all large national chains with significant financial might. One of my dreams was to open a specialty store that specialized in technology and gaming because I saw a niche open. One only has to walk past the Apple store in Washington Square and see all the men in there, basking with an almost desperation to avoid the majority of the female dominated mall. I wanted to open a gamer's boutique that would give them a place to cut loose a little, relax, and admire the latest and greatest gaming gadgetry while their wives had their noses buried in shoes and handbags. However, that dream is definitely dead for, as of today, I now know that Washington Square is not interested in offering any of its lease locations to any small business. That message is infinitely clear as they have given Excalibur, a locally owned and operated business who had been a loyal resident of their mall for 30 years, the boot in favor of large national chains. Worse yet, although the mall had made arrangements for a replacement store 6 months in advance, they gave Excalibur only one month's notice. That's perfectly legal on their part but still pretty distasteful to do to a business owner that has been a part of their mall since nearly the mall's opening. That hurts Excalibur and its employees. It gives them too little time to respond to the change and loss of what was probably one of their primo locations. What next? Is Made in Oregon going to get the boot soon, too?
The funny thing is that it may have been a poor move on Washington Square's part. The reason being is that, if your mall offers exactly the same things as another mall does with no variety, then what reason is there to go to that mall when another mall has something different to throw into the mix? Washington Square is going to simply house the same staid big national chains. I'll know exactly what I'll be getting--that's for certain. Yet, just a few minutes further away, I can go to Bridgeport Village that has both a mix of big chain and true independent boutique. I actually have a lot more fun going to Bridgeport Village as the variety is really very inviting. I like spotting a store and wandering into it to see what it has to offer. I have found some of the coolest, inconsequential things in those kind of stores. I'll wander at Bridgeport Village when, compared to Washington Square, I have no interest in wandering. Historically, I've walked into Washington Square, gone to where I need to be and walked right back out again without stopping along the way. It's boring. That's one of the reasons why I had a dream about opening something different there. It was a primo location for something different but they don't want different. They want to be a cookie cutter, who caters to national chains and shuts the doors on variety. After seeing what occurred to the local gas dealers 10 years ago, Washington Square's dealings with Excalibur deeply worries me for small business in America. It is just one more nail in the coffin for the American dream.
For a small to mid-sized business owner, because there are fewer locations that one is operating at, a loss of a single store can have significant financial impact. Worse yet, if the store that closed was in a "primo" location, the loss of that particular location can be fairly devastating. My dad was slowly pressured out by Equilon, a joint venture between Texaco and Shell, after being invited to attend a meeting where he was informed that every one of their franchised locations in the Portland market would become a "company-owned" store. Essentially, the individual dealers would be weeded out and Equilon would instead operate all of the locations under the banner of Texaco or Shell. It was basically a case of the big guy obliterating the little guy for years afterwards and, locally, Chevron engaged in the same activities. It eventually came under the notice of Sen. Ron Wyden, who attempted valiantly to protect the "Mom and Pop's", but even he couldn't stop the wrecking ball of large corporate progress. It was literally the death of small gasoline dealers in the Pacific Northwest. My dad finally closed his doors permanently in 2008 after years of struggling.
That was ten years ago. Today, the same thing is occurring but this time, it isn't with gas stations. This time, it is occurring with just about any other retail store in large shopping malls. If you go to a store in Phoenix, you're going to most likely see the same stores as you'd see in Portland or Seattle or even Philadelphia--all large national chains with significant financial might. One of my dreams was to open a specialty store that specialized in technology and gaming because I saw a niche open. One only has to walk past the Apple store in Washington Square and see all the men in there, basking with an almost desperation to avoid the majority of the female dominated mall. I wanted to open a gamer's boutique that would give them a place to cut loose a little, relax, and admire the latest and greatest gaming gadgetry while their wives had their noses buried in shoes and handbags. However, that dream is definitely dead for, as of today, I now know that Washington Square is not interested in offering any of its lease locations to any small business. That message is infinitely clear as they have given Excalibur, a locally owned and operated business who had been a loyal resident of their mall for 30 years, the boot in favor of large national chains. Worse yet, although the mall had made arrangements for a replacement store 6 months in advance, they gave Excalibur only one month's notice. That's perfectly legal on their part but still pretty distasteful to do to a business owner that has been a part of their mall since nearly the mall's opening. That hurts Excalibur and its employees. It gives them too little time to respond to the change and loss of what was probably one of their primo locations. What next? Is Made in Oregon going to get the boot soon, too?
The funny thing is that it may have been a poor move on Washington Square's part. The reason being is that, if your mall offers exactly the same things as another mall does with no variety, then what reason is there to go to that mall when another mall has something different to throw into the mix? Washington Square is going to simply house the same staid big national chains. I'll know exactly what I'll be getting--that's for certain. Yet, just a few minutes further away, I can go to Bridgeport Village that has both a mix of big chain and true independent boutique. I actually have a lot more fun going to Bridgeport Village as the variety is really very inviting. I like spotting a store and wandering into it to see what it has to offer. I have found some of the coolest, inconsequential things in those kind of stores. I'll wander at Bridgeport Village when, compared to Washington Square, I have no interest in wandering. Historically, I've walked into Washington Square, gone to where I need to be and walked right back out again without stopping along the way. It's boring. That's one of the reasons why I had a dream about opening something different there. It was a primo location for something different but they don't want different. They want to be a cookie cutter, who caters to national chains and shuts the doors on variety. After seeing what occurred to the local gas dealers 10 years ago, Washington Square's dealings with Excalibur deeply worries me for small business in America. It is just one more nail in the coffin for the American dream.
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