I Cogitate

(AP) Dean L. Wooten, 65, was accused of greeting customers with a computer-generated photo of himself in which he appeared to be naked--except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag--and of telling customers that Wal-Mart was cutting costs and the sack was the company's new uniform.

A supervisor at the Muscatine store where Wooten had worked for seven years told him to knock it off after customers complained. He was fired five days later, in September, after he displayed the photo again.

Wooten's application for unemployment compensation was rejected by an administrative law judge, who said "a reasonable person would know the act of showing a naked body wearing a Wal-Mart sack would not be good for the employer's business."

As much as this hurts, I have to come down on the side of Wal-mart here. Now where I live (which definitely isn't Muscatine), this gentlemen could probably find any number of employment opportunities and brandish his photo with impunity.

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January 9, 2005

Just saw Ben Stein do a commentary on the unabashedly liberal-biased CBS "Sunday Morning" show extolling the virtues of Wal-Mart. According to Ben (among other things), Wal-Mart's appearances have not negatively affected locally-owned businesses and nor harmed downtown areas. He recited his tour of Iowa as justification for this statement.

What failed to emerge from Ben's mouth was any mention of Wal-Mart's urging its employees (and producing handouts as well) to seek public assistance to compensate for the low wages and minimal benefits offered by Sam's Inexorable Dream. I guess those costs don't get factored in any equation on the 'benefits' of Wal-mart appearance in a community. Oh yes, a Wal-Mart advertisement appeared during one of the breaks in the show. What a coincidence.

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