This should be the Journal, but it probably won't be, as I try to clear some
of the many pieces of paper out of my life.

Kim asked, and Vikki answered: The annual dues for GVCA are $20 or
participation in two events, including attending meetings such as city
council, p & z, county commissioners, school board, etc. -- and also the
weekly GVCA meetings. If you want to send cash, our P.O. box is 7090 here in
Gunnison.

Don't forget: Our 9 Health Fair benefit is this Saturday, 5-7:30 p.m. at
Farrells'. $10 gets you soup or chili, corn bread, ice tea or coffee, and a
brownie. It also provides a $10 toward a 9 Health Fair voucher for someone
who can't otherwise afford the screenings. Other beverages, including red
and white wine, are available for purchase. Several GVCA members have
tickets for purchase (I still have two), and you can buy them from Farrells
or the Book Worm or the Firebrand. You can also purchase them at the door,
although if you're planning on attending, Patrick is trying for a rough head
count by Thursday afternoon, so we'd appreciate a ticket purchase before
then.

Now, as I'm rummaging through a stack of papers, trying to remember what was
in each that I wanted to convey, I'll mention the Wal-Mart commercial I saw
yesterday: a guy is eating a candy bar while a voice-over says something
about going in for the basics and coming out with more, as the camera pulls
away to reveal him standing before a wall-sized flat-panel TV. You get an
overlay of what I guess is the theme of Wal-Mart's new ad campaign: Beyond
the Basics. Nary a happy little yellow face in sight, and absolutely no
mention of low prices. The company's "war room" is ramping up its campaign.

Which reminds me that my mother, who is living in Pueblo West until she can
sell her house, said the Super Wal-Mart now going up (I'm not sure if it's
in Pueblo West or Pueblo Real) is going to be the largest in the state. She
talked to the manager of a nearby Safeway, who seemed well aware of the
difficulties of competing with Wal-Mart: people like their one-stop
shopping, the Safeway manager said.

And the Wal-Mart distribution center, which Pueblo West officials were
trying to bring in mostly secretly, with a $5 million land giveaway, is
being whispered now for Pueblo's industrial park. Traffic interchanges were
what killed the sweetheart deal in P. West, and traffic is destined to
increase in the area anyway, exponentially, as Fort Carson increases its
soldier complement. I think my mother said Colorado Springs is expecting
20-30,000 new people, with additional increases at Fountain and Pueblo.

Which, before we feel too much relief, could be something we experience on a
proportional scale this summer: no one has anything that resembles a firm
number, but the massive construction firm Hazeldon has at least three big
projects in the area, which is projected to result in an influx of between
400 and 1,100 workers as early as this summer. And us with only about
two-thirds of the rental housing we had just one short year ago.

As long as I'm on a traffic theme, that brings me to Salida, a city up in
arms about art. Big art. Canyon-sized art. The famed (or infamous) artist
Christo is coming to the Arkansas River Valley for a 2009 installation
called "Over the River."

Colorado Central, my favorite magazine, with a really excellent archive
(it's free!) at cozine.com, has three essays devoted to this project in this
month's edition. I highly recommend Martha Quillen's entire editorial, but
this particularly resonates:

"People come here (or stay here) because they like small towns, rural
places, and open spaces. But then we keep wanting to bring in more stuff.
Thus, someday we will probably end up living in a traffic-burdened,
overdeveloped suburb of our own making -- until we move on to another
undeveloped place. And once there, we will no doubt lobby for bigger and
better grocery stores, discount stores, homes, golf courses, hospitals,
clinics, theatres, and office buildings. (Or we'll build houses, start
magazines, wait on second-home owners, fence in newly subdivided pastures,
and manufacture sportswear and kayak paddles because we need to make a
living. And thus our new community will eventually turn into an overcrowded
suburb, too.

"In our culture, progress and growth are synonymous. In fact, we don't seem
to know how to sustain ourselves in any other way."

She says a lot of other things that are worth reading (she always does), but
I'll leave it to you to find your way to the rest of the editorial if you're
interested.

Salida attorney Deric Pamp, whose thoughts wandered all over his column as
mine are doing here today, had this to say in his treatise in favor of
Christo's art:

"The state demographer recently spoke in downtown Salida, describing how
second homes are an economic 'driver' of the local economy and how a flood
of Baby Boomers is on its way to our county. . . . His point was that we
need area-wide planning, from Poncha to Salida, Nathrop and Buena Vista, to
deal with this influx over the next 30 years as the tsunami of population
growth comes crashing into the Upper Arkansas Valley. We can see up in
Breckenridge, Silverthorne, and Frisco the mess that will result if we don't
do the planning. He tiptoed around the political issues that go with such
planning, which requires the use of zoning, planned unit development
regulations, and other land use controls, but the fact is, we will surely
have a mess if we don't make some choices soon."

The rest of his column is interesting to read, too, although you have to
first wade through his poetic waxing about going for a walk with his dogs,
which I'm not sure had anything to do with the rest of his column. But it's
nice to know he's a dog person.

And as long as we're foreseeing far into the future, I can't help but wonder
what happens if the polar ice to the north completely melts, as scientists
from my alma mater (CU) are projecting by as early as 2040, and if the
glaciers and ice keep shluffing (I'm sure that's a word) off in the south,
thus raising ocean levels by say, 20 feet or more. That's a lot of
Floridians to relocate. And Californians, and Texans. Hmm . . . altitude,
altitude . . . where could they find a place that might stay dry? And, if
they were smart (which presumes a lot), would they rather locate on the side
of the mountains with all the people and amenities but really, not very much
of the water, or Grand Junction, with its air service (although I just read
that airplanes are the single largest, mostly responsible cause of our
global warming problems), interstate access and train service? Hmmm . . .

All right, so I only made it through one item heaped on my printer. And now
I have to go walk my own dog, because I've learned that this is something
that should be worked into articles on any topic, through the melting snow
that will very soon elevate the water level in pasturage that once belonged
to Mr. Van Tuyl but now belongs to the city, or the Bureau of Reclamation,
or the Division of Wildlife. Someone that is we the people.

Maybe I'll be back, maybe I won't. One just never knows, these days.

TL

Added 03/09/06:

Still not a Journal, and this one brings us back to the poster child for
abused and wrongly villified corporations, the well-intentioned Wal-Mart.

A couple of weeks ago, at our meeting, I borrowed Vikki's Co-op America
Quarterly (Spring 2006) with its cover feature: "Beyond the Wal-Mart
Economy."

Just so you know what sort of leftist hippies you're dealing with: "Co-op
America is dedicated to creating a just and sustainable society by
harnessing economic power for positive change. Co-op America's unique
approach involves working with both the consumer (demand) and business
(supply) sides of the economy simultaneously." They would like you to
"reallocate the purchases you make from irresponsible companies to socially
and environmentally responsible businesses." Their list of suggestions is
available at www.greenpages.org, and I'm kind of afraid to go there, on the
presumption that my life is lived entirely at the feet of corporate masters
(although not Wal-Mart, which I actually quit shopping at based on really
crappy customer service).

So, with all that in mind, we turn to the 13 pages (of a 30-page magazine,
which is printed on 100% de-inked recycled fiber, processed chlorine-free)
devoted to opposing Wal-Mart.

This issue, by the way, is available free of charge if a subscriber requests
additional copies. Up to five are shipped absolutely free; they'll send up
to 100 provided the subscriber pays shipping.

The articles are titled "No Place for Wal-Mart," "Skip Wal-Mart, Save
Money," "Shopping Cart Comparison," "Fighting off the Big Box" and "Wal-Mart
Hits Close to Home."

The "No Place" article, which quotes a broad variety of reputable sources,
from Business Week to the Wall Street Journal to a congressional study,
covers a wide range of perceived faults.

The good news is that foreigners don't necessarily need us to come to their
rescue: Chinese workers filed a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart last
September, and then were joined by workers from other countries, including
the U.S.. The suit alleges that Wal-Mart "tolerates abuse of workers in its
supply chain."

The article details the crushing to a pupl Wal-mart does of its suppliers.
Georgia's Lovable Company has closed its doors: "Wal-Mart chewed us up and
spit us out," said the company's last president.

While Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott earned $17 million in 2004, the average
full-time associate took home somewhere between $14,000 and $18,000,
depending on whether you believe the New York Times or Wal-Mart.

California-Berkely has a 2005 study showing that Wal-Mart's arrival
depresses general merchandise and grocery sector wages in an area by 1.3%,
which results nationally in a loss of $4.7 billion in wages. lawsuits aboudn
here, too, and in December, "a California jury ordered Wal-mart to pay $172
million to 116,000 of it employees who had been illegally and routinely
denied meal breaks."

Using 11-year-old information, the article discusses how Wal-Mart
"cannibalizes Main Street," (which I would submit has already happened in
Gunnison, whether it's due to Wal-Mart or City Market -- probably both), but
then provides a 2004 update from La Quinta, CA, where eight months after the
arrival of the first supercenter into the area wage and benefit losses began
to be reported by other workers in the area.

The article also talks about Wal-Mart's impact on the environment and
Wal-Mart's decided lean to the political right, even in items it refuses to
sell, including t-shirts that said, "Someday a woman will be president."

It provides a chart showing "one Wal-Mart's cost to federal taxpayers,"
figuring 200 employees (my best guess is that we have about a quarter of
that number): free and reduced lunch costs to school children, Section 8
housing, federal tax credits and deductions, Title I, health care costs for
children, and low-income energy assistance. These figures came from the
Democratic Staff of the Committee on Eduction and the Workforce, and the
number it came up with was an annual taxpayer expenditure of $420,750 to
support one 200-employee Wal-Mart. Do the math to see what a 50-employee
Wal-Mart might cost to the feds, which doesn't include state or local
expenditures.

Additional articles talk about how "lower prices" often induce people to buy
more than they intended to (which happens every time my sister goes to
Target -- well, and me, too, although I go to Target about once every three
years).

The Co-op went shopping at Wal-Mart and at local and green locations, and
ended up spending $100 at Wal-Mart to $71 elsewhere. However, that meant
going to at least nine different places, so if time and convenience are
factored in (perhaps along with gasoline), it's a hard argument to make,
that we should be shopping elsewhere.

I will be returning Vikki's magazine to her on Sunday, should anyone else
want to ask if they can borrow it.

Don't forget our other big event this week: our fund-raiser chili supper at
Farrells on Saturday. I still have two tickets to sell, and Butch and Vikki
will be glad to sell them to you at the door. See you there!

TL