Friday, June 03, 2005

Self-Promotion: Wal-Mart Debate

This Saturday, June 3rd, I’ll be participating in a public debate on the topic, “Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” I’ll be defending the “yes” side along with Ted Balaker, Jacobs Fellow at the Reason Foundation. Our opposition will be Jonathan Tasini, President of the Economic Future Group, and Nelson Lichtenstein, history professor at UC Santa Barbara.

The debate is part of an all-day (9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.) conference on the same topic. You can show for the whole thing, or just for the debate. As you can see from the program, Ted and I were a late addition (we are designated as “2 Wal-Mart representatives”).

Time: 12:45 – 1:45 p.m., Saturday, June 3rd.
Place: UCLA Ackerman Grand Ballroom.
Admission: Free, although parking is $7.
Directions: Here’s what the organizer told me: “Just send people to the kiosk north on Westwood Blvd. and they will be directed to Lot 6 and there will be signs to the Ackerman Grand Ballroom, but everyone on campus knows where Ackerman is.”

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you give us the low-down on the debate? I'd like to know what happened and how it went. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

yeah, i'm interested too. i read the schedule and it sounded REALLY interesting. plus, i've never seen you debate and i hear you were once called the 'lead-wolf, lone-wolf' or whatever of debate?
i actually was thinking about attending the debate; getting there around 12:00, but as i was driving with a roomate to run errands in the morning, this old man was on the ground lying flat on his face on the sidewalk. i told my roomate to pull over b/c i knew cpr b/c i thought he had a heart attack. but as i got closer, there was blood all over the side of his face and on the sidewalk and his head was draining even more blood that trickled down the sidewalk (he fell down and hit his head on the concrete). luckily the man was still coherent somehow and we just wrapped his t-shirt and my jacket around his head to try to put pressure on his head to stop the bleeding--instructions from the 911 emergency staff. i had to wait until the ambulence and his wife came before i could leave. so you see, that's how i spent the morning. no joke.
and did you know that if you call 911 on your cellphone they put you on hold for about 10 f***ing minutes? every minute waiting for the ambulence feels like an hour when you're in panic.

sk

Anonymous said...

OK, that's so bizarre... I found a man lying on the sidewalk yesterday, too! I was with a group of people in Brentwood, and when we called 911, we waited 10/15 on hold. A nurse in our group thought he probably had had a stoke. The ambulance got there pretty fast after we got through.

And I also vote for the play by play. I can't believe a whole day about Wal-mart. Is it so different from SuperTarget, Costco, etc.?

Anonymous said...

that *is* bizarre. you know i'm really glad that i didn't have to do cpr on him (he was actually coherent and even told me the number to call his wife). the sight of that much blood on the sidewalk made me feel hesitant about giving cpr. i know that's a silly thing to think if a man was dying, but nowadays with diseases i worried. and just the sheer sight of that much blood just made me panic because i've never encountered that before. performing cpr on a dummy was so easy in training but it's different in real life.
i was shocked that other people didn't find him first. i mean other people started coming out after we got there, but still, he was laying there for a little while looking at how much blood there was. man, if i had a heart-attack, i'd want someone to help me ASAP without worrying that they're performing cpr right.
also another coincidence, i was with a pre-nursing student too (the girl i was with). but she panicked when i asked her what i need to do and said, "i'm not a nurse yet, i don't know anything!", so we just followed instructions from the emergency staff. schools need to teach real practice rather than just textbook biology, although that's necessary too.

sk

Anonymous said...

oh, i just called that lady and she wants me to stop by to pick up my jacket that she washed. apparently, the guy is fine. he has high blood pressure so his doc changed his meds which causes dizzy spells, so that's how he fell. it wasn't b/c of heart attack even though he had a bypass 10 years ago so all that blood was b/c he hit his nose and broke it as well as a cut across his head. and he was taking blood thinners which was the reason for all that blood. so everything is fine, he's at home now. it's funny b/c we're gonna be neighbors (whitsett).
phew...i feel better now.
he asked me if i have a cat b/c he wants to give me a cat scratcher. that's sooo cute. =)

sk

Anonymous said...

Blood or no blood, I can't envision Glen giving that guy mouth-to-mouth. But then again, I could be wrong.

As for Wal-Mart vs. Target, etc. I think oligopoly describes the degree of market domination and level of competition in the retail sector. The big guy's compete against each other, but at the same time squeeze the small fry out of the market. But then again, I could be wrong.