stAllio!'s way

wal-mart continues its mission of building megastores everywhere, regardless of whether residents want it there. the king of "big box" stores takes it unethical practices to the next level!

the people of inglewood california fought off wal-mart once, so now wal-mart proposes a ballot initiative to let them build a superstore in inglewood. but that's not all:

The proposal would essentially exempt Wal-Mart from all of Inglewood's planning, zoning and environmental regulations, creating a city-within-a-city subject only to its own rules. Wal-Mart has hired an advertising and public relations firm to market the initiative and is spending more than $1 million to support the measure, known as initiative 04-A.

everybody's against it except for the mayor (& wal-mart itself, of course). though if you lived in inglewood, you might get a different impression. for example, this woman's photo appeared on pro-4A postcards sent out by wal-mart... against her wishes:

Wal-Mart, said Martin, had tricked her into being their poster girl on the piece of mail most critical to their campaign so far. "All of the words on that letter that went out, none of them are true," says the 82-year-old Martin, a retired nurse who lives in a senior complex near Manchester Boulevard. "I didn’t write them. For one thing, the letter says I’ve lived in Inglewood for 50 years. I’ve only lived here 13."