Porn for Rollie

[Scott Dolan]

From Walmart Watch concerning the recent overlong Atlantic Monthly article The New War Over Walmart:





Tuesday, May 02
(202) 557-7440

Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 2, 2006 – An article in the June 2006 issue of the Atlantic Monthly profiles Wal-Mart Watch board chair and SEIU president Andrew Stern. The story examines Wal-Mart’s role in the debate over our national health care system, explains his motivations for starting Wal-Mart Watch, and talks about the significance of the Susan Chambers health care memo. Excerpts are below:

Stern has something much grander in mind even than unionizing Wal-Mart. “Ford wasn’t created to be a health-care provider; it was created to produce cars,” Stern says. “My goal is to get Wal-Mart’s leadership out there in traffic and holler, ‘We can no longer compete in the global economy when health care is factored into the cost of our products.’ If Wal-Mart’s CEO, Lee Scott, were to come out and say, ‘We need a national health-care system that works for everyone,’ then it’s a whole new ball game.”
After the 2004 election, SEIU joined with environmentalists, women’s groups, and community activists to form Wal-Mart Watch, hiring seasoned Democratic operatives and jumping into the public debate. The new group focused much of its efforts on the company’s health-care programs, with considerable success. Wal-Mart, despite investing heavily in public relations and making slight improvements in its plans, was unable to stop the Maryland law or quiet the growing chorus of critics.
The company appears to have no clear idea of how to stop the fallout. Some Wall Street analysts believe the “headline risk” associated with the negative publicity is one reason for Wal-Mart’s sagging stock price. The company topped Fortune’s most-admired list in 2003 and 2004—but slipped to twelfth place this year.
Stern seemed to take a Bart Simpson– like delight at the spectacle of a flummoxed symbol of authority whose current chaos he’d helped devise. Spending around $5 million annually, Wal-Mart Watch has pushed anti-Wal-Mart laws in dozens of states, leaked damaging internal documents, and helped make the company known as much for its exploitation of government health plans as for its business acumen. Over the last year, and very much against its will, Wal-Mart has been moved to the center of the national debate over health care, and Stern has drawn one step closer to what he’s really after.
In Stern’s thinking, if the world’s largest company could be coaxed or bullied into publicly favoring a national health-care policy, here’s how things might play out: a rush of other companies already beset by health-care costs and accustomed to mimicking Wal-Mart would fall in line, putting business on the same side as labor. Governors burdened with soaring Medicaid costs might also join in. The pressure on the federal government would be overwhelming. Stern, in other words, is seeking to turn the Wal-Mart effect to his own ends, harnessing it to transform health-care policy just as it routinely transforms business policy. It’s an audacious plan…
Just how big a problem this poses was brought to light last October, when someone leaked an internal memo written by the company’s executive vice president for benefits, Susan Chambers, to Wal-Mart Watch. The Chambers memo reported that the company’s cost of benefits was outpacing its profits. “Growth in benefits is unsustainable,” it warned, going on to recommend fourteen measures of containment: nine “limited-risk initiatives” and five “bold steps.” These ranged from such benign ideas as giving employees discounts on healthy foods to highly controversial ones like thinning the number of unhealthy (and thus more expensive) workers by adding physical tasks, like collecting carts, to jobs that currently don’t require them.
The uproar that ensued focused on the practice of discriminating against unhealthy workers—a potential violation of federal law. But the truly startling thing is the memo’s estimate of how little even the most extreme “steps” could accomplish. Enact every proposal, and Wal-Mart will still merely maintain its current ratio of benefit costs to profits for five more years. That’s it.
The significance of the Chambers memo isn’t that a major company is plotting to scale back health-care coverage; it’s that employer health-care costs are growing so sharply that the apotheosis of American capitalism is frantically digging in its heels merely to slow their rate of growth. The alarming implication for a company whose greatness rests upon squeezing a few pennies out of every dollar in sales is a microcosm of the health-care issues beating against American business. As employers are hit with spiraling benefits bills, economic rationality leads them to want to dump their most costly employees. This pushes those most in need of care into the ranks of the uninsured or onto the dole…
Still, Washington’s hypercautious culture seems unlikely to produce a solution anytime soon. The United States currently spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care—far more than any other country. Who better to initiate the mother of all cost-saving efficiencies than Wal-Mart?

[Scott Dolan]

Does anyone else here read the Atlantic?

This months issue is the first one I've ever read. Seems decent enough, but it's like reading Sisco's posts. Most of the stories could use some serious editing.

The cover story this month about what would happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned next year. While I find some of the points interesting, it's the way they are presented that got kinda irritating. The article itself is something like 31 pages long when it could have been summed up nicely in two. And here's the way the article is setup:

What would happen if R v.W is overturned? Then they list, oh say, five things.

How would it effect the Presidential race in '08? Then they list the same five things.

How would it effect the Republican party? List same five things again.

It would make Hillary's chances stronger. Then they list the same five reasons to back up this claim.

It would make McCain's chances weaker. Guess how they backed up that claim?

Oy............

Nice enough article though. Thought provoking.

But reading that magazine did make me realize why I love The Economist so much. Short, concise story, the end. Nice.

[Brian Olewnick]

I've been getting it for about as long as you've been alive, I bet. Good magazine, been very good the last few years, far better than Harper's. Too bad they stopped printing the Puzzler a few issues back (now it's only on-line), otherwise I'd challenge you to complete it....

[Scott Dolan]

Tweaked:

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

I had been getting it for about as long as you've been alive, I bet. Had been very good the last few years, far better than Harper's. Too bad they stopped printing the Puzzler a few issues back, now they can eat shit and die for all I care.....

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Does anyone else here read the Atlantic?

You would have liked it better when the neo-con and Iraq-war booster Michael Kelly was in charge before his Humvee ran into a ditch in Bagdad and he was killed.

Harpers is the better magazine. Atlantic runs overly long, mealy mouthed pieces that usually turn out to be dead wrong. James Fallows, a long time writer for Atlantic is always touting the latest trend, trying to out "tipping point" the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell.

Fallows, along with other trend prognosticator Thomas Friedman, are always predicting the next great thing. Fallows was predicting that Japan was going to plow under the world economy just as it was tanking. I think he learned how to speak Japanese because he was sure it would be the language of New York by 1998.

Fallows is also something of a techno-wonk -- telling us how the iPod, the Segway -- or some other silly gizmo -- is going to raise us to a higher level of consciousness.

To top it off, Fallows isn't a very good writer.

Kelly, though, was a fine writer, and the magazine was better under his short reign.

I haven't read the piece on Andrew Stern, but he is something of an egomaniac and has been raised to the level of saintdom by Matt Bai at the New York Times and journalists at other publications. Stern really isn't interested in protecting good union jobs, as he puts all of his union resources behing organizing Wal-Mart and other low paying jobs. He is considered by those of us in the Steelworkers Union as a "bottom feeder." But if he can unionize Wal-Mart he will be canonized by the press for sure.

It's not that I am against unionizing Wal-Mart -- I would love to see it -- but Wal-Mart employees don't pay union dues. Stern could give two shits about dues paying union members -- he is only interested in buttering his own buns.

I work for a union that is an SEIU affiliate. Our members pay his salary. But whenever we ask them for help, Stern just gives us the finger. I would suspect the same would happen to Wal-Mart workers if -- and when -- Stern organizes them

[Brian Olewnick]

Whaddya know? I disagree with Rollie. Harper's, over the last five or more years, has grown increasingly shrill and one-note-oriented. It still publishes the odd good article, good fiction and good artwork (and it's kept its puzzle, thank Satan!), but for my bucks, Atlantic is both more even-handed and publishes articles of greater breadth and depth, including scientific and culturally-oriented ones. Less petty politics, more humanity.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Rollie

Atlantic runs overly long....pieces.

Good, I was hoping it was just me and my attention span disorder. The pieces I've read have actually been thoughtful and well written. But WAY too long.

If they had been breaking new ground by the time they got to page 4 that would have been one thing, but............

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Good, I was hoping it was just me and my attention span disorder. The pieces I've read have actually been thoughtful and well written. But WAY too long.

If they had been breaking new ground by the time they got to page 4 that would have been one thing, but............

I used to be a stringer for the Wall Street Journal back when I was in grad school. I was taught by my bureau chief, who used to be a Page 1 editor at the Journal, that their "I-heads," or the feature stories that run in the middle column of Page One, have "nut-graph" leads.

(I think "I head" stood for Italics- headline.)

The I-hed story would start out with a brief anecdote and then quickly get to the essence of the story.

You would put the tip of your index finger at the top of the story, and land your thumb down the column. The tip of your thumb, or the joint of your thumb, would have to land on the "nut" graph, or the graph that gave you the meat of the story. A writer couldn't get away without providing the essence of the news beyond, say, three or four, or perhaps five graphs in.

Formulaic, but it is a formula that works.

The Atlantic could use that kind of editing.

[Scott Dolan]

I agree.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Whaddya know? I disagree with Rollie. Harper's, over the last five or more years, has grown increasingly shrill and one-note-oriented. It still publishes the odd good article, good fiction and good artwork (and it's kept its puzzle, thank Satan!), but for my bucks, Atlantic is both more even-handed and publishes articles of greater breadth and depth, including scientific and culturally-oriented ones. Less petty politics, more humanity.

Good journalism is often called "shrill," just like a lot of good journalists have been called communists, pinkos, etc, over the years.

I am sure Ida Tarbell and others like her were called "shrill," or worse.

[Brian Olewnick]

Hey, to each his own. I've just found that, as a rule, when you begin an article in recent Harper's (don't even get me started on Lapham's editorials--and the new guy seems the same), you get the idea that the author has a predetermined conclusion and he/she is just laying out his one-sided evidence. You rarely get the sense of any exploration, of any surprise on the part of the writer having reached an end they may not have anticipated. It's like watching TV news "debate" shows. I don't expect anything like the fantastic recent Bernard-Henri Levy series, for instance, to appear in Harper's these days.

[rollhead]

That said of course I am just busting Ollie's chops some. (What a surprise!)

I do recall reading one of my favorite magazine pieces in a long while in the Atlantic. Well, it was a few years ago.

It was by William Langewiesche and it was about dismantling big ships in India.

Great stuff.

Langewiesche was interviewed about his Atlantic piece, and a subsequent book -- called "The Outlaw Sea" -- on the subject by NPR.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5220820

[Scott Dolan]

Never read Harpers, but I have read a Louie Lapham piece or two. I thought he was a ghost writer for Michael Moore.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by (Ollie)

It's like watching TV news "debate" shows.

I have to confess that this has become a seriously troubling guilty pleasure of mine this year.

This Week with Geo Steph
Face The Nation
Meet The Press
Washington Weak with Gwennypoo
that screaming loon on PBS that Buchanan usually sits in with
Left, Right, & Center
To The Point
etc...

God I love 'em all!! I can't help it.

To The Point is actually quite good though. It's kind of like reading The Economist. Dry, tedius, but chock full of info.

And Geo Steph has earned my respect as far as all the modern "newsmen" go. He tends to be pretty tough on both sides.

Most of the shows tend to be mindless entertainment for a political junkie, but insight does pop up in all of them every now and then.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by rollhead

It was by William Langewiesche and it was about dismantling big ships in India.

There is a documentary running lately on Discovery HD about that shipyard. Can't recall the name of the town at the moment, but the living and working conditions there make Upton Sinclair's rendering plants look like a worker's Utopia.

[Cem]

I was expecting...



...disappointed.

[chuckyd4]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

I don't expect anything like the fantastic recent Bernard-Henri Levy series, for instance, to appear in Harper's these days.

Did you really think it was fantastic? I'm reading the book version that just came out here (note: I don't know how close it was to the original articles, but it seems to be drawn from them, at least), and I'm finding it really desperately in need of a good editor. It could be that I'm just suffering from franco-fatigue in general, but I'm finding it incredibly hard to make my way through awkward sentence after awkward sentence of what Levy has to say about the Mall of America or whatever.


I wholeheartedly agree that the Atlantic Monthly is way more interesting to read than Harper's, though. Even if when I subscribed I never made it through a whole issue cover to cover, there were always at least a few articles that made it worth the cover price to me... with the few issues of Harper's I've picked up here and there over the years, I could never figure out what justified the cover price. Seemed pretty flimsy to me.

[Brian Olewnick]

Yeah, something about it sucked me in from the start and I was hooked. Most likely the sense of a relative strong objective point (ie, casting aside as much as possible any political axe to grind--his encounter with the highway cop a notable example) of view plus the sheer interest in his subject that oozed out.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Originally Posted by Cem

I was expecting...



...disappointed.

I hope the bellows on the accordion don't grab the I-head or the nut-graph lead!

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

I hope the bellows on the accordion don't grab the I-head or the nut-graph lead!

Well, it's a squeezebox.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Cem

I was expecting...



...disappointed.

And you thought accordion wasn't cool.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

I hope the bellows on the accordion don't grab the I-head or the nut-graph lead!

Hahahaha..............

Encore!! Encore!!