Well, Jerry, your town is obviously a different story from mine. Okay. And you are quite right that hate is bad for the stomach. Bearing that in mind, I try to concentrate mostly on things I like, but occasionally I can't resist getting drawn into a thread like this. Why? Because I am defending something I love...which is uniqueness, variety, and small scale local capitalism, as opposed to vast multinational corporatism. People just naturally defend what they love.

Blues=Life - As for resisting change...well, I recall when the one-dollar coin came in here in Canada, replacing the one-dollar bill. I loved the idea, but a majority of people seemed to be very opposed to it...they were resisting change. Bitch, bitch, bitch! Everyone was complaining about the one dollar coins. Hey, I thought they were great, and I still do. I also LOOOOOVE eating anything new that I haven't had the chance to eat before (no smart cracks, Spaw...), so I am on the lookout for interesting ethnic restaurants, while I know other people who will consume nothing but burgers and fries. Listen, I LIKE exotic, new, and different things. Always have.

So, am I a person who resists change? I don't think so. But I do resist change for the worse, and I resist corporatism. The thing that is so deadly about corporatism is not that it introduces change but that it makes EVERYTHING EXACTLY THE SAME EVERYWHERE!!! It's sickening. You go to any town at all, and it's the same damn thing. I don't call that "change", I call it economic totalitarianism.

Now take the case of Blockbuster Video...a store utterly devoid of imagination and overflowing with advertising. Blockbuster has driven a vast number of small video stores out of business, not through content, but through size, glitz, and visibility. The problem with Blockbuster is that they limit their selection to exactly what they think will sell best...and that's it. (Same problem as the big music store chains, by the way...)

There is an old video store in this town...a big one...which has survived Blockbuster so far, and thank God they have, because they carry a great many movies which Blockbuster cannot be bothered to, because those movies are not among the hottest sellers. So, the older video store serves its customers better, and caters not just to the "average" movie watcher (whoever he is), but offers greater variety. This is intelligent and democratic. It does not passively exclude people who want to watch a movie that came out 10 years ago and is not your typical Hollywood "blockbuster".

Well, gosh. Imagination overcomes financial opportunism. Who'd ever have thought of that? No major corporation, I can tell you that.

Huge corporations believe in sales figures, in nothing else, and they create mediocrity, sameness, a deadening lack of variety wherever they go.

Again, I am defending what I love.

- LH