Dear Editor,

On Jan. 30 Tacoma hosted a Shift Happens conference celebrating local and independent businesses as the heart and soul of our city's economy and identity. The main floor of the convention center was packed with new, blossoming and original ideas for Tacoma.


On Feb. 3 I received a copy of the official notice from the city of Tacoma that the Wal-Mart on South Union Avenue had been essentially approved.


It is hard to imagine a more glaring contradiction. Could anything be further from the energetic, visionary entrepreneur, staking everything on his or her life's dream than the sprawling icon of mass consumption and big-boxism incarnate – a super-size me scaled Wal-Mart?


Wal-Mart might not be the paragon of evil, but it is certainly the paragon of tackiness and mediocrity. Tacoma's Wal-Mart, perhaps like every Wal-Mart, will stand as a monument to life dedicated to the lowest bidder – whether that be vendors, land, buildings, tax concessions, local laws or politicians. Wal-Mart, for better or worse, lives by its own rules. Perhaps it is inevitable, but it certainly will not bring out the best in us.


Thanks to this new Wal-Mart, citizens of Tacoma can increase their contributions of cash and jobs to the near-slave labor factory cities of China. And we, of Tacoma, might even earn our own page on the people of Wal-Mart website.


So I say two cheers for more cheap goods from China.

Morf Morford
Tacoma