Better Living Through Introspection

Kathy Reichs, author of the new Temperance Brennan novel, Break No Bones — inspiration for the hit TV series Bones — was on The Diane Rehm Show today. An entertaining, interesting interview worth listening to — if you missed the broadcast, archives are available.

Suh-weet! Famed DC author George Pelecanos just mentioned on The Kojo Nnamdi Show that he has been working on a Band of Brothers-like series set in the Pacific Theater. (Pelecanos is the author of The Night Gardener as well as a writer on the kick-ass HBO series The Wire (now available on DVD).

Update: Some Googling informs me this has been a topic for a while, but whatever! That series rocked, and I can’t wait to see more of the same.

It makes me nervous when computers “guess”.

So, this article in the Post at first elicited from me the responses one would expect (and, indeed, that the author probably intended): anger at chain stores and pity for the independent retailer. But then I started wondering why it is that most of us seem to have that equation in our minds: independent = good; chain = bad. Can this issue even be a moral one? I doubt it. After all, there is no inherent goodness in the unique character an independent store might provide over the predictable character of a national (or even local) chain.

So why my reaction? Is it that the concept of independence is so woven in to our national psyche that we have this knee-jerk reaction in support of “the little guy?” And if that’s the case, how is that we’ve even allowed the chains to evolve? Aren’t they the pinnacle of success? Didn’t they, in theory at least, start out as “the little guy?” And if not, why do we support chains instead of independents? I believe the answer is that we pay lip service to the small business, but support the big chains with our wallets. Convenience and cost effectiveness win out over emotion.

Yet, I still find myself bridling at apparent lack of sympathy when Bill Miller, a senior vice president at Transwestern Commercial Services (a realty firm), says, “If you want to get frustrated at the local guy not wanting to pay the rent, get frustrated at him not being able to get his act together and compete.” Who is this guy, I wonder. Nevertheless, he’s got a point. The independent retailers don’t always lose. There are some who find their niche, who compete, who survive, who flourish. And they are the ones who can afford to stick around and give any neighborhood its character.

When it shall be said in any country in the world, “My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of happiness”: when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.

Courtesy of Thomas Paine. (I’m currently reading Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye.