Here’s an open thread since I don’t see anyone working in the back room and I’ve got some errands to run.
Open Thread
by @heymistermix.com| 162 Comments
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- andrewsinnthts
- Another Scott
- Aziz, light!
- Baud
- Bruce K in ATH-GR
- CarolPW
- Citizen Alan
- Comrade Colette
- cope
- Dangerman
- Dorothy A. Winsor
- eclare
- Gin & Tonic
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- HopefullyNotcassandra
- Jackie
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- JaySinWA
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- Kayla Rudbek
- kwAwk
- lamh47
- lowtechcyclist
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- oldgold
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- Steve LaBonne
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- The Pale Scot
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Rusty
Regarding the post office take over, one interesting comment was that it could then be used to go after shipping of the morning after pill. Thinking more broadly, those, plus contraception, sexual aids and anything else the radical evangelicals want to ban using the Comstock act.
Jackie
Comedy:
cope
It’s easy to miss the small stuff but the president of the NYU College Republicans being forced out of her job for being quoted in Vanity Fair as saying that Barron Trump is an “oddity” on campus is really…something, I don’t know.
Steve LaBonne
@Jackie: When it penetrates Trump’s rotting brain that Elmo is making him look bad and dragging down his approval numbers, Elmo will be gone.
Steve LaBonne
@Rusty: Voting by mail also too.
tam1MI
Target feels the heat on their retreat from DEI:
scav
@Jackie: I know! There are still apparently officials — Trump approved officials no less! — who haven’t clued in that the main agenda is stripping everything down to the doorknobs and then trashing the place for the clicks.
Trivia Man
@Steve LaBonne: I am not so sure. Based on body language during the hannity interview, sure looks to me like t has accepted his role as servant to muskrat and the oligarchs. Very meek now in the presence of his betters.
trollhattan
@Rusty:
It’s mostly the two-fer: handing their business to FedEx and UPS; raiding the 75-year(!) pension fund as dictated by Republicans in 2006. IOW the groundwork was laid nineteen years ago.
I hope everybody enjoys paying thirty bucks for an overnight letter.
Juju
@Trivia Man: He’s old, he’s tired and in early to mid dementia. He’s depending on Musk to run things for him while he gets the attention he can’t live without. Musk probably isn’t going anywhere soon.
trollhattan
@tam1MI:
Costco looking like saints in this general “private” business flop. Have seldom seen such cowardice among the purportedly powerful.
Suzanne
@tam1MI: Target’s market differentiator is being cool. Walmart is cheaper. They aren’t competing for the same customer base.
Republicans aren’t cool! Being bigoted isn’t cool! It’s downscale!
Target…. what a headdesk.
eclare
I assume y’all saw that Chris Kluwe, former punter for the Vikings, went to protest at a Huntington Beach city council meeting over a proposed MAGA plaque at a public library. He was arrested.
This really belongs in the prior thread, but this is where I am now:
https://bsky.app/profile/chriswarcraft.bsky.social/post/3lio5kpuyuc2o
You can easily Google his speech to the city council, it’s not long.
Jackie
@tam1MI:
Can both Costco statements be true?
I’m quite happy to continue my Costco membership.
eclare
@Rusty:
Ugh. Hadn’t thought of that.
eclare
@trollhattan:
I wish I lived closer to Costco, it’s about twenty miles away.
scav
@trollhattan: Amazon probably wants in too — at least for the easy stuff. All of them seem to rely on the USPS for the last mile when convenient. Another loss that’ll eventually kick harder on rural areas.
Suzanne
@Jackie: I adore Costco. It’s the only place I actually enjoy shopping. Maybe Trader Joe’s, as well.
I am skeptical that any retail data is solid right now, actually. The weather has been shit in much of the country.
TONYG
@Steve LaBonne: Well, maybe. But … 1) Trump’s dementia has reached the point at which he is no longer capable of rational thought. 2) Trump will (presumably) not try to be re-elected. 3) Trump cares nothing for the fate of the Republican Party (or the fate of anyone other than himself). 4) There may not be any more elections in the United States anyway.
Peale
@TONYG: they will prop him up until Baron can take over. He’s the favorite one now. Who cares what the constitution says. Baron and that kid Elon uses as a human shield are the next in line.
lamh47
Hi BJ.
If ya recall I had that big blessing of a deposit in my account yesterday and I said FOTUS and Musky could still fuq me over one last time and just give me one week’s pay instead of two weeks like they said I was going to get per the termination notice. I mean I couldn’t even verify my timecard for the pay period, so I don’t even know if it was credited for a full 80 or just 40.
So I asked my manager to please make sure my timecard is verified because they revoked my access the day they returned from the holiday. She got back to me late last night and said the timecard does have 80 hours so that’s good. At least now I know my final paycheck will be for a full pay period amount. Now I can add it to my already budgeted plan and give me more leeway to find work.
Parfigliano
@tam1MI: Hit’em where it hurts. Money in/out of their corporate pocket is the only thing that they care about.
Peale
@cope: when you’re looking for models, I think Thailand is where we’re headed. People will just not mention the king lest they violate the laws.
Gretchen
@cope: I heard that they asked Barron Trump to replace her as Young Republicans president. I don’t know if that is accurate or, if so, what was his response.
Sean
@Trivia Man: Exactly. Musk is president. Not Trump. Trump has no say in anything anymore. He’s a puppet being run by tech overlords and Putin/Orban/Milei.
lowtechcyclist
@Jackie:
If one was to take them at their word, why isn’t anyone asking them, “well, why don’t you just tell the DOGgiEs to fuck off? Who gave Muskrat or his Muskovites the authority to do anything within your Cabinet department?”
None of the reporting ever seems to even try to answer the question, “how can Musk’s kiddie corps just go into agencies and start doing shit?” Maybe Trump has told his Cabinet secretaries and other agency heads to let the Muskovites do whatever they damned well please, but if so, nobody seems to have asked whether that’s so.
scav
@Sean: Maybe we should bring up that very often historically, if the emperor isn’t in charge, it’s very often the palace eunuchs that actually run things.
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
Target is cool?
Dangerman
I don’t get it.
Apply tariffs that will be passed to consumer, assuming they buy, which many will not; Econ 101.
In Trump World, enough Tariffs will be collected to abolish the IRS.
Tell me how that works.
ETA: Let’s not forget the reciprocal tariffs that trash our economy.
mrmoshpotato
@Jackie: That’s adorable. The Trump trash piles of shit are pissed that it’s the South African Nazi pile of shit destroying the US government and not them.
“Hey! This is our government to wreck, Apartheid Clyde, not yours!”
lowtechcyclist
@Jackie:
The latter number says “Foot traffic” has increased, so presumably that means customers physically going into brick-and-mortar stores. The first one (conjecture ahead!) may be combined in-store customers and visitors to their website, or maybe just the website.
Juju
@Melancholy Jaques: Yes, in comparison to Walmart.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: Reporting? That’s not something they even know how to do.
Marc
I look at things with programmer/techie thought patterns. I see Vladimir Putin as president, not Musk.
Citizen Alan
@Melancholy Jaques: On the continuum of big box stores, yes. Most urbanites who have their choice of where to do bulk shopping probably see Target as more upscale than Walmart, just as most rural types see Walmart as more upscale than Dollar General.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques: Absolutely, Target is the “cool” one of that type of store (“hypermarket” is sometimes the terminology). They do partnerships with higher-end designers for clothing and home goods, have featured products from Black-owned brands, etc. Much higher graphic quality in the look of the stores, advertising, etc. So, yes, “cool”.
Which presents them a different challenge than, say, Walmart, which competes on price. I believe Target’s average customer income is significantly higher than Walmart’s, and Costco¡s is higher than Target’s. So Target is hurting itself here. Alienating their customer base, when they can’t really intrude on Walmart’s.
Starfish (she/her)
@Melancholy Jaques: Target IS slightly more upscale than Walmart, and it is more likely to be in places that don’t have oceans of parking.
They do designer collaborations that the city girls get all excited about, and they can’t find the designer stuff because all of them have bought it out so you can get a friend in a more rural area to go find the designer stuff in their Target.
Walmart has been trying to compete with Amazon, but Target has floundered a little because it is in bluer areas; and when it does away with things like DEI, people will close their wallet and go elsewhere
Our target has also rearranged its “beauty” aisles to look more like the beauty stores like Ulta or Sephora to get people to cash in on all the young people doing self-maintenance to cope with the hellscape we have created.
Comrade Colette
@lamh47: Ugh ugh ugh, I’m sorry to hear about the notice but I’m glad for that tiny bright spot. All the best in your job hunt. This is all so wrong.
@tam1MI: I got a tip from an academic friend: She’s using the word “democracy” now everywhere she used to use “equity and inclusion,” and others at her university and beyond are picking it up. Pass it along.
andrewsinnthts
thats crazy
trollhattan
@Melancholy Jaques:
They’ve been trying.
https://www.marketingscoop.com/consumer/targets-target-market/
Bruce K in ATH-GR
It occurs to me that there may be a different parallel to 1930s Germany in 2020s Washington. Trump would be the equivalent of not Hitler, but Hindenburg. Which leaves Musk as America’s Hitler.
Gretchen
@scav: I wrote my Senator Marshall (R-KS) asking if he was going to object to the cuts to the Roy Blunt Alzheimer’s Research center, since Blunt was his colleague from MO.
His reply was impossibly stupid: Debt, deficit, waste, fraud, abuse, Trump promised to address this.
And there were $250 billion improper payments by the government. Turns out these are mostly IRS overpayments, so firing 1000 IRS agents will make that worse. And Medicare overpayments – so forcing more people into scammy Advantage plans will help?
Seeing Musk wave a chainsaw around should have clued him in that these aren’t going to be careful, targeted cuts. Grrr.
trollhattan
@Starfish (she/her):
The cratering of Macy’s and other upper-tier department stores has been something to behold. It seems like the model doesn’t even work now.
robtrim
@Peale: Thailand would be great. I spent a year there while in the military. Thais are lovely people. 1000 years of independence makes the country very stable.
trollhattan
This will fix everything, I’m sure.
MobiusKlein
I have to remind folk born in the last 30 years that the Clinton Administration was raked over the coals for firing 7 (seven!) folks accused of corruption back in 1993. Travelgate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_travel_office_controversy
now we have a 10,000 times larger event, and nobody seems to remember our history.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Macy’s is considered kind of lower-to-mid in its tier of mall-based department stores, which is interesting. They’ve kind of gone downmarket.
I wonder about department stores. It feels, to me, like they have the square footage to be really cool and do innovative things, and yet so many of them do not. Macy’s, in particular, always looks like a herd of elephants has run through it and it’s terrible.
Instead, it’s stores that do better with the “experiential” atmosphere approach that are kicking ass. Ulta, for example.
Starfish (she/her)
@trollhattan: It turns out that the thing that distinguishes in-person shopping from online shopping is customer service, and a lot of stores haven’t learned that and have cut the number of people they have in the stores to be very few.
Those stores are all going to get what they have coming.
Our Macy’s was a Foley’s, and it became worse when it became Macy’s. The dressing rooms were always a mess. The selection of stuff was not relevant to its customer base, and it is gone now.
Nordstrom used to have better customer service, but it may be trying to disappoint too.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: Yes, and with the redo of Target’s beauty department, they are trying to create that more experiential atmosphere in Target.
trollhattan
How it’s going.
There are 257 nations, does Donny have the Trumpergy to insult 256 of them? We already know the one he truly loves.
Juju
@Dangerman: In his brain that seems like a good idea and how it should work. He’s lazy, hence all of the executive orders and tariffs. He has no concepts of how government or economics work, therefore he doesn’t see the damage tariffs can do, or the way mass firings take so much money out of the economy, which will also do economic damage. I’m am shocked(not really) that the press isn’t on a recession watch like they were when Biden was president. It seems more likely now.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
My nearest Costco is about 30 miles away, and it’s in a direction where there’s absolutely nothing else I’d be going to. So I’ve never even been there.
The nearest Trader Joe’s is ~25 miles away, but it’s in Annapolis, and there’s a bunch of other errands I can run on the same trip. And it’s a much easier drive, it doesn’t involve the Beltway or anything like it, which the drive to Costco would.
Nukular Biskits
Nukular Biskits on Bluesky: And the struggle to get answers from members of Congress continues …
Marc
Musk cares about one thing, Mars. He has no desire to run this country, but he can pull the funding he needs to get his family (what do you think all those kids are for?) and allies to Mars, screw the rest of us. He wants to be the 21st century John Smith, not Hitler. Which leaves one real leader and his US-based functionaries. But yes, I read a lot of science fiction, but there must be some reason this theme is so common.
Juju
@Citizen Alan: A garage sale is more upscale than Dollar General.
Suzanne
@Starfish (she/her):
Yeah this.
Also, in-person shopping needs to scratch the itch of immediate gratification, so stores that run out of stuff — “Oh, we’re out of that in your size, but we can send it to your house next week!’ — are doing poorly.
Phylllis
@Starfish (she/her): Macy’s bought out Rich’s here in the South & the quality of the merchandise and the stores themselves immediately went downhill.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: @Starfish (she/her):
Macy’s once had different tiers for individual markets. The Union Square Macy’s was a showplace both in design and merchandise—in short, an actual destination property. How’s that going?
Corporate raiders will be the death of anything nice.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist: I just checked. The one in Brandywine takes about almost exactly the same time as getting to the Glenarden one.
I’m thinking about it.
NickM
The Dow is down more than 800 today, after almost 500 yesterday. Maybe the market is starting to panic. It might start to bend the curve if business panics.
Gretchen
@Peale: Same with Egypt. People refer to the president as El Mexsiki (the Mexican) rather than his name so they don’t get in trouble. When Biden was talking about him, he mistakenly referred to him as the president of Mexico. People trumpeted that as more proof of Biden’s dementia rather than evidence of how he knows so much he even knows the guy’s nickname.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Yeah, I remember going to the Macy’s on 34th Street, across from Penn Station, as a kid. And it was nice.
About ten years ago, I actually got injured in a Macy’s when I was looking at coats for Mr. Suzanne for Christmas, and the rack collapsed. They pissed me off royally with how they handled the whole thing.
lowtechcyclist
@MobiusKlein:
By the time we all learned Monica Lewinsky’s name, Travelgate became a distant memory. But speaking of which, FFOTUS’ behavior with women has been about a thousand times worse than Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, and the talibangelicals don’t give a damn.
The Pale Scot
Finally a legitimate use for AI.
O2’s AI granny knits tall tales to waste scam callers’ time
MomSense
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/trump-targets-maine-governor-for-not-complying-with-trans-athlete-order-232597061847
Maine’s Governor “I’ll see you in Court”
Gretchen
@Suzanne: The Macy’s in my neighborhood closed years ago. The still haven’t figured out what to do with the building. The empty husk has just been sitting there.
Marc
@Marc: Should have been Joseph Smith, I’m getting old.
JaySinWA
Perhaps, because the first lumps Target, Walmart and Costco.
If total traffic to all three combined is down but Costco took some of the share lost by the other two then it’s kind of true but It’s not worded well.
lowtechcyclist
@Juju:
I have never been in stores as depressing as my couple of (brief) visits to Dollar General. Not even K-Mart in its dying days. Not even Zayre, for those that remember Zayre.
Sure Lurkalot
@lamh47: Thanks for sharing your good new but it’s sad when just being paid for hours worked is a relief.
Best of luck with your job search. I hope it turns out even better for you.
Suzanne
@Gretchen: Yeah, not uncommon. Dead department stores don’t really convert easily to anything else, and retail is one of those sectors where newer buildings demand higher rents.
Many parts of the U.S. are overbuilt on retail and would be better served through redevelopment into residential….. but that runs straight into the NIMBY mindset.
Steve LaBonne
Let’s hope Josh Marshall is right about the start of a Republican backlash against Skum.
MomSense
@lowtechcyclist:
My local Joann’s is getting pretty sad too. They haven’t restocked in forever and soon it will close.
mali muso
Speaking only for myself, I have not stepped foot in Target since they caved to the pressure to walk back their DEI initiatives. And I was a VERY frequent shopper, both in person and using their app to order items for pick-up. I’m lucky enough to live about a mile away from Costco, so it’s always been a stop, but I’ve started to find ways to shift dollars I used to spend at Target to Costco…or just to reduce those purchases altogether. Also, I’m spending some time researching black owned small businesses and trying to place direct orders with them for specific products. It feels like we are so powerless, exercising at least one little bit of power over my purchasing dollars gives me some sense of agency.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne:
Are you certain about that? Many people are saying the South African took co-ownership of the golfer-in-chief along with the kleptocrat-in-chief of ruZZIa.
Nukular Biskits
@lowtechcyclist:
Here’s a few others that those of us in the South had:
Gaylord’s
Wilson’s (which became Service Merchandise)
Howard’s Dollar Store
Fred’s Dollar Store
Bill’s Dollar Store
TG&Y and Rose’s
ETA: Added a couple more.
Sure Lurkalot
@Sean:
In the before times, Trump hated being called a puppet, but who knows now that his limited brain works are even moreso deteriorating.
Baud
@trollhattan:
I’m going to guess it will harm readiness.
Juju
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve been in them twice. That was enough.
Nukular Biskits
@Nukular Biskits:
Note to self: Don’t try to edit post when you have a bulleted list.
Phylllis
@Suzanne: That’s part of why I hate to see Big Lots go away. I liked how they would use existing vacant store spaces instead of building new. And they had great deals on snacks.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Yeah, but just think how that will own the libs!!!!
Suzanne
@mali muso: The BLK&Bold Coffee was a product I first encountered at Target, and I gave a few of them as gifts. Love supporting a Black-owned company. But you can buy from them direct!
I love giving coffee as a gift. Love getting it, too.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
I never go there either – I loathe that whole stretch of Route 5/301 around Waldorf, and have managed to avoid it for years now. I have no sense of whether the Costco in Brandywine is on the edge of all that mess, or whether it’s well within it.
trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Retail and office vacancy rates in our metroplex are vast, in a time housing remains chronically short. I could suggest scraping off at least a third of both and rezoning for a mix of multi and single family housing, but investors are just sitting on the properties looking for that sweet Big Payday.
My sad office sits in a mostly empty former vast destination mall. All the stores bailed for newer burbs well further outside of the city core. It’s…a problem. Naturally, everybody complains about interstate congestion from those farflung burbs.
kwAwk
The fever may be starting to break a bit…
Republican Congressman Slams Trump’s “Out of Control” Executive Orders
Phylllis
@Nukular Biskits: We had a Fred’s open in the small town where I used to live. I loved it. Sadly, they went the way of the Dodo just before the pandemic.
Dangerman
@Juju: It just seems like one of those blackboard comics:
1. Tariffs
2. (Miracle)
3. Abolish IRS.
I get abolishing IRS is a hell of a way to cut taxes; it just seems like dynamiting the place and calling it progress. I don’t get it.
Maybe I should watch more FOX news. I’m sure they can explain it.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: My last project is part of a huge redevelopment of a dead mall. The mall got scraped — left the parking garage — and the whole site is being redeveloped into a mix of healthcare, residential, mercantile, and business.
It can be done, but it takes a huge amount of will! And money!
Aziz, light!
@Steve LaBonne: After Ghengis Khan conquered much of China and Central Asia, his polling numbers were terrible.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@tam1MI:
It appears we Americans liked the civil rights movement and its accomplishments more than the GOP anticipated. Don’t you love to see that? I suspected it.
I keep wondering who these people are who hate diversity trainings. Ours are actually called “anti-bias” and I find them more helpful and interesting than most of the rest of the required MCLE’s.
When did examining one’s priors to eliminate useless ( and hateful ) nonsense become a bore? Perhaps the whole DEI controversy is simply more GOP mendacity or projection.
Steve LaBonne
@HopefullyNotcassandra: I’m not certain about anything these days. So much crazy.
Jay
@Gretchen:
Take any numbers claims with a big bag of black salted dicks.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/musks-math-isnt-adding-doge-090433467.html
In one of the posted claims on cuts by the Dog Boys, apparently, they don’t know the difference between their claims of $200 billion and the reported line item of $2 million. Maths is hard.
On other programs they have cut, “Indefinite Programs”, which are multi year programs that are audited by what used to be IG’s, for performance and spending annually at the minimum, the Dog Boys are reporting the cuts as “cumulative”. So a program that is expected to run for 25 years, at $2 billion a year, is reported as a cut of $50 billion in spending.
Those that can do the maths and have seen the confirmed, reported cuts, (because the Dog Boys aren’t good at tracking and reporting), say the cuts so far, reduce US Government spending by $8 billion dollars for this year.
Basically the same net effect on US Government spending as a single anchovies fart on the Atlantic Ocean.
Suzanne
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
They’re your douchebag coworkers who like to use the R-word in the office and ogle the admins.
(That cannot be just my coworkers.)
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: I’ve always wondered, and now have an opportunity to ask an expert: why are indoor malls death while outdoor “malls” OK? You know what I mean by the latter, lots of parking and every store having an entry from “the outside.” Probably not describing it well, but grown-up “strip mall.”
Gin & Tonic
@Jay:
Is that a DEI thing?
Nukular Biskits
@Phylllis:
I worked at the one in Meridian when I was in junior college.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: Are you wondering why indoor malls are architecturally bad, or less financially successful?
1) Because they’re an aging modality…. Lots of the buildings are too small or have too-tight column grids, and they get run down and sort of outdated-looking, and the areas around them might decline (get poorer), and then they get associated with obnoxious teenagers and crime and general grossness and people with money stop going there.
2) There’s been a lot of improvement of the outdoor mall typology in the last 20 years. Think of, like, Scottsdale Quarter or Kierland in Scottsdale, or Mosaic in the DC suburbs….. they specifically built new developments, including residential, and accommodated larger store footprints, more modern design, higher-end landscape, more and nicer restaurants.
Retail is very trend-driven.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
I remember your talking about this here before. Was this the Landmark mall on Duke Street in Alexandria? I look forward to seeing what it looks like when it’s all completed.
mali muso
@Suzanne: Yeah, it’s sad because they really did have a lot of great, small Black-owned business products in the mix. But as you say, one can order direct from those businesses. Coffee is a great gift!
Baud
Gretchen
@Suzanne: The interesting thing is that the empty Macy’s is part of a neighborhood shopping center with lots of small stores and restaurants. Tenants in the shopping center complain about the high rents for the other stores, including the best French restaurant in the city. So you’d think it would behoove the owners to figure out a way to reuse it or demolish it and build more lucrative small stores. There were thoughts of putting a gym there, which the YMCA knocked out, and now there’s thought of a grocery store.
Ohio Mom
@lowtechcyclist: Dollar Tree is all right but as you observed, Dollar General is very third world. Dirty, dark, disorganized and crappy merchandise.
I go to Dollar Tree mostly for things like gift wrapping supplies and plastic bins for organizing. Though nowadays I call it the Dollar-twenty-five store.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
And a pornhub category.
Gin & Tonic
Looks like the stock market is expressing an opinion today.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
This is the internet. You don’t need to wish for experts.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
I’m glad to have you doing the research for me.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@trollhattan: I hope that is the worst of it.
In some countries it is necessary to pay a bribe to ensure your mail is delivered intact, unopened and in a timely fashion.
I think some of these people, including many on our Supreme Court, think honest services is for stupid people. In this corrupted (& corrupting view) bribery is always best.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: There were plans to turn one of Cincinnati’s dead malls into one of those combos of apartments, offices, restaurants and some storefront retail — there must be a name for those plopped-down facsimiles of an old fashioned organic business district — but the financing fell through.
I don’t know where all the tenants for those overpriced luxury apartments are supposed to come from.
Gretchen
@Gretchen: There were also thoughts of replacing the Macy’s building with condos, but that ran into NIMBY. The surrounding neighborhood is 1950s ranch and cape cods, which are being torn down and replaced with million dollar lot line-to-lot line big houses. Those folks were afraid apartments would attract riff-raff. It would probably have attracted the seniors who are selling the tear-downs, and the teachers and cops that can’t afford to live in the neighborhood.
Van Buren
@lowtechcyclist: Waldorf is hell. The entire stretch from the 301/5 merge to LaPlata is just godawful.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
@Suzanne:
I am unclear if Gin and Tonic was referring to mixed use “Plaza Malls” or the wasteland of “pushing rural” Outlet Malls.
Phylllis
@Suzanne: This sounds a lot like the redevelopment of the old Richland Mall in the Forest Acres neighborhood in Columbia. It has a huge footprint & was the upscale mall in the area. The whole thing has been razed & will be mixed use with a park, retail, restaurants and condos/apartments. Interesting to know this is happening in other places as well.
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
Real quick: Had a friend about ten years older than me tell me back when he was in college, they had a guest speaker come in and talk about malls.
Turns out the primary reason for the design of malls was so, in the case of “race riots” (gotta remember the times here), shops could close down and they could kick everyone out of the mall building.
CarolPW
@trollhattan: Arden?
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Suzanne: I am fortunate on that front. I have neighbors who might qualify there. I do not have co-workers who do.
Phylllis
@Ohio Mom: The thing is, DG’s used to not be like that. They were clean, organized, well-staffed, and a great place for cleaning products and toys. Then private equity got their mitts on it.
Ohio Mom
@Gin & Tonic: Maybe in part because it feels like you are walking less, not traipsing through the entire mall, you can park right near where you are going and then get in the car and drive to the other end to the other store? We Americans are lazy people!
Also, for women, maybe it’s less spooky being outside than walking through a dark and almost always deserted garage?
The two big newer strip malls in Cincinnati also feature somewhat higher-end stores that aren’t in every other mallcarounf here — the only west elm, the only Nordstrom Rack, the only Sur La Table.
I used to be more of a recreational shopper but now I feel like I have most everything I need. I don’t need to be surprised by something cute anymore.
oldgold
He is such a shameless bully.
At a luncheon today the Short-Fingered Vulgarian went out of his way to threaten and insult the Governor of Maine. She was having none of it. No word yet as to whether Susan Collins is concerned.
You can see it here:https://www.rawstory.com/trump-transgender-2671195398/
Sure Lurkalot
@Gin & Tonic: They started calling outdoor malls “lifestyle centers” and “town centers” in the burbs, to mimic some kind of urban appeal.. Still a bunch of storefronts in a sea of parking. I don’t quite understand their popularity, seem to me a distinction without a big difference.
I went to a store in a nearby center to return something and one of the employees was manning the entrance to sweep the leaves blowing in whenever a customer entered, the private equity owner probably hailed as a job creator.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Jay
Here Lougheed Mall has been sort of “revitalized”. The bus terminal that used to be half of the 1st floor of the 2 story parking structure moved to the Skytrain Station across the street. 3 Towers were built on parts of the open tarmac parking and the steep slope down to the parking. 25, 35 and 55 story towers with a mix of rentals and owned 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments. The two story Sears on the north end, was split by removing the interior escalators, top floor is a Walmart, bottom a London Drugs. The Safeway moved out and after a couple of years, became a short term space for the Burnaby Library, while the new library is being built elsewhere. Another “anchor store” HBC, is still there having survived barely, partially through structured changes, adding a cheaper mini Zellers, store for a while, but is coming back due to the new density. Bathrooms and the concourse were all renovated, there is a kids play area at one end, and comfortable seating through out. The Ricki’s that also used to be an anchor store have been renovated to being an “Event Space”, which at times, includes Pop Up stores. Most of the Condo and Apartment event spaces in the buildings around here, can handle a max of about 25 people, so a space that can comfortably handle 100 is getting well used at time. Another area of the open tarmac parking area is being built on, I don’t know what is going in there, but it’s 2 stories, and very “West Coast” with cedar cladding and glass walls, about 7500 sq ft per floor.
WTFGhost
@Rusty: of course, those won’t be used against loyal Republicans, but, for Dems, they’re *SEX CRIMES*, I’m sure.
@Trivia Man: He’s never been very bright – he can’t come up with anything useful to add. We’ve *seen* him decay, on stage. His softer brain is what makes me more nervous.
scav: And that’s what horrifies me. FedEx wants to deliver mail in Manhattan, along with packages. But *no one* wants to go out into rural “REAL America!” but the post office. Privatization is a scam – it’s all about finding revenue streams to reward donors.
@lamh47: Good to hear some good news.
@Dangerman: Trump really is *that* stupid.
@Gretchen: Republicans really are *that* stupid.
@Marc: Let’s send the effer to Mars and let his innards ooze out of his ass when cosmic rays liquify his organs.
(What? A donkey can … okay, “out of his ass” was probably too much. Sorry.)
Ruckus
@Steve LaBonne:
Naw, that brain has rotted itself into nothingness. He does not have a normally operating brain. He is the definition of shitforbrains. Where do you think I picked up that use of his real name? From his actual words and expressed thoughts. He is the very definition of shitforbrains. He knows nothing and his approval numbers are from people like him that think he will replace democracy with a kingdom.
Non of this is rational, not shitforbrains, not elmo, not their supporters. Because they want nothing that normal people want from a government and they want everything for themselves. They are not normal, rational human beings. They want hate reinstated as a policy norm. They want center stage. Because they are great – just ask them.
And elmo will be his own downfall. shitforbrains won’t be a witness, he’ll be in the next cell. These are people for whom the ONLY IMPORTANT thing in life is money. Not human lives, not rational thought, not you, me or the wino down on the street corner. MONEY. Now believe me money is nice and nice stuff costs money. But some worship money, think that it is better than any other thing or person. These are two of them.
Many of them think that money will buy them humanity. But it won’t. And one does not have to earn humanity, one just has to understand that humans are ONE species of animal on this planet and they can make it far, far, far worse for all or possibly a tad better for all. But those two segments of humanity are on the opposite side of everything. One side wants to take/steal everything and one side wants all of us to live a normal long life. Be on the correct side of that grand canyon separating humanity.
lowtechcyclist
@Ohio Mom:
I love going to Dollar Tree. There’s a few things I buy regularly there – tissues, Kraft mac n’ cheese, and one particular brand of granola bar I’ve never seen anywhere else but really like. (I love their selection of snack foods, I try lots of stuff there and if I don’t like something, I’ve only wasted $1.25.) I also get plastic containers of various sorts there when we need some, and I’ll get skin moisturizer there when I’m on the road, rather than bring it with me. Batteries when I’m traveling, ditto.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, the Landmark Mall. Hospital should be complete in 2028! Don’t know about the rest of the buildings!
lowtechcyclist
@Van Buren:
That was the conclusion we reached when we moved up here from SW VA >25 years ago, and since then, there’s only been more people in more cars piling in there. So we just stay the hell away.
trollhattan
@CarolPW:
Not Arden Fair but whatever they called the thing that spanned Watt at ElCamino, my side had the Weinstocks that became WalMart that is now the shell of a never finished Amazon supermarket. It’s the saddest intersection in the county. I propose a Panda Express at each corner as the new anchor strategy for redevelopment.
Let me not fail to give five minutes of hate to Westfield, who are actively cratering Arden Fair having finished the job at downtown mall. They truly are the Murdochs of retail development and have me questioning the whole Australia experiment.
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: That’s not the primary reason for malls, per se, but control-ability of the clientele is a part of the allure, yes.
Older malls really struggle in large part because the store footprints are small. And they used to be based more around little independent shops, but retailing has been about consolidation into larger chains, and those usually want more spacious stores, and they want their partner stores adjacent (think Chico’s, White House Black Market, Soma).
And, like…. it cannot be emphasized enough that this shit is mercurial. Consumers like new and spiffy. They like feeling upscale and amenitized.
lowtechcyclist
@Phylllis:
Well, cool! I’m glad to hear that something good like that is being done with it.
I still have a soft spot in my heart for South Carolina, and the Columbia area in particular, after all these years.
Jay
@trollhattan:
Not Taco Trucks in the parking lots?
Matt McIrvin
@Rusty: Can’t vote by mail if there’s no mail.
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: This is what happens when a political party blames the other party – they can never learn from their mistakes. Clinton did it and it was horrible and corrupt; Republicans do it, and it’s no big. Invading Iraq led to ISIS, but they blamed Obama (as if he had invaded in the first place!) Eventually, you have people who sound stupid (especially to us NDs) who aren’t hip to the current crop of lies they’re smoking.
@Dangerman: meme is the “Underpants gnomes” from early South Park, if you’re interested – you’ve provided a *fine* example of underpants gnome reasoning.
@Suzanne: At Amazon, many of my co-workers were Indian/Pakistani, and the difference was amazing. Of course, DEI efforts included “don’t complain about how their food smells – it smells good to them!” and other such “no microagressions” ideas (not quite *rules*). I didn’t meet any real “bros.” I did have to adjust my speech (when they say “football” they’re not talking Seahawks, and I was in the minority, so soccer it was…). They had a better work community, in my opinion. Of course, I’m not an impartial observer.
@Baud: Just remember, the quickest way to get info on the internet is *not* to ask a question, but to post something wrong – you’ll have dozens of corrections, with varying levels of politeness.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom:
The strategy is to try to build them fast, exhaust the market, and then your competitors lose out.
But…. in many places, underbuilding has gone on so long that they could add capacity for years, maybe decades, and still not lose any money.
trollhattan
@Jay: We can’t seem to build new mixed retail-residential infill without including a Panda Express. Guessing it’s code. Somewhere is a Panda Express inside a Panda Express, but I’m not going on the search.
Was nonplussed on our recent week in North Carolina how very little it differs from literally any California suburb, in architecture and selection of chain anything. Whoever “they” are, they won.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I think the calculation during just the couple of weeks around Trump’s inauguration was, in fact, “being bigoted is cool now!” Got to follow the trends!
WTFGhost
@Ruckus: I won’t disagree with what you’ve said, but I will say this: I don’t think the thieves and grifters and haters want to destroy everything. I don’t think they realize they *could*. Cut a trillion from this year’s budget, there’s a trillion dollar shortfall in spending. No, other people aren’t spending more to make up for it – so the economy takes an enormous hit.
If the muskovites have personalized information, they are now national security threats, in the sense of “lots of people would kill anyone to get that info, and, if it leaves the US, we may be up the proverbial (very stinky) creek without a paddle and a hole in our boat.
Suzanne
So fun fact about retailing….. the entire social construct of the department store comes to us from France (Bon Marche was the first biggie), and they were the only places where women could walk alone in public, without men on their arms, without being thought of as prostitutes. The flaneur, a man, got to walk the Parisian boulevards, whereas women, flaneuses, could only be inside a store. So the department store sprang up to allow women to shop across departments without having to go outside.
A few decades and a couple of wars later, this got expanded into indoor malls in the U.S. Same idea: to make shopping safe and recreational.
Uncle Cosmo
@Ohio Mom: It’s the Dollar-And-A-Quarter-And-Up-Tree these days. Plenty of aisles stuffed with items for $3 and even $5 a pop. Probably hoping their patrons won’t notice even at the checkout, the bastards.
(That said, I still get boxes of Wyler drink mixes at $1.25/8 [useta be $1 for 10] and picked up a decent-size pizza pan for $1.25 t’other day. Big :Lots closing sux tho.)
Matt McIrvin
@mrmoshpotato: Watching Steve Bannon rail and fume against Elon Musk destroying the government (because that was supposed to be HIS job) has been one of the few small pleasures of recent events.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Guessing we have added 10k apartments in the city core over the last decade and our vacancy rate remains low and the rents, high. At some point it stabilizes but we seem nowhere near that point.
One list this year had us the top destination metro in the country but I question how they collect the data on that. For sure we’re still attracting a lot of Bay Area migrants, renters and those paying cash on $1.6 mil houses. Whee!
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
When I go over to northern Virginia, which is where I grew up, and lived for awhile in my mid to late 20s, it’s always interesting to see what’s changed and how, and what’s the same as it was (only more pricey). I used to occasionally shop at that mall back then.
Matt McIrvin
@WTFGhost: Part of right-wing mythology is that 95% of what the government does is completely useless and is a drag on the economy, through some “crowding out” mechanism–just cut that out, and you get an instant Golden Age. They’re testing the theory.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
Yeah, some cities could just add and add and add units and still need more. Demand is incredibly high. There’s a bunch of historical patterns converging. In 2008, housing starts absolutely went off a cliff and only got back to “normal” recently, which means we underbuilt for, like, 15 years and have a backlog. And the economy pretty much everywhere in the world is specializing and urbanizing. So people are collecting in bigger and bigger cities due to job opportunities, access to specialized services, etc.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Did you ever see Wonder Woman? I have not, but I was told that they used the Landmark Mall for filming.
Here’s what the new hospital will look like!
lowtechcyclist
@Uncle Cosmo:
Must vary from place to place. Locally, the Dollar Trees have maybe one aisle of “and up” stuff plus maybe a 3 foot wide section of one side of the electronics aisle.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Great Recession still rattles in the collective consciousness and it does seem we’ve not even restored 2006-era construction rates here, as unsustainable as that time was.
If Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada get enacted, new projects will halt because of the lumber and steel costs. The LA wildfire losses are having knock-on effects already.
CarolPW
@trollhattan: A couple of the Country Club parts were there while I still was, but they hadn’t metastasized yet.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
Most of these people likely have likely zero concept of what the federal government actually does on a day to day basis. Or what a lot of the employees do. These are the people that as long as they aren’t trying to overthrow it or outright cheat on their taxes likely have zero contact with the federal government. Many people do not see the federal government in their lives. I do because I earned federal government healthcare, which is decent and is better than some private health care I’ve seen up close. It’s people like elow, who seem’s to believe that his money makes him the greatest human alive. And it doesn’t come close.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
Tariffs are going to be a disaster for construction. I’m already hearing about major impacts to my firm’s projects. Pretty much every major trade — steel, curtain wall, doors and openings, electrical, framing, etc. — relies on materials that are about to get hit.
And there’s been a number of disasters this year (LA fires, the Florida and NC hurricanes, KY floods) and they’re all going to result in delays and high prices for building materials.
Wish my fees were calculated as a percentage of construction!
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: We’ve got some areas around Boston where construction hasn’t recovered from the early-1990s recession. Particularly things like suburban office parks.
Jay
@Suzanne:
Don’t forget labour.
Suzanne
@Jay: Labor isn’t getting hit by tariffs, but it will absolutely get hit by immigration raids.
The construction workforce is aging and it’s been held up so far by documented and undocumented immigrants.
trollhattan
@CarolPW: Country Club, thanks!
Used to be a jumping destination, what with the three Tower stores, movie theater, bowling alley, Sam’s Hofbrau(!), plus the mall split in two parts. Sad as a sad thing now. My office was somehow constructed inside the shell of a department store and after a mere five years was declared inadequate and not fixable. They announced a new building will replace it somewhere in Rancho.
I’ll be long gone, considering they have yet to break ground and we have federal roommates gnawing their nails about things like paychecks.
Matt McIrvin
Remember, there was a crushing recession in the early 1980s caused by some combination of Reagan’s budget cuts and Volcker shocking the economy with high interest rates to kill inflation, but the recovery afterward (which, by modern standards, was really no great shakes) was enough to give people Morning in America sparkles, get Reagan reelected in a landslide, and somehow get the 1980s remembered to this day as a wonderful time of prosperity (though, in hindsight, you can see it as the moment when class divisions started to explode and economic growth got decoupled from wages). So I don’t have a lot of confidence that people will draw useful long-term lessons from any of this.
CarolPW
@trollhattan: Man, I remember the original Sam’s in downtown, close to the bus depot. Went there with the grandparents and loved watching them carve off the roast beef. Also remember when Tower books & Records was only the one store across from the Tower Theater.
Jay
@Suzanne:
Labour is definitely going to get hit hard by tariffs, as layoffs take effect.
Some Companies have already starting laying off people, but not construction so far. Mostly steel and aluminum fab companies.
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed, but, it’s not even a good *hypothesis*, much less a tested one. Simple economics proves it’s wrong, but….
See, I believe the Republicans just wanted an excuse to cut, cut, cut, and force Democrats to “compromise” by canceling some (but not all) of the cuts. Always. So they made up the meme that they need to slash everything to the bone, because otherwise, people ask questions, like “do we need to keep cutting?”
But then, after a couple generations of that, you have people who really believe it – they don’t know that it’s all a BS excuse, they’ve grown up hearing “respectable” RW voices saying it. So they believe it – “they couldn’t all be wrong or lying or grifting!”
Um… yeah. Yeah, they could. OMG, could they.
Of course, effectively, there’s no difference, whether it was a BS talking point, or a real belief, it’s happening, and they are likely to reap the proverbial whirlwind.
trollhattan
@CarolPW:
Sigh. Theater is still there, Tower Records and Books after a stint as Dimple Records, has been mowed over and mixed apartments and retail going in on the corner. IDK how many Panda Expresses will sprout, across the street are Noah’s Bagels and Chipotale. We probably have 500 Chipotales.
“See, we can be bland, too!”
TBF the Broadway corridor makeover will eventually be pretty great. But wow, these things take forever.
Kayla Rudbek
@Starfish (she/her): I remember Macy’s replacing Dayton’s department stores in Minneapolis, and it was a real downgrade. Dayton’s was expensive and quality, Nordstrom’s is expensive and too flashy for your average Minnesotan tastes, Macy’s is also too flashy (Macy’s being East Coast flashy and Nordstrom’s being more Southern flashy in my arrogant opinion). Donaldson’s was less expensive than Dayton’s, still better than Sears and Montgomery Ward.
I personally tend to do a lot of clothes shopping online now (mostly Lands’ End, dipping my toes in at Banana Republic sometimes, Gap’s clothes don’t fit me right and never have fit me right. L.L. Bean has great clothes but gives too much money to the Republicans and has discontinued a lot of clothes I liked, Eddie Bauer is a bit too casual for work and again a lot of their clothes don’t fit me well.). Boden is hit or miss (I swear that the entire English clothing industry does a ton of drugs to be picking out the color combinations that they do) and expensive to boot. Old Navy is cheap and flimsy. Hi, my name is Kayla and I am a clothing snob when I shop for myself.
Another Scott
@Dangerman: @WTFGhost:
I’m pretty sure that Dangerman is referring to the old, classic, Sidney Harris comic.
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, I spoze I did exaggerate a bit – it’s more like an aisle and a half, and the prices there are prominently displayed, so not all that sneaky. For the moment. But it kind of feels like the price-gouging camel poking its nose through the tent-flap. Annoying to notice items that might’ve been a goo deal at $1.25 but aren’t at $3 or $5.