Dying Retailers

Retail trade is changing fast. The old mall system, for example, is near in ICU in the United States and in Europe.  Most of the reasons for the way shoppers buy changing is because they now buy on line and with those "apps" that enchant them. Marketers see the consumer is more likely to buy on line with his or her technology, of they can be convinced the item is sold at a good price.

By the end of 2017, 20 retail chains, including Radio Shack, Toys R Us, and HH Gregg  filed for bankruptcy. Some still operate and others were liquidated and are gone forever,  and some were reorganized and are gasping for life and some were liquidated. When I think of Toy's R Us disappearing it is somewhat of a shock. When my daughter was small I practically showered that store with money, buying the endless Barbie dolls and other little girl toys that all little girls pressure their parents to supply.

So which big retail American companies might be next to fall by the wayside? Here are a few:
Sears- The one time giants of American department stores and catalogue sales is broke. Sears has survived  the last few years, barely so, only by selling off assets and borrowing money. But now even vendors are refusing to supply to Sears, customers are beginning to complain that the merchandise for sale is "cheap" and Sears is in no position to  do anything to stop the bleeding.

J.C. Penny- Started by James Cash Penny in Minnesota more than 100 years ago, J.C. Penny was the Wal mart of household goods for generations. You could buy anything at Penny's. Though Penny's has tried to get into the on line sales platform as it loses money faster than it can count it , it appears too late and too little for customers who are mostly younger and unaware of the glorious past of J.C. Penny.

Claire's- Claire's, a mall staple, was the first choice of little girls until about 8 years ago. I remember taking my daughter there to have her ear pierced and coming home with lots of cute kid jewelry. But kids were turned off of Claire's and onto their technology years ago. Today's little tech kids girls just don't want the things that Claire's sells.

Charlotte Russe- Charlotte Russe has struggled because it is a mall based store in an age of lower foot traffic. Also the clothes it sells can be had on line from on line clothing retailers. clothing sales have moved online, meaning mall stalwarts for kids like J. Crew and Charlotte Russe just don't have a large enough customer case anymore.

Payless, Nine West and many other shoe sellers- For whatever reason, many consumers aren't buying shoes as often from brick and mortar stores. Too, the show market has been flooded with competitors and the market pie now is too small.

GNC and Vitamin World- The failure of these nutritional stores is due to cheap on line competitors. Consumers have not been scared away from on line sellers products because they are much less expensive to buy.

Barnes and Noble- The world's biggest bookseller is losing to on line, book pads and the simple fact that fewer people read anything these days, well, anything more than Tweets and smarmy social media web sites.

In almost all cases the consuming influence of technology is as much the result of the change in retail as anything else. And that's not likely to abate in the future.

It's The Most Wonderful Reflection Time of the Year

Excuse the variation in my subject head, 'It's The Most Wonderful Reflection Time of the Year', to the classic Christmas song with the nearly identical title. I couldn't resist, because during and after Christmas my thoughts go to, not what just happened this Christmas, but to random memories of Christmas past. Most of those memories are of the routine and what seemed at the time they were created to be trivial. Why is it so? Why do humans need those past memories, especially when they are making more current ones of the holiday?

Do we need to reflect during emotional times in order to cope with the mad world in which we live? I think so. I am surprised at the variety of old Christmas memories I get each Christmas. And the variety of them varies year to year. I suppose these memories are a defense mechanism against the frustrations we feel at Christmas. This year, for instance, I was sick with a terrible virus. Being locked in the house in misery I had a kaleidoscope of past Christmas memories that seemed to come from nowhere.

A memory of my childhood pet dog's 'Dumbo' (that dog must have been named after me) Christmas sweater; my dad every year placing under the tree the "extra present" , a box of Russell Stover dark chocolate caramels; my mother's baking of so many cheesecakes for friends and her making a few mini ones for me; little me sitting on Santa's knee at D.H. Holmes and asking for a the tape recorder I was to receive that  next Christmas morning.

On the surface there is noting significant about those memories.....or is there? They must be like our dreams, coded messages of importance that we may or may not figure out consciously, but which our subconscious decodes and uses to keep us sane. I think that I remembered I my dad giving me my favorite candy and my mom baking as a reminder of their love for me and the stability of our family. But I also suspect that our "bad memories" serve us in much the same way. They remind us to create no more bad ones,, to enjoy what we have and to find meaning it whatever it is. Though I am lucky to have few bad memories, the one that never fails to arrive each Christmas is that of the death of my brother on Christmas Day, my finding his lifeless body on the floor of his home..

The odd thing about all of those post Christmas Day memories is how short lived they are. They come at holiday time, retreat and disappear and there is rarely a need for most of us to create any new ones as a replacement. Next year we will be gifted with new memories on which to reflect. I suspect they are the medicine that soothes or even cures our affliction and then is placed away into a drawer until the next need for them.

Yes, Christmas memories can be the most wonderful reflections of the year. I hope you had and made many this year.

Boxing Day

I bet you think that the next holiday after Christmas is New Year's Day? Forget it. You turned tour head and missed one. December 26 is Boxing Day every year, an official holiday in Britain and now an unofficial shopping lure by retailers everywhere. It's another commercial kidnapping of a one time tradition, now excuse, for you to part with your money in shopping sprees. This strangely named holiday, has nothing to do with boxing gloves or any form of fisticuffs. But then, if you ever shopped at a mall at an after Christmas sale, you've probably seen a few fist fights over the reduced sock pile or 75% off microwave display.

Boxing Day's name comes from the tradition of "Christmas boxes," gifts of money or goods given to 17th century trades people and servants on the day after Christmas. It was the leftover and doggie box for the people who slaved for the wealthy. Boxing Day arose because servants, who would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, were allowed to visit their families the next day. Thus, their employers would give them boxes containing gifts, bonuses and, sometimes, leftover food to share with family. That's sort of like the Obama Presidential practice of handing out entitlements in exchange for votes from the welfare dependent.

But alas! In the tradition of our age with few real traditions, Boxing Day has turned into a major shopping event in several countries. In England,  the day attracts a record number of shoppers, some of them returning gifts but most attracted by "door buster" post holiday sales. Some of the more frugal Brits actually do their Christmas shopping on Boxing Day....last year's Christmas shopping that it. They simply give Christmas gifts a Day or two late and save big money by purchasing then. Boxing Day is the second biggest shopping day in Britain. Those who prefer tradition to shopping, or who hate shopping eschew Box Day as Shopping Day by instead going fox hunting and or drinking at the local pub on Boxing Day.

So the British tradition of Boxing Day is dying a bit there, and being conscripted by retailers who occasionally announce their day after Christmas sales as "Boxing Day Sales", tradition changing into crass shopping sales. Sigh...it's enough to make one want to fight.

A Christmas Gift Not To Give

Forget worrying about that ugly neck tie or Obama chia pet that you give as gifts at the office! The world's least appropriate Christmas gift this year is neither. Instead, it's the brain child of an elderly couple from California. Patrick Jiron, 83, and his wife Barbara Jiron, 80 must have overdosed on egg nog this year because they were caught with more than $300,000 worth of marijuana during a cross country road trip. Dude! Aster they were caught they told police they wanted to give the pot out as Christmas gifts.  I wonder if they  also gave the little ones mini bags of pot? After al, little children often want to fly like Santa.

Both of the geriatric weed Santa's were both cited for marijuana possession during a Tuesday traffic stop in York County, Nebraska. York County deputies pulled the couple over after spotting their 2016 Toyota Tacoma driving over the center line and failing to signal on Interstate 80. The deputies noticed the odor of raw marijuana coming from the car.  Grandpa Patrick then admitted there was "contraband" in the car, the sheriff's department said, and allowed the deputies to search the truck.

In the truck were 60 pounds of marijuana with an estimated street value of more than $300,000. Santa may get high in California, but he is also generous. Police also found concentrated THC inside the car, presumably for the more discretionary druggies on the Jiron gift tour. After questioning the couple protested the arrest, saying that they were merely they were coming from California to give the weed as Christmas presents to friends and family in Boston and Vermont, where pot is an illegal substance.

Most 80 year olds are not put in jails. But in keeping with the long standing U.S. police arrest policies of discrimination against males, Santa Patrick Jiron was booked into the York County Jail, while Ms. Claus, Barbara Jiron, was not taken to jail, allegedly because of a "medical issue". I think they both have medical issues. They're nuts.

Odd Christmas Songs

We still have a a way to go before Christmas day, and amazingly, I am still listening to Christmas music and smiling the whole while. Christmas music is escapism at its best, an unreal sentimentality that uplifts those of us who like to pretend that life could be as idealistic as in the tunes of the season. Most of Christmas music soothes me, but when I begin to get weary of the sugar world of Christmas it's usually because of a few Christmas songs that I wished were banished to the North Pole.  They are the odd tunes of Christmas. Some are intentionally silly, others unintentionally awful, but when they sneak onto my favorite Christmas music station play list I almost declare that I have had enough of Christmas music.

Here are a few of my oddest Christmas songs, along with my caustic comments about them, beginning with disgusting Christmas tunes. The first is called 'Santa Claus Has Got The Aids,'  recorded in 1980, but not released until 1990, leaves the listener with visions of sugar plums and  of Santa with AIDS. How inspiring! In. " Don't Shot Me Santa" a  murderous boy pleads with Santa to not shoot him. I would love it if Santa shoot the composer of that song instead. 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus' was written as a cute song, but when a then five year old Michael Jackson recorded it, that brought the song to an odd level. There's nothing that says Christmas quite like the thought of a voyeuristic child watching his mom have sex with a fat man in a red suit in the family your house in the middle of the night., all the while dad is fast asleep upstairs.

And the final disgusting one is called 'Christmas Tree'. In her rendition, Lady Gaga, who can be disgusting even without music, tones that  her vagina is "a delicious Christmas tree". Even fruit cake is more appetizing than that.

Another category of odd Christmas music the 'Sappy Tune' selection. These are just too sweet to be tolerated and the first to come to my mind is a tune from my a composer from old hometown, New Orleans, 'All I Want for Christmas is You'.  In this one a love-sick woman swears to her love that he is all she wants for Christmas is him. Forget that recipe and buy her the expensive gift this year.

That's what she really wants. 'The Little Drummer Boy' is so sickeningly sweet that I have an urge to strangle the Little Drummer Boy before he concludes this tune about the impoverished boy offering his  drum rolls to the king instead of the taxes required the king really needs. Band Aids 'Do They Know It's Christmas' is another one of those celebrities pretending they car about the poor causes, put to annoying lyrics at its loudest. Not everybody starving in Africa is Christian. They don't need to know it's Christmas. They need more than band aids. And the 50's hit, 'All I want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth'  has creepy lyrics sung by a grown man trying to sound like a child. When I hear this one I want to knock out all the teeth of the singer.

I only mention some of the odd Christmas songs here. The lists of odd Christmas tunes could go on forever, but one more category to mention is the oddest named Christmas songs. I'll just give ten titles and you can use your imagination if you haven't heard the lyrics. In the case of these songs, your imagination will be more pleasing to you than listening to the actual songs. How about, 1)  'Please Daddy, Don't Get Drunk this Christmas 2) 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer' 3) 'I Farted on Santa's Lap' 4)'I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas' 5)'I Pooped on Santa's Lap' 6) 'Santa Hates Poor Kids' 7) Santa's a Fat Bitch'  7) 'Santa Claus is a Black Man' 8) 'Murder City Xmas' 9) 'Santa Claus and his Old Lady' and 10) 'The Night Santa Went Crazy'

You probably can find all of these songs on line. You Tube is a good place to search for them. But if you search for them and listen it will only prove that you are also odd. Ho Ho Ho!

Mindless Protest

Me think they doth protest too much. Is there ever an occurrence today that someone does not "protest"? Most are  nothing more than idiotic and self aggrandizing tantrums of misinformation.  I was reminded the other day of last spring's classic example of  the Lower Merion High School (Pennsylvania) boys basketball team and its protest.

 Everyone seems to want to protest when they don't get their way. We are a nation and world of whiners, the "No Fair. No Fair, we lost the election" mentality of the Donald Trump hating Democrats donned different warm-up shirts for their recent basketball game at the high school. The shirts read, "I am a Muslim. I am a refugee. I am an immigrant. I am an American. I am an Ace." It's a political statement by a teenage basketball team inflicted on spectators who came to see basketball, not politics or protests.

Shamefully, the school allowed that P.C. protest at a school sponsored event. Never mind that fans who don't agree that Muslim refugees should be dumped into America who to see a political protest at a high school sports event. What next for, a foreign policy debate at a homecoming dance? School events should be free of political nonsense because partisan politics of any type is inappropriate at school events. But children see adults, particularly air g headed, out of touch Hollywood celebrities protesting everything not in the P.C. agenda where ever those "stars" appear. Inappropriate examples beget inappropriate examples among kids.

The school system in this case is cowardly for not stopping such things before they start. A simple reminder to the coach that protests at sporting events are against school rules and that serve penalties (I suggest shutting down  the season for that team right now. The players will learn that protests are serious things to be acted at at appropriate venues at appropriate times, not trendy "look at me" events). The so called protest is against allowing Syrian refugees into the United States from countries that are so chaotic that checking on the identify of the refugees is impossible.  Isis and other terror groups regularly infiltrate the "refugees" with operatives as away of entering western nations to enable more terrorism there.

Besides the cowardice of adults for allowing this, the saddest aspect is the players ignorance of what they protest. Their complete indoctrination into political correctness and the "look at me I am special because I protest" ritual reflects the dumbing down of humans in this country by the leftist agenda. I hope the players social studies teacher assigns a complete examination of the matter about what they protest. Literature about the refugees and about immigration from all views should be required reading for the players. But then, any teacher today who requires a serious study and understanding of a P. C. issue would probably be fired before the next sunrise.

Trading Kids For Drugs

In this country it is said that most new trends, good or bad, start in California. It's la la land, where reality and fantasy are so often blurred one never can tell the difference. Here's an example of a "Is he serious about that California behavior". Los Angeles County authorities say two California parents have been arrested on suspicion of trying to sell their two sons for drugs. Yep! Every parent fantasy to ship junior off to some other unfortunate adult was acted out by those two. "They must be crazy or on drugs", you might have thought.

You got it. At least they didn't offer to trade the kids for a new edition of the latest cell phone. Sheriff's officials in Lancaster, California said that deputies responded last week to a home Lancaster following reports of possible child abuse by  38-year-old dad Vincente Calogero and 32-year-old mom Sarah Nilson after the two attempted to exchange their two sons for money or drugs.Vincent and Sarah could face charges including felony child endangerment, child neglect, and being under the influence of a controlled substance.  I think sterilization might be the best penalty if  the two are convicted.

It wasn't immediately known if they have attorneys because they seem too stoned to know whether they have. The two boys, whose ages were not disclosed, are in the custody of the county's Department of Children and Family Services. One must remember that in the state of California, and every other U.S. state, no license is required to breed and raise children. Yet, there are stiff penalties for anyone who fails to secure a dog license to own Fido. Kinda says something about society preferences.