Lots of Wal-Mart, your friend and mine, in the news today. NYT is reporting on the death of Wal-Mart's efforts to get a store in Queens, which ends its quest to come to NYC...for now. And Slate has a dissection of a speeck made by Wal-Mart's CEO, H. Lee Scott, claiming that Wal-Mart is good to its workers. Tim Noah cuts up Wal-Mart's lies and half-truths: it's a good primer.
In other news, what the fuck is wrong with Doug Wead? What a buffoon! He must be up for some kind of idiot award--to blackmail the administration with these tapes, reveal their existence, then the next day go crying and crawling back to Bush--what? Does he really think anyone near Bush will even touch him again? Did he actually NOT THINK about what the consequences were going to be? It's baffling.
Finally, a wonderful piece on an unusual museum temporarily located on Pier 54.
The entire museum is to be packed in 37 of the 148 cargo containers that form its checkerboard walls. The temporary structure is composed largely of recyclable materials: the roof and columns are made of paper tubes, the steel containers stacked 34 feet high are used, and a handmade curtain to be suspended from the ceiling is made of one million pressed paper tea bags (used, with the tea leaves removed).
"Shigeru is the Mozart of sustainable architecture," Mr. Colbert said. "Also, from a philosophical point of view, he's done some great public buildings; he says that art shouldn't be for the privileged."
I'm definitely going to try to check this out while it is here.
3:54 PM