After reading the column on Starbucks and its lack of originality (“Starbucks: Big business, bad coffee,” Feb. 6, p.7), I found examples provided by Melissa Graboyes similar to recent happenings all throughout America. Several months ago, a Super Wal-Mart opened in my hometown, and as I discovered over Winter Break, my hometown is slowly becoming a victim of “big box” stores, a case currently common in small-town America. Aside from the company’s lack of workers’ benefits (the company has been cited for making its employees work while off the clock), amount of imports (Wal-Mart Inc. prided itself on its “Buy American” campaign when the company first began; now Wal-Mart is the largest importer of foreign-produced goods in the United States) and the neglect the company has shown toward the environment (regardless of its commercials on being environmentally cautious, Wal-Mart has left more than 500 million square feet of former stores abandoned in order to open the infamous Supercenters), the impact of a store such as a Super Wal-Mart diminishes the local flavor of a town. The prices at a Wal-Mart store may be appealing to college students now, but with “predatory pricing,” the tactic Wal-Mart stores use to drive the locally-owned businesses that cannot compete with the low prices into the ground, we can only wonder what our children will have to choose from when they are in college.

I would like to propose a challenge to the student body: Support the businesses that generously gave to your community. Being involved in various community-oriented organizations, I do not recall Wal-Mart donating to any of them. Whether it is the small bookstore that sponsored reading events for your elementary schools, the grocery store that donated food to your softball banquet in high school or even the small shops on campus that delightfully cater to college students, let us work together to keep both culture and ethics in American companies.

Elysse Magnotto CGS ’07