Re: Shahab on soap!

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

> my soap box!
While I'm in no position to evaluate the facts you present on your own 
business practices,  I accept the fact that you have raised the core 
values of ethics, integrity and quality in the conduct of business. This 
small community, insulated as it is from the powerful "mainstreams" of 
Americn economic life, has more or less survived till now with a central 
business district. But, as you suggest,the production and marketing 
forces that have steam-rollered across the nation now threaten this 
island of small town culture. Unless community leaders take up the 
challenge, along lines that you suggest they ought, there will be no 
future either for the town cultures of the Palouse. The Inland Northwest 
is already targeted for major infusions of monopolistic type capital 
ventures, with Spokane as the hub. Agricultural policies seem also to be 
aimed in that direction, with a govt.-university-agribusiness alliance to 
support export strategies. .
    At another level, the level of citizen consumer, as a society and 
increasingly as a community we have yielded to the temptation to go to 
the fast food counter rather than to quality eateries or to cook at home, 
and to the discount store rather than to the more professional merchant. 
Consequences of both are manifest throughout society. Our very life style 
and the spend-and-charge-it-all attitudes undermine discretionary 
purchases based on sounder values. An economy driven by monetary policy, 
rather than by need-based and conservation ethics, fosters more of those 
behaviors. There are alternatives, but our educational and information 
systems do not equip the average citizen with the knowledge and wisdom to 
exercise them. We're not sure either where local businesses really stand, 
are we?
   I lived thru the nearly total devastation of Detroit as a functional 
city, while huge amounts of capital "rebuilt" the original services, 
greenbelts and new residential tracts around its periphery, leaving the 
downtown a gutted crime-infested shell and a haven for the uneducated and 
destitute. Thirty years later, leaders announce that gambling and pro 
sports will "save the city" -- for whom?  If what we want for our small 
Inland NW towns and cities is that kind of scenario, then, of course, let 
downtown merchants die a slow economic death, and shop only on the 
periphery, where the "real bargains" can be gotten. Yes, Shabad, it's our 
choice! Sad thing is, maybe we don't know any better, as you seem to 
imply.  Ken M.

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William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com