Thanks a lot Lowe's!

Thanks a lot Lowe's. You just made my bedroom redecoration project more time-consuming, expensive, and inconvenient. So that's how you repay my loyalty.

You've probably heard and read of Lowe's stupid, cowardly, and totally tone-deaf move of pulling its ads from the reality show on TLC that shows an ordinary Muslim family in Michigan going about its daily life. I admit I've never seen "All-American Muslim," not because the idea of the show offends me but because I don't watch reality shows. Period. But from what I've read, the family that is the center of the show is just a typical American family, not so different from my own.

This was too much for the Muslim-haters. The series didn't show the jihadists, they screamed. It didn't show Muslims making bombs or planning to kill innocent Americans, and everybody knows that is how all Muslims spend most of their time. The Muslim-haters' insane complaints reached Lowe's corporate offices and all their spines turned immediately to jelly. They couldn't be associated with a show that incited controversy among the hard right wing, and so they immediately pulled their ads from the show, I guess hoping nobody would notice they had ever been a sponsor. Unfortunately for them, people did notice, including many of us who normally do our shopping for home improvement and gardening supplies at their store.

Lowe's is my closest big box store for house and garden supplies and it generally has good prices, so that has been where I did my shopping. But I cannot support with my hard-earned dollars a company that would be so craven and un-American in its policies. I don't shop at Wal-Mart. How do Lowe's policies make it superior to them?  So now I'll have to find another store for the paint and other supplies I need for my redecoration project. It'll be inconvenient and will mean traveling a few miles farther down the road, but there are a couple of Home Depots that are not too distant. Let's just hope that they don't do something utterly stupid that makes them unworthy of my dollars.

Here's the Daily Show's "Senior Muslim Correspondent" Aasif Mandvi's take on the issue.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no
Read more

The Investigator by John Sandford: A review

Image
  I have read a few of John Sandford's books in the Prey series featuring Lucas Davenport. This book is a literal offspring of that series. It's the first in a series featuring Davenport's adopted daughter Letty Davenport. Letty is in her mid-20s and a graduate of Stanford. She works for a U.S. senator named Christopher Colles in a desk job but she's bored with her assignments. Then the senator offers her a chance to go into the field as a liaison between his office and the Department of Homeland Security.  In her first assignment in that position, she is sent to Texas along with DHS investigator John Kaiser to try to find out what is happening in regard to thefts of crude oil. The senator is not so concerned about the lost oil but wants to know where the money from its sale is going. Who is selling the oil and what they are doing with the profits? The suspicion is that a particularly nasty militia group led by a woman is involved. Letty and Kaiser head out to Texas, de
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try.
Read more