Just in case you missed it

Inglewood, California, is a working-class community of 112,000, with blacks and Latinos in about equal numbers.

Lat year, Wal-Mart, the biggest retail outfit in the country (and possibly the scummiest), set it's corporate eyes on a 60-acre parcel of concrete-covered land there with the intention to build a "superstore" plus a collection of chain shops and restaurants. But the Inglewood City Council blocked the proposal, citing environmental, traffic, labor, public safety and economic concerns.

But Wally World was not going to give up. It hired people to gather signatures on a petition (paying them more than it pays its average clerk) in order to put the question directly to voters as a ballot initiative then, hired a PR firm and ponied up over $1 million to push for it.

The initiative route was unusual enough, but the initiative itself was just nuts.

The proposal would essentially exempt Wal-Mart from all of Inglewood's planning, zoning and environmental regulations, creating a city-within-a-city subject only to its own rules.

It also would require a 2/3 vote to alter any of the terms even though the initiative itself could pass by a simple majority.

Despite the support of the mayor and despite outspending opponents by more than 5-1, when election day came this past Tuesday, Wal-Mart lost. Lost convincingly: better then 60-40. Apparently not everyone - or even a majority of a working class city - is willing to undermine their town's long-term economic base in order to save a buck on a pack of underwear.

Unintentional Humor Dept.: Peter Kanelos, the Southern California coordinator for Wal-Mart's community affairs division, at one point claimed that opponents of the measure, including organized labor, church groups, community organizations, the City Council, and the town's representatives in state government, "are not representative of the community" and accused labor of "attempting to bully Wal-Mart and its customers."