Engineer Husband and the urchins are GTW to buy some school supplies to donate to the “Fill a Backpack” drive at the church where the urchins are attending Vacation Bible School this week. In the meantime, via Betsy’s Page I found this City Journal article by Steve Malanga about how the Walmart critics are all wrong. Key quotes:

Walton figured out that one key to success was to develop a corporate culture in which management and employees worked together with the sole aim of serving the customer, a revolutionary idea at the time, though now a standard management technique.

It is instead a clash of worldviews, as unions and their allies, representing a narrow band of special interests masquerading as a populist movement, try to convince the public that super-efficient discounters like Wal-Mart lower workers’ standard of living even as they actually raise living standards by offering goods to so many at such low prices.

Regardless of the campaign against it, Wal-Mart is generating enormous support in many of its newest markets, especially in lower-income urban areas where shoppers often have few choices among stores, and where prices are typically high—especially for groceries, which account for so big a percentage of low-income budgets. Minority communities traditionally friendly to the Left’s agenda have shocked opponents by welcoming Wal-Mart and working closely with it.

Some of the critical drumbeat doubtless reflects the fact that Wal-Mart and its founding family still promote causes and values that the mainstream media oppose. Sam Walton supported conservative and free-market groups.

Ay, there’s the rub. The Big W builds stores in the inner city and in rural areas, charges low prices, operates efficiently, doesn’t pay huge salaries to its executives, and gives money to conservative groups, and won’t allow the unions to drive a wedge between workers and management. Ergo they must be evil, right?