NICHES
The Financial Times has been running a series this week about Wal-Mart. In each one, they have some advice from experts on how to compete with Wal-Mart. The general advice: don’t. Be a different store. You will never beat them on price, so beat them on merchandise. If they offer two flavors of pork rinds, you offer designer flavors (oops, did my Wal-Mart bias just slip out?). Anyway, this advice is interesting to me not so much in the retail environment, but in other areas.
For instance, the Washington Post ran a story about the building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952. They described how the bridge made Maryland’s Eastern Shore much, much more accessible to outsiders. It brought money, better health care, etc., but also has changed the character of the communities on the Eastern Shore. This is all pretty standard gentrification stuff. However, they mentioned two things that got me thinking. First, there used to be ferries across the bay, but that they were idled by the bridge (now bridges). Second, apparently bridge traffic is terrible.
Some of you (realistically, BOTH of you) may remember that Kate and I took a small car ferry from Canada into the United States earlier this year. We did this because . . . bridge traffic was terrible. The fact of the matter is, we would have paid more than $5 Canadian to avoid the traffic, and to get to go across the water on a boat. How is it that some mildly enterprising Eastern Shorer has not already thought of the same thing? If you don’t take a ferry in New York or Seattle, this whole idea of taking a boat somewhere is very cool to us city slickers. If it allows us to avoid some traffic, it is very, very cool. Almost (though not quite) regardless of price. That would be a niche.
SHOULD CLEAR UP IN NO TIME . . .
The French and the Germans both claim a man named Charles the Great as their own. He is known in the United States and France as Charlemagne and in Germany as Karl der Grosse. He ruled over an area that straddled the Rhine (as Germany did from 1871 to 1919), and spoke neither French as we know it, nor German as we know it. He generally kept his court in Aachen (present day Germany). At various times during their history the French and Germans have had more or less acrimony about his origins, but having fought three major wars on 80 years (Franco-Prussian, the Great War, and World War II), as well as the Napoleonic squabbles, they seem to have agreed to just share old Charlie.
That controversy having been settled, both Koreas and at least one China are now arguing about the provenance of the Koguryo monarchs in the for the eight centuries or so from 277 BC to 668 AD. The Koguryos ruled the northern part of the Korean peninsula and a chunk of northeast China (like the Japanese during the 1930s and early 1940s). The Koreans claim them as Korean ancestors. The Chinese, afraid to spark separatist Koreans in China (trying to unify with North Korea?), call them “a subordinate state that fell under the jurisdiction of the Chinese dynasties and was under great influence of China’s politics, culture, and other areas.”
Not surprisingly, this has angered both Koreas, who went from having an 800 year kingdom that lorded it over the smug Chinese to having a manservant in the family tree with one press release. In fact, the South Koreans have indicated that China’s stand undermines efforts to secure peace in the region. I guess if the Charlemagne parallel continues, they already had the Korean War, with Chinese troops invading over the Yalu River, so they just need a couple of world wars and they ought to be all set.
P.S. The name Koguryo seems . . . gasp . . . Japanese to me. Wouldn’t THAT be a kick in the head!?!
Also, this controversy came up in a Financial Times article. Their links policy is the height of ignorance, so they do not get a link. The author was Andrew Ward, the article appeared July 6, 2004 and was entitled China and Korea spar over dynasty.
CALIFORNIA ÜBER ALLES
The press is reporting that Richard Riordan, in charge of education in California and former mayor of Los Angeles told a six year old girl at an event that her name “Isis” meant “stupid dirty girl,” rather than Egyptian goddess. He was, it seems, kidding, although the punch line is kind of sketchy. The true moment of brilliance came when another politician asked if Riordan would have spoken to a white girl like that, and planned a civil rights demonstration. The demonstration planning fizzled when it was discovered that little dirty Isis was a blond white six year old. THAT is what is called a Ten on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.
The Financial Times has been running a series this week about Wal-Mart. In each one, they have some advice from experts on how to compete with Wal-Mart. The general advice: don’t. Be a different store. You will never beat them on price, so beat them on merchandise. If they offer two flavors of pork rinds, you offer designer flavors (oops, did my Wal-Mart bias just slip out?). Anyway, this advice is interesting to me not so much in the retail environment, but in other areas.
For instance, the Washington Post ran a story about the building of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952. They described how the bridge made Maryland’s Eastern Shore much, much more accessible to outsiders. It brought money, better health care, etc., but also has changed the character of the communities on the Eastern Shore. This is all pretty standard gentrification stuff. However, they mentioned two things that got me thinking. First, there used to be ferries across the bay, but that they were idled by the bridge (now bridges). Second, apparently bridge traffic is terrible.
Some of you (realistically, BOTH of you) may remember that Kate and I took a small car ferry from Canada into the United States earlier this year. We did this because . . . bridge traffic was terrible. The fact of the matter is, we would have paid more than $5 Canadian to avoid the traffic, and to get to go across the water on a boat. How is it that some mildly enterprising Eastern Shorer has not already thought of the same thing? If you don’t take a ferry in New York or Seattle, this whole idea of taking a boat somewhere is very cool to us city slickers. If it allows us to avoid some traffic, it is very, very cool. Almost (though not quite) regardless of price. That would be a niche.
SHOULD CLEAR UP IN NO TIME . . .
The French and the Germans both claim a man named Charles the Great as their own. He is known in the United States and France as Charlemagne and in Germany as Karl der Grosse. He ruled over an area that straddled the Rhine (as Germany did from 1871 to 1919), and spoke neither French as we know it, nor German as we know it. He generally kept his court in Aachen (present day Germany). At various times during their history the French and Germans have had more or less acrimony about his origins, but having fought three major wars on 80 years (Franco-Prussian, the Great War, and World War II), as well as the Napoleonic squabbles, they seem to have agreed to just share old Charlie.
That controversy having been settled, both Koreas and at least one China are now arguing about the provenance of the Koguryo monarchs in the for the eight centuries or so from 277 BC to 668 AD. The Koguryos ruled the northern part of the Korean peninsula and a chunk of northeast China (like the Japanese during the 1930s and early 1940s). The Koreans claim them as Korean ancestors. The Chinese, afraid to spark separatist Koreans in China (trying to unify with North Korea?), call them “a subordinate state that fell under the jurisdiction of the Chinese dynasties and was under great influence of China’s politics, culture, and other areas.”
Not surprisingly, this has angered both Koreas, who went from having an 800 year kingdom that lorded it over the smug Chinese to having a manservant in the family tree with one press release. In fact, the South Koreans have indicated that China’s stand undermines efforts to secure peace in the region. I guess if the Charlemagne parallel continues, they already had the Korean War, with Chinese troops invading over the Yalu River, so they just need a couple of world wars and they ought to be all set.
P.S. The name Koguryo seems . . . gasp . . . Japanese to me. Wouldn’t THAT be a kick in the head!?!
Also, this controversy came up in a Financial Times article. Their links policy is the height of ignorance, so they do not get a link. The author was Andrew Ward, the article appeared July 6, 2004 and was entitled China and Korea spar over dynasty.
CALIFORNIA ÜBER ALLES
The press is reporting that Richard Riordan, in charge of education in California and former mayor of Los Angeles told a six year old girl at an event that her name “Isis” meant “stupid dirty girl,” rather than Egyptian goddess. He was, it seems, kidding, although the punch line is kind of sketchy. The true moment of brilliance came when another politician asked if Riordan would have spoken to a white girl like that, and planned a civil rights demonstration. The demonstration planning fizzled when it was discovered that little dirty Isis was a blond white six year old. THAT is what is called a Ten on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.
posted by David at 12:54 PM
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