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The Citizen, 1994-06-08, Page 5Arthur Black You’ll never get these odds with Lotto 649 You get a lot of comc-ons in the newspaper column business. Hustlers trying to get free advertising for their brand new rap or country or rock recording, for their dude ranch, or their revolutionary new laundry detergent. Super salespeople trying to merchandise their inside track to the Right Hand of Jehovah. A lot of hucksters. A lot of scam artists. And then, every once in a while you get a letter like the one that came in last week with a Montreal postmark. Dear Mr Black, Is there any way you can help me to have the operation? It is my only chance. I have raised two-thirds of the funds. The operation is scheduled for June. Can you help? Sincerely, (for) Ken Hertz Another swindle, right? Some fly-by-night conman eager to milk the udder of human kindness? | International Scene By Raymond Canon Wal-Mart comes To Canada The news that the giant American retailer, Wal-Mart, had bought up the Canadians' assets of Woolco and was planning on establishing a presence in Canada touched off a flood of speculation as to what would happen when the doors were opened on the first store. Some have likened it to the coming of Attila the Hun, others to a much needed tonic to the merchandising economy of our country. For a while in the United States, Wal-Mart was looked upon as something of a phenomenon. It regularly turned out double­ digit increases in sales each year but it hit something of an economic air pocket and its sales suffered accordingly. For one thing some of the other giant companies that earlier had avoided direct competition with it have decided that there is no way that it can be avoided. One of its chief competitors, the Target division of Dayton Hudson, is proving to be no mean rival, and in a game of one- upmanship in Michigan, accused Wal-Mart of, among other things, mistating Target's prices on items used in comparisons. The Attorney General of that state tended to agree and, as a result, Wal-Mart had to agree not to make any more unfair price comparisons. It doesn't end there. Some smaller places have led well-publicized attempts to not have the giant retailer locate in their community. At least two of these have been successful, both in Massachusetts, but there may be others that I have not heard of. The company has countered by building 160,000 square foot behemoths; including parking they use up some 15 acres. At the present time one is being opened each week. Oh yes, while they are contemplating Canada, they are also expanding into Mexico which has a population about four times ours. Perhaps the Mexicans are not as affluent as Canadians but for Wal-Mart they Maybe not. The stark, simple letter comes with newspaper clippings that flesh out the sad story of Ken Hertz. He is a poet. A friend of literary giants like Irving Layton. He is 47 years old. And he is dying. Of Parkinson's Disease. A particularly ugly death, this one. Like a long, slow and unusually vicious siege of a medieval town. Ken Hertz, who used to laugh and love and write poetry and publish the poems of others, has been besieged, laid waste. He has been beaten back, hammered, driven into the final upper turret of his anatomical castle. He is, aside from his brain, utterly paralyzed. "I am almost completely immobile" he says, through a spokeswoman, "and almost completely unable to speak." His friend and guardian, Kristina Higgins, has been reduced to writing letters to anyone she can think of - even obscure, out-of­ province newspaper columnists - to see if they can help save Ken Hertz. His health situation is catastrophic, but not hopeless. There is a surgical operation that is performed by doctors at the University of Colorado in Denver which, Hertz says, could save his life. It is called the fetal-cell implant process. It are all consumers. The main competition is K-Mart, who is also putting up these supercentres, as is the aforementioned Target. Who will win is still open to conjecture. Wal-Mart may be the acknowledged leader as a general merchandiser but it has less experience with perishables or prepared foods. In the last five years they have beaten K-Mart with sales $65 to $35 billion while profits have also run considerably ahead of their chief competitor. In short, a force to be reckoned with. Now, let's have a look at the Canadian landscape. As I pointed out above, Wal-Mart has bought up the assets of Woolco with its chief competitors being Zeller's, K-Mart and to a lesser degree Canadian Tire. I'm not too sure about Canadian Tire since they seem to have been wallowing in the doldrums lately but I do know that the first two are not wasting any time in preparing to meet the challenge head on. They have taken a close look at what has made Wal-Mart so successful in the U.S. Without a doubt price is the first on their list but it must be said that service comes a close second. Some of the people I talked to, who have shopped at Wal-Mart, remarked especially on the service and stated that Canadian retailers could leam something in this regard. Judging from what I have seen lately, some of these same retailers have got the message. There is also a good selection of goods and so computerized is the stock that merchandise sold is replaced almost immediately. There seem to be two points of view in Canada about Wal-Mart. First, there is the expected one that it is going to drive a lot of smaller firms out of business. How true this is depends on how well these smaller firms learn to compete by deciding where their strengths are and what types of merchandise they should no longer handle. The second point of view is that merchandising in Canada is different, to a certain degree, from what it is in the U.S.; this means that Wal-Mart has a few lessons to leam when it hits its stride here. This statement is certainly true but the U.S. involves transplanting cells into the brain of a patient suffering from Parkinson's. The Colorado doctors have examined Hertz and say he's a promising candidate for the procedure. There are, however two hitches. It costs $50,000. And it's not covered under Canadian hospitalization insurance. Is there any way you can help me to have the operation? It is my only chance. I have raised two-thirds of the funds. The operation is scheduled for June. Can you help? A scam? Could be, I suppose. But I don't think so. Anyway, a hundred thousand Canadian suffer from Parkinson's Disease, day in, day out. And I never lifted a finger for any of them. I sent my cheque for 20 bucks to the Ken Hertz fund. You feeling lucky? If you want to help, here's the address: Ken Hertz Operation Fund, 7421 Ostell Crescent, Montreal, H4P 1Y7. If you're wrong, you're out the price of a case of beer. If you’re right, you may have helped save a life. You'll never get those odds with Lotto 649. company seems to have been for the most part a good student wherever it goes. My own feeling, and this is certainly not mine alone, is that how successful Wal-Mart is depends on how well Canadian stores meet this competition. Both K-Mart and Zeller's are well placed to survive as are those smaller stores that are able to find the proper niche. One last comment. About 100 years ago Canadian retailers faced the same type of competition. In 1890 the T. Eaton Company introduced a whole new style of merchandising and caused the same type of comments that are being made by Wal-Mart today. Perhaps we should all go back to our history books. Letter to the editor Continued from page 4 Ontario's most important and fastest- growing industries. Every community in Ontario benefits economically from bringing visitors into our province, tourism is a $17 billion industry in Ontario, and it accounts for 6.5 per cent of all jobs. We all have a slake in tourism, from the largest city to the smallest communities. This year we will welcome many more visitors to Ontario, from across Canada, the U.S. and overseas. They will come to marvel at our beautiful scenery, enjoy our exciting cities, and take in the many events, attractions and recreational activities we have to offer. To make it easy to make travel plans in Ontario this summer, we offer our toll-free information line. To find out what's happening throughout the province, call 1-800-ONTARIO. This service can provide information about accommodations and special events and can even make your reserva-lions at selected Ontario tourism facilities. Anne Swarbrick Ontario Minister of Culture, Tourism and Recreation. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1994. PAGE 5. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp 1 The truth about lying It was quickly becoming one of those days to cap off one of those weeks. With busy children and an even busier workload nothing had been accomplished around the house in a long time. I was buried under loads of laundry, which I had to wade through dust balls to get to. But, now it was Saturday and it looked as if I finally was going to have a chance to catch up. That is until the phone, that detestable instrument of ceaseless irritation to me, began ringing... ...and ringing, and ringing. After the umpteenth interruption, 1 looked at my pre-school daughter and said, "If that's for me, tell them I'm not home." No sooner were the words uttered when I realized I had just asked my young, impressionable child to lie for me. Rather than draw attention to my sin, I hoped that by letting it slide it would go unnoticed. I had, however underestimated the ingenuousness of children. With a look that knocked me off my pedestal my daughter responded in disbelief, "But Mommy, that's a fib!" Duly chastened, I look the call. I was reminded of this incident after hearing a radio columnist talk on the subject recently. Like him, 1 find it hard to believe that there is anyone who has not been guilty of telling a little white lie now and then. We do it to get off the hook, or to save face. Sometimes, it's easier to tell a lie than to tell the truth. Few of us al one time or another haven't come up with a fictitious social calendar to eliminate ourselves from some volunteer chore or extra work. Il is an oxymoron thai we elaborate and exaggerate a truth to give it more credence, thus making it in reality incredible. Fibbing is such an easy thing to do really, that often when we do it, had we been accused of being untruthful, we quite likely would deny it. Fallacies need not be verbal in nature. I know of many people who have pretended to like someone, to advance themselves in business or to ingratiate themselves into a clique. And with a mountain of soap on a rope and tacky ties, there isn't a father alive who hasn't feigned enthusiasm over a Father's Day gift. They do it, because they don't want to hurt someone. In the years since my little one provoked me to take an honest look at my little while lie, I have come to the conclusion that though my childhood upbringing said it was wrong, the odd untruth isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, I recall the first Christmas that I had saved enough money to buy gifts on my own. They were cheap, but being only 10 I was pretty proud of myself. Opening his imitation mother of pearl cufflinks my brother decided to be honest — brutally so. Personally, I know I would rather he had lied. It would have hurt less and I can't imagine that there was any useful lesson in his honesty, other than adolescent brothers can be jerks. I shouldn't have asked my child to lie for me, but I'm not sure it's necessary to be 100 per cent truthful all the time. What I have learned is to take a look at the possible repercussions of being honest or being a fibber and see which sits better on my conscience. And now when the phone rings at a bad time I follow a friend's example; before anyone answers it — I step outside.