Diverse populations celebrate diverse holidays

Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day is the holiday season in North America.  For most this time includes Christmas.  For the rest of us we often celebrate another holiday, such as Kwanzaa or Hanukkah.  We have a diverse population in St. Louis so I’m curious to see how diverse my readers are so the poll this week asks what holiday you celebrate in December.

I was going to randomize the answers but I decided to list Christmas twice so I needed to make sure everyone saw that before answering.  Twice? One is for the birth of Jesus and the other is because it is December 25th.  Get the difference?  I have never once celebrated the birth of Jesus but I have celebrated Christmas because it is December 25th. I’ve included an “other” option this week.

Personally speaking I know how awkward it is when you are wished a merry holiday you don’t celebrate. I’d like store clerks and others to say “Happy Holidays” than make presumptions about what, if any, holiday I might celebrate. Naturally “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is controversial:

The American Family Association is calling on consumers to boycott Gap Inc. and its brands, which include Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic, this holiday season. The Christian organization alleges that the retailer’s ads downplay the word “Christmas.”

The boycott, according to the AFA, is in response to Gap’s holiday advertising and in-store promotions over the years, which have stayed away from recognizing any specific religion. For instance, last year’s campaign was themed “Merry Gap-mas,” substituting the chain’s name for Christ’s. The AFA—which had boycotted other retailers like Sears and Target in the past for their holiday ads—is singling out Gap this year. The AFA is planning to release a “Naughty and Nice” list of retailers who address Christmas and those who don’t.  (Source: Brandweek)

Below is Gap’s 2009 holiday commercial the AFA doesn’t like:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVMPWlWDvsI

I took the AFA poll:

Since Gap has now included the word “Christmas” in a television ad (in a dismissive manner), should AFA call off the boycott of their stores?

• Yes. Any reference to Christmas is good enough to me. 5,267
• No. Gap has taken a disrespectful attitude towards Christians with its ad. 47,935

The 2009 AFA “Naughty and Nice” list is here.  I personally celebrate retailers that don’t push one religion at the exclusion of others so I’ll use their list in the reverse of how they intended. You may agree or you may not.  Share your thoughts below and vote in the poll in the upper right corner.

Happy Holidays everyone!

– Steve Patterson

Reducing food waste from cities

No matter how much you ate Thursday, you probably had uneaten food remaining. Some of you will save and eventually eat what was left.  Much of the food will be tossed into the trash.  Tucked into the trash bag it is out of sight out of mind.  Your trash will get collected and sent off to a land-fill where the food will give off gases as it decomposes.  Waste from cities is a growing problem – more people live in cities (vs rural) and population is on the rise. We must learn to better manage our lives so the amount of waste we produce is significantly reduced.

I recently saw a TV report on a group in New York City collecting food left on restaurant plates to help feed those who are hungry.  Such an effort takes many individuals and coordination to pickup and deliver the food before it spoils. Others advocate re-plating the food so it goes back out again.  While that may be a bit extreme it hopefully gets you thinking about just how much edible food gets wasted daily.

Here are some tips I personally try to follow:

Eating Out:

• Order smaller portions — only what you can eat.
• Order dishes to share at your table.  Can two share one entree? Two dishes among three? Tip: can leave room for dessert.
• Take home extra food from restaurants.  I’ve taken home extra salmon to use cold on a salad the next day.
• Divide your plate before you start eating.  We’ve all been to places where the portions are ridiculously large.  A weight loss technique can be helpful here — when your plate arrives pull out your container you brought along and fill it with extra food leaving what you think is a reasonable sized dinner.
• Ask others at your table if they want any food you are not going to eat.  They may want it now or packaged to take home for themselves or a pet.

Home:

• Buy only what you can eat before it goes bad. I used to be bad about buying more food than I could eat.  If you buy too much, can or freeze part.
• Learn to use leftover food in new dishes.  This might be food in the doggie bag or extras from the night before.  Where do you think stuffing came from?  It was a use for stale bread.  Many dishes were created as ways to use an ingredient that was a bit past its prime.  Veggies & meat can be used to make stock for soup.  Some suggestions here.

The bonus to doing the above is you also save money.  Add your suggestions below.

– Steve Patterson

Apple should look to The Loop

A decade ago Apple depended on a few retailers to display and sell their computers.  These retailers did a poor job, relegating the Macs to the back corner of the store.  Apple decided they needed to open their own retail stores to get their products in front of consumers.  May 15, 2001 their first store opened in Tyson’s Corner Center mall in the D.C./Baltimore area.  The St. Louis region has two Apple Stores – one at West County Center and the other at the Galleria.  Not all stores are located in enclosed malls.

Many cities have the Apple store along retail streets.  The San Francisco store above opened on my 37th birthday.

As of November 2009, Apple has opened 282 stores; 221 in 41 US states, 24 in the United Kingdom (20 in England, two in Scotland, one in Northern Ireland and one in Wales), 14 in Canada, 7 in Japan, 6 in Australia, 3 in Switzerland, 2 each in Germany, Italy and France and 1 in China.  (Source: Wikipedia)

The stores have been a huge hit.

Apple began building its own outlets in 2001, and they have proved enormously profitable. A record 42.7 million customers visited Apple Stores last quarter, generating $7.6 million in revenue per store, up 15% year over year. All told, Apple Stores brought in $6.6 billion in revenue in fiscal 2009, more than the whole company generated ($5.4 billion) in 2001.
Basement

“We have the highest performing retail stores on the planet,” boasts Ron Johnson, the former Target marketing whiz who runs Apple’s retail division. Johnson told the press on Thursday that the average Apple Store generates $4,300 per total square foot (including storage space), the equivalent foot for foot of 5 Best Buys and 15 Target stores.

The “significant” stores (what Apple used to call its flagship stores) do much better. According to a Bloomberg report last summer, Apple’s big glass cube on 59th St., across the street from the old Plaza Hotel, is the highest-grossing retail outlet on Fifth Avenue, bringing in an estimated $35,000 per square foot, nearly double the gross of Tiffany’s sales floor and triple Harry Winston’s.  (Source: CNN/Fortune)

With this great success recently Apple announced plans to keep expanding.

November 12, 2009,

Apple said Thursday that it expects to open 40 to 50 new retail locations next year and that it will focus on bigger flagship stores in major cities.

At a media preview of its fourth New York store, this time on the Upper West Side, Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, said the company sees this location, as well as its glass cube on Fifth Avenue and newly opened store at the Louvre in Paris, as “significant stores.”

Its new stores, both significant and standard, will be larger, to accommodate the width of three product-display tables and bigger Genius Bars.“Our stores are too small,” Mr. Johnson said. “Our biggest challenge at the Genius Bar – we cannot build them big enough.”

More than half of Apple’s 40 to 50 new retail locations in 2010 will be outside the U.S., including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and China, he said.

Apple doesn’t currently have plans to open more stores in Manhattan, Mr. Johnson said, but when asked if there were any plans for neighboring borough Brooklyn, he left it at, “Stay tuned.”  (Source: Wall Street Journal)

While the West County location just got revamped the Galleria store is quite small.  So this is where the Loop comes into play.  I think Apple should build a new location on the Delmar Loop to replace the small Galleria location.  The portion East of Skinker is ideal with restored buildings, modern new construction and vacant land a block from a rail transit station.  Specifically I’m referring to the site between Big Shark Bicycle and Miss Saigon Vietnamese restaurant (map/aerial).  Apple would then be in a new building of their own design on one of the most popular streets in our region.

The site is bigger than they would need so the total project would include more storefronts.  There are other vacant sites both East & West of Skinker but I think this one is best.  Hopefully Apple’s retail scouts will find this post and check out the Loop.

– Steve Patterson

Thankful to be a stroke survivor

For nearly two years now I’ve been thankful every day that I am a stroke survivor.  That moment when you are certain your life will soon be over is surreal.  When I awoke from sedation in ICU almost a month later just the idea of still being alive was more important than the fact I couldn’t move my left side and that I had a tracheotomy to enable me to breath while I was on a ventilator.  Early on I was so very thankful the doctors didn’t reinsert the speaking valve after I removed it in my first days awake.

I’ve adjusted to my physical limitations.  It helps that each day, week, month my physical limitations are fewer.  In a way I am thankful for having had a stroke.  That may sound weird but it helped me lose 80 lbs.  I have become a more organized, focused person as a result.  As a disabled person I will be a better urban planner. Accessibility is not just minimum widths from guidelines for me — it is very real.

I’m thankful for my family, friends and all of you that read this blog.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

– Steve Patterson

One pedestrian route complete, more needed

In early November 2005 Elizabeth “Lisi” Bansen died a few days after being struck by an SUV as she was traveling the two blocks from the nearest store to her apartment.  Lisi Bansen was disabled and using a manual wheelchair.  She was in the roadway because what sidewalks existed were impassable and curb cuts non-existent.

Two years later, in December 2007, the City of St. Louis lost a lawsuit with the jury finding them negligent in Bansen’s death.  But the city admitted as much by offering a settlement to Bansen’s family.  The jury awarded more than the city’s offer.  Of course you can’t put a price tag on a child or sibling.

By the time this case went to the jury a part of the route between the store and the apartments where Bansen lived had improved.  The state of Missouri constructed sidewalks and curb cuts adjacent to land it owns across the street from the Scott Joplin House museum.  City officials in statements to the press said they thought all was fixed.  They must have done a quick drive-by and saw some new concrete and assumed all was well.

In December 2007 I showed that it was not well.  Earlier this month on the four-year anniversary of Bansen being struck I showed that the route still remained impassable from end to end.  Sure, one portion was new but someone traveling between the same two places would still end up in the road.  After getting the city to finally complete the route between the apartments and the store I decided a celebratory walk was in order.

So last Saturday a few readers joined me as I walked from the store to the apartments and back.

Lisi had another way to reach her apartment door but this shows how we don’t build for walking.  The sidewalk at the apartments is for reaching cars — not the public sidewalk a few feet away.  Make walking enough of a challenge and people who can will do otherwise.

I arrived at the starting point about a half hour early.  In that time I saw at least 8 people walking between the apartments and this store.  Thank you to Richard Reilly for the photos and to the others that joined me.

– Steve Patterson