I'm boycotting the boycotts

I’m boycotting boycotts. It’s been awhile since I had an off topic rant here and today is the day for the next one. I’ve tried to avoid the rants because it usually pops a vein in “Inky” but here goes. They are usually off topic, so that’s the other reason I’ve steered away from them.

In the past couple years we’ve been encouraged to boycott a number of places, people and corporations.

As the readers of Grandma’s Recess know I completely ignored the “Boycott Arizona” crowd and spent a wonderful three weeks there with our trailer in the fall. We spread our money around visiting tourist venues, local stores, hair salons, gas stations, restaurants and other places.

Arizona, like many other states, is continuing to suffer from the lingering effects of a long recession and frankly the people there need the work. Why punish them over the issue of immigration enforcement? Besides, while we were there, the locals told us since the state passed the controversial law the feds have picked up their efforts on enforcing the laws on illegal aliens in Arizona.

Heck we were caught in a federal border patrol random check about 25 miles north of the border during our wine tour outing. So maybe Arizona had a point after all. I’m sure a lot of Arizona folks were happy that we came down and spread the wealth a little.

Besides my Navy reunion was scheduled precisely during the boycott talk back in 2010 and although I don’t know it for a fact, may have played a role in the decision to hold our reunion there for spite. If that’s the case feel free to boycott the USS Cogswell Association, which will be hard for 99.999999999 percent of the country because the requirements to join have something to do with having served on the World War II destroyer to begin with.

Along with boycotts of Jane Fonda, I’ve heard folks tell me I should avoid anything with Charlie Sheen in it. I’ve no love lost for either person, but I’ll watch or not watch whatever they are in based on the subject matter they are portraying, not who they are. Besides it appears that studios and producers are pretty much boycotting both of them for me.

Just during this Christmas season I’ve received messages on Facebook telling me I should boycott Target and Lowe’s stores. The reasons were completely different. Target was being boycotted for “making” its employees work on Thanksgiving night and Lowe’s for pulling its advertising from some show I had never heard of before.

As for the Target boycott, get a life. You’ll get no sympathy for working on Thanksgiving night from a former Navy sailor, police employee and newspaper reporter.  I’ve worked as many Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s Eve/Labor Day/Memorial Day/Fourth of July/Veteran’s Day holidays  as I ever had off. Besides, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve shopped at Target anyway.

Just be happy you have a job. Many people don’t. If you are really upset about having to work a holiday, quit and find another job. Please don’t belly ache about having to earn time-and-a-half for working.

Ditto for Lowe’s. I’ve been inside a Lowe’s store less than I have visited Target stores. Apparently there is a low-rated cable show that Lowe’s pulled its advertising from that deals with a Muslim family and how normal it is. Gees, can’t imagine why that show wouldn’t be a hit. Some of the people who encouraged me to boycott Lowe’s had to admit to me they had never even seen the show themselves.  Its ratings are so low they may be watched by fewer people than CNN. OK, that might be a stretch. Sure I know a kooky right wing group encouraged their own boycott (equally silly) but Lowe’s wasn’t the only company to pull its advertising from the show due to its poor ratings. Apparently the kooky right wing folks were the only people watching the show to begin with.

If you are a big fan of the show and want to see it continue you should donate millions to PBS and convince them to put it on their network where I can also not watch it.

All my home improvement shopping is done at Home Depot. So don’t even think about telling me to boycott them.

And just to really pop all of Inky's veins here's another thing I'm not boycotting: Harry Reid's glasses.