re: #343 William Lewis

Please do not consider Menard’s in that grouping. John Menard makes Scott Walker look like St. Francis and the company he runs is notorious for their garbage product. I have a uncle who was a drunk who’d take any job he could actually get as a carpenter but the materials Menard provided to build a subdivision were so substandard he walked away from it. Others didn’t and those crappy houses are still being rented as they fall apart around people. On another occasion John Menard tried to kill my FiL by running him over because Ed was a United Brotherhood of Carpenters organizer. This was in front of the Eau Claire county sheriff but nothing came of it - Johnny’s too powerful. Another time a high tech firms new factory was persuaded to not have decent wages by him (“Nice place here. Pity if something happened to it”) .

I could go on but the fact is there is no decent mass market lumber yard. Find a small locally owned lumber yard & hardware store and patronize them instead. Every dollar not spent at Menard’s/Home Depot/Lowe’s improves the world.

Jeebus. I knew John Menard and his family were right wingers but that takes the cake. Fortunately I don’t shop at the chain, don’t have a need to. (I won’t take back my thoughts on Sprecher, though.)

One other thing about Wisconsin that’s very cool is illustrator/writer SE Case. She produced a very emotional webcomic Cheap Thrills (cheapthrills.xepher.net) and recently rebooted it as Rigsby, WI (rigsbywi.com). Her writing is amazing.