Sam Walton

Sam Walton, a self-made multibillionaire who parlayed an Arkansas five-and-dime into the mega-merchandising empire of discount stores he called Wal-Mart, died Sunday. He was 74. Walton had been treated in the early 1980s for leukemia and was found to have bone cancer in 1990. A Wal-Mart spokesman said Walton died at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital in Little Rock, where he had been for more than a week.

It's a long way from Christy Walton's ocean-view manse near La Jolla to the arid plains of 1940s New Mexico. But over the decades, the billionaire heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune has found solace and inspiration in Rudolfo Anaya's coming-of-age novel, "Bless Me, Ultima," set in that unforgiving landscape, and in the mystical story of a Mexican American boy named Tony who lives there. Finally, a realization hit her. "One of the things I wanted to do before I died was to see this book made into a movie," Walton said one recent morning, gazing from her cliffside home toward the Pacific.

"Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers an $8.63 Polo Shirt" (Nov. 24) shows just how low the company has gone since Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton passed away. Walton used to work with American manufacturers, helping them to become more efficient in an effort to prevent them from manufacturing products overseas. Walton, in fact, was proud of the fact that he was actually increasing the number of products he carried in his stores that were made in the U.S. by American companies. Walton apparently understood the importance of having a domestic manufacturing sector, perhaps knowing that well-paid employees would actually help his own bottom line.

  Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers, Wal-Mart workers and Burning Man personnel. Maybe your hopes and dreams aren't so different after all. A couple of weeks ago, traveling in Arkansas, I stopped in at the Bentonville storefront where the Wal-Mart empire began. It's a visitor center now with exhibits on corporate history. I picked up a brochure listing Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton's 10 rules for building a business. All very sensible and offered in six languages. I stuffed the brochure into my pocket.

Senior public figures whose deeds and decrees affect the lives of other citizens used to understand that entering the stream of history meant accepting a measure of distance from their historians. Even Ronald Reagan--who allowed Charles Mees to observe him in action during his second term--seemed to know this was true.

S. Robson (Rob) Walton, the 47-year-old son of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton, was named Monday to succeed his father as chairman of the nation's biggest retailing company. The elder Walton died Sunday after a lengthy illness. Rob Walton, who had been vice chairman, had been widely expected to succeed his father. He has been on Wal-Mart's board since joining the company in 1978, and also served as secretary, general counsel and senior vice president.

On the day Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton emerged as the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, President Bush visited the governor's home state on a trip he insisted had nothing to do with politics. Bush made the journey to present the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to one of its richest men, Sam Walton, the gravely ill 73-year-old founder of Wal-Mart Stores.

It's a long way from Christy Walton's ocean-view manse near La Jolla to the arid plains of 1940s New Mexico. But over the decades, the billionaire heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune has found solace and inspiration in Rudolfo Anaya's coming-of-age novel, "Bless Me, Ultima," set in that unforgiving landscape, and in the mystical story of a Mexican American boy named Tony who lives there. Finally, a realization hit her. "One of the things I wanted to do before I died was to see this book made into a movie," Walton said one recent morning, gazing from her cliffside home toward the Pacific.

The Retail Revolution How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business Nelson Lichtenstein Metropolitan Books: 312 pp., $25 Bentonville, Ark., may be unknown to most Americans, but it is the center of the world for some 750 corporations that manufacture consumer goods -- because Bentonville is the legendary home office of Wal-Mart, and those corporations want to sell their products to the world's largest retailer. It's also the largest private employer in the nation, operator of 4,200 stores.

Jim Kane, president of Saddleback Chapel Mortuary, received the 1998 Sam Walton Business Leader Award on Wednesday for his more than 23 years of service to the community. Kane, selected for the award by the Tustin Chamber of Commerce, served five years on the city's parks and recreation commission and has served as chamber president. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. established the award in 1995 to recognize local business people who exemplify the principles of Sam Walton, its late founder.

Weeks after news about Wal Mart Stores Inc.'s alleged bribery and coverup in Mexico surfaced, rank-and-file workers at the world's largest retailer have taken their calls for change to the Internet. Venanzi Luna, a department manager at a Wal-Mart store in Pico Rivera, has created an online petition for fellow employees and customers at Change.org, a website that seeks to promote social change. The petition urges Wal-Mart to undertake "a thorough and independent investigation" into allegations of widespread bribery by company officials to gain approval for new stores in Mexico.

In cultural commentary about the American economy, one company at a time always seems to be the goat. Everything it does is interpreted as evil. In the 1950s it was General Motors. GM's CEO, Charles "Engine Charlie" Wilson, became a national figure of ridicule for telling a congressional committee, "What's good for General Motors is good for America. " Except that he actually said, "For years I thought that what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa" — which is quite a different proposition.

Clay Blackburn, the hero of Owen Hill's elegant and understated novel "The Incredible Double," is not your typical detective. For one thing, he's a book scout: a guy who haunts used bookstores and estate sales, looking for the one or two items of real value. For another, he's a poet, with a couple of chapbooks to his name. Most tellingly, he's the kind of enlightened anarchist who could only come from Berkeley, where he lives not far from the "world famous open-air asylum" that is Telegraph Avenue.

The Retail Revolution How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business Nelson Lichtenstein Metropolitan Books: 312 pp., $25 Bentonville, Ark., may be unknown to most Americans, but it is the center of the world for some 750 corporations that manufacture consumer goods -- because Bentonville is the legendary home office of Wal-Mart, and those corporations want to sell their products to the world's largest retailer. It's also the largest private employer in the nation, operator of 4,200 stores.

Helen Robson Walton, the widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton who was known for her philanthropic efforts, died Thursday evening at her home in Bentonville, Ark., of what the company said was natural causes. She was 87 and had been in poor health since a 1999 car accident. "We are so proud of our mother and the life she led," said Rob Walton, the couple's eldest son and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores. "She devoted much of her life to helping others." Walton was born Dec.

YOUR FAMILY RUNS A 50-year-old dress shop in a blighted urban neighborhood. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, announces that it plans to open a 145,000-square-foot megastore a couple blocks away. Closing your shop is not an option, and you don't want to move. Do you: A: Get mad and fight? B: Apply for a part-time job as a greeter? C: Buy yourself a pair of $18.94 linen pants and turn to your new neighbor for advice? The answer is C. Or, at least, so says the Wal-Mart brass.

SAM WALTON: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance H. Trimble (E.P. Dutton: $19.95; 319 pp.) . Sam Walton, billionaire head of the Arkansas-based Wal-Mart retailing chain, readily admits to being aided by good luck--a luck that extends, it turns out, to his first biographer, who has written a virtual hagiography.

Helen Robson Walton, the widow of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton who was known for her philanthropic efforts, died Thursday evening at her home in Bentonville, Ark., of what the company said was natural causes. She was 87 and had been in poor health since a 1999 car accident. "We are so proud of our mother and the life she led," said Rob Walton, the couple's eldest son and chairman of Wal-Mart Stores. "She devoted much of her life to helping others." Walton was born Dec.

"Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers an $8.63 Polo Shirt" (Nov. 24) shows just how low the company has gone since Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton passed away. Walton used to work with American manufacturers, helping them to become more efficient in an effort to prevent them from manufacturing products overseas. Walton, in fact, was proud of the fact that he was actually increasing the number of products he carried in his stores that were made in the U.S. by American companies. Walton apparently understood the importance of having a domestic manufacturing sector, perhaps knowing that well-paid employees would actually help his own bottom line.

The family behind the Wal-Mart empire on Thursday gave $300 million to the University of Arkansas, the largest gift on record to a public university in the U.S. The money, from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation, will establish an undergraduate honors college and also go toward the university's graduate school. "What the Walton family has done today will improve life in Arkansas for generations to come, and we are grateful beyond words," Chancellor John A. White said.