WHAT WAS I WRITING ABOUT READING COMPREHENSION? A diarist at Daily Kos who writes as J. R. Monsterfodder was hunting around for posts on Wal-Mart, found my observations on an exam question involving Wal-Mart, and decided to lodge a gripe.

Many Wal-Mart fights are in suburbs these days, do they count as a metro area or are they their own communities? What if the small business objects to Wal-Mart on political rather than self-interested grounds? Is that even possible under the premise of your question?

Furthermore, the premise of the question is completely wrong. Large cities have been the site of some of the strongest protests against Wal-Mart. One of my favorite anti-Wal-Mart blogs is run out of a very large community called New York City by a group called The Neighborhood Retail Alliance [Hi Matt!]. Small businesses have been part of broader anti-Wal-Mart coalitions in other cities such as Cleveland and Chicago too.

The real person behind J. R. is one Jonathan Rees, a Wisconsin Ph.D. now professing history at Colorado State, Pueblo, who has written on labor relations in the intermountain steel industry. His reaction to the 1920 verdict acquitting U.S. Steel of monopolization might be worth buying a Sprecher to hear. But let's return to the question itself. My gripe was with the common schools failing to equip my charges to parse "are not ... why not?" My sense is that a conditional probability question would be child abuse. And somehow, an alliance of protected-status rent-seekers does not a quorum of the Chamber of Commerce make.

Perhaps we're talking about introductory political economy, or labor institutions. The introductory political economy texts I've seen are not sufficiently daring to raise a question such as "Are small business owners offering goods the chain stores don't offer acting contrary to their class interests by not protesting the entry of chains?" Then there might be a real gem. "A Wal-Mart opens near a major railroad yard. Did the railroaders' union err in not protesting the store?"

But the question addresses a simpler phenomenon, which the local press noticed.

Despite the worst fears of some, Wal-Mart's impact on Belvidere's retail community appears to have been most helpful.

Boone County Administrator Ken Terrinoni looks at his county budget and believes the county is far better off with Wal-Mart and the other new retail establishments that came with it.

Boone and Belvidere sales tax receipts closed the 2005 Illinois fiscal year up 28 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Wal-Mart's August opening ran almost parallel to the state fiscal year that ended June 30.

Post hoc disclaimer applies, but read on:

Tony Dal Pra, a local attorney, businessman and outspoken opponent of Wal-Mart, maintains that with the arrival of Wal-Mart has come a shift in the business environment that he does not believe is all that positive.

However, Dal Pra stopped short of saying Wal-Mart has had a negative impact on Belvidere's business community.

"In our case, we have managed to sustain ourselves and are doing quite well," said Dal Pra, as he talked about Pacemaker grocery in Belvidere, one of his business interests.

"We have a stronger perishable department than Wal-Mart. It has had some modest effect on our business, but our meat and deli sales have actually increased. I believe some of our departments are prospering because of the quality of the products we have."

Downtown Belvidere is another animal. Turnover of small mom-and-pop stores is somewhat common, but thus far it appears that downtown has sustained minimal impact as a result of Wal-Mart.

And I knew of some of this last week, when Professor Rees lodged his protest, but waited for the story to be published.

Stephen Karlson, professor of economics at Northern Illinois University, acknowledges that small businesses where "everybody knows your name" are at a disadvantage when it comes to trying to compete with Wal-Mart. But they often withstand the challenge Wal-Mart presents by creating extremely high standards of customer service and by serving niche markets that Wal-Mart often is not interested in.

One of Monsterfodder's readers gets partial credit. Here's the full story.

"When Wal-Mart comes into bigger cities, it's more likely to have an effect on other national chains and less of an impact on smaller businesses because in large suburbs and cities, smaller businesses already are catering to customers that Wal-Mart is not after," Karlson said. "For example, if you are looking to buy an O-gauge model train, or any model train for that matter, you are probably not going to go to Wal-Mart."

So. Logic. Evidence. Media interest. But why let such mundane things get in the way of a good rant?

And a special note to Professor Stephen Karlson of Northern Illinois University should you ever Google yourself and come upon this: You really should make sure that you have the slightest idea of what your talking about before you find it necessary to insult your students' intelligence. Your arrogance gives all of us in academia a bad name.

I've had my share of scathing referee reports, but at least those showed evidence of making an effort to read and understand my argument.