Borders Group does it again

I used to work as an assistant manager on the floor of a Borders Group, Inc. bookstore out west, and, while it was hard work with a pretty good pile of frustrations, by and large, it was a good job. I worked with a pretty nifty bunch of people, and the folks who shop in book stores tend to be a friendlier sort than many other shoppers.

Naturally, I was chagrinned to hear, a few months ago, that BGI was refusing to carry a magazine because it contained the dread cartoons of blasphemy. They feared, somehow, those nutty Muslims who live in every community across this continent (except maybe in some Mexican backwaters) would go on the rampage and throw molotov cocktails into stores, and/or behead clerks who sold those eeeeeevil magazines. "First Amendment rights be hanged, we're not going to provide an excuse for damage to our property," was essentially their perspective (since I know a number of my former colleagues had said they didn't really think it was their own hides the corporate bigwigs cared so much about).

Aaaaanyhoos.

BGI has done an about-face, where law and constitutionality are concerned. "Free press" is now at the top of their agenda, as it comes to selling stolen property. Even after official lawyerly letters, the bookstore chain continues to carry the magazine containing the unlawfully published photograph taken by Michael Yon (the photo deliberately published to convey the precise opposite of the original meaning of the image).

I'm not at all surprised, though. First and foremost, Michael Yon is just some guy with a camera, and he's not even shopping at Borders or Waldenbooks, these days. He could hardly be said to have brought any customers in the door, even with a successful book, since he doesn't sell it in bookstores. Ergo, Yon is not an asset. Hachette Filipacchi Media, with its Car & Driver, Road & Track, Elle, Popular Photography, Woman's Day, et al, brings in cash. What to do, what to do? I dunno, but if I were a corporate honcho, and I didn't give a rat's back end about law or ethics, I'd be looking to side with the guy who got me richer.

BGI is a business, first, last, and always. The people you see at the registers, or out there cleaning, stocking shelves and breaking their backs are, as in almost every other business, the veneer of humanity. Appeal to them for help, if you can. Show them that Michael Yon has the right in this, and that HFM publications could very easily "get lost" in the big, busy store... Hunh! How did that get back here into the back room, among the returns? Musta been a recall or something.

Meanwhile, go to Yon's site again and see about helping him out in his ongoing battle to defend what is rightfully his...