The Swoosh Stumbles: “Why is it so tough to find a pair of Air Force Ones?” The software system to zip the right shoes into the right stores, for which Nike plunked down millions, doesn’t work. One casualty has been Nike’s stock price, of little interest to me. The Industry Standard But shoe stampedes closed several malls around the country (here’s a report from the March 4th Sacramento Bee), in this age of consumerist depravity, when queued customers — some of whom had been camped out since 3:00 a.m. — were unable to get their $140 pair of newly-launched hot shoes in the right color. “I’ve never seen anything this crazy before. It’s not worth it. I’m happy I got them, but they shouldn’t be limited. Everyone should be able to have a
pair. My little nephew almost got run over, and some guys went diving over the counter and hurt the girl at the
cash register. That was uncalled for.”

Similar stampedes have occurred recently in Oakland and Cincinnati. And two months ago in New York, a
Brooklyn Foot Locker manager allegedly set fire to his store to cover up the fact that 446 pairs of new Nike Air
Jordan sneakers were missing from his inventory. The $125 shoes were not scheduled to be released until later
that month, but the manager had been peddling them from a shop three doors down the street, authorities said.

The Retro style Air Jordans that caused such a frenzy Saturday are selling for more than $200 on eBay; chat
rooms on the Internet are devoted to when and where the latest styles will arrive.

This in the face of a recent New Scientist report on how innately human it is to cooperate while waiting in line [not on the web, I think].