WAL MART MOVIE SCANDAL WORSENS

Denies monkey shines

Little Rock (WPI) - Yesterday Wal-Mart Stores Inc. shut down the system that creates movie recommendations on its shopping Web site after it linked a "Planet of the Apes" DVD to films about famous Black Americans.

Wal-Mart announced it had removed what it termed the "offensive combinations" from the walmart.com “Movie Suggestions” page which promoted, "Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series." The page included a link to a listing of "similar items" which delivered shoppers to a list of films about the lives of actress Dorothy Dandridge, boxer Jack Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr.and singer Tina Turner.

Wal-Mart reacted after the company learned that the link was sweeping across the internet.

David Earle, a spokesman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based company, said it wasn't yet clear how or when the technical problem arose. "We're still looking into it," he said, “an I wish ya’ll would go away.”

"Walmart.com's item mapping process does not work correctly and at this point this mapping appears ‘seemingly random,’ if you know what I mean” he added.

"Oh, yeah, “Earle said returning to his text, ”We are heartsick that this was discovered and are currently doing everything possible to correct the problem,"

Wal-Mart, which has come under increasing criticism recently for its corporate policies of paying “associates” unlivable wages, forbiddingemployees from taking lunch and bathroom breaks and locking them in the store even after their shifts are over as well as urging workers to seek food-stamps and medicare for family health insurance, scrambled to minimize the suggestion of simple back-woods Arkansas racial hostility in the internet linkages.

"I do not believe this is the result of someone’s sense of humor, but if it is, that cracker is going to git his ass fired!” Wal-Mart spokesman Wally George said in a statement. “No, I believe this is some kinda computer glitch.”

Other films that were accidently mapped to the Famous Black Americans page included: Monkey Business; Spank the Monkey; Funky Monkey; Amos and Andy Box Set; Rosewood; Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm; Birth of a Nation; Ghetto Booty Volume 1-16; Smokey and the Bandit; Up in Smoke; The Black Stallion; Meet Joe Black; Black Hawk Down; Black Beauty; Creature from the Black Lagoon; Bad Day at Black Rock; Dick; Johnson Family Vacation and The Monkees- DVD Box Set.