His persistence landed him an assistant manager role with another local five-and-dime chain, TG&Y, when McClellan’s shuttered its doors.

By the '60s there were over a hundred TG&Y's. By the '80s I was buying my school supplies and clothes there.

TG&Y wasn’t a perfect operation by any means, but it was something akin to Walmart – the sort of place where you could get just about anything you needed.

You might be An Old if the stores of your youth are explained in terms of Walmart

The operation expanded, leading Green to set up a small factory. There, he staffed “cerebral palsy patients” to chop, glue, and bag frames for $.10 per piece.

This was hardly novel. Crap manufacturing has been done by the disabled at ruinous rates the country over since the WPA.

Expanding the Hobby Lobby proved easy because Hobby Lobby was unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

What a bunch of abject bullshit. Hobby Lobby is TG&Y (or Woolworth's, or any other five and dime) without the guns, ammo and ready-to-wear clothing. Take a five and dime and get rid of everything that might come with a warranty? And you have a dollar store. Take a five and dime and get rid of everything that comes without a warranty? And you have a Target. In an era where clothing was largely American-made, lasted a while and was more economically repaired than replaced, a five and dime was a place with notions, dry goods and things kids wanted. Hobby Lobby is that without the dry goods.

The term “arts and crafts” conjures humble images of primary school children gluing together popsicle sticks, of grannies weaving needles through embroidery hoops.

The term "arts and crafts" now means "doing the shit your grandparents did for kicks rather than out of necessity."

While not quite a monopoly,

bitch please

And so, the Green Collection was born in 2009

Fuckin' no less than NPR called out the Greens for raiding the Museum of Baghdad in 2003. Of course Google sucks now, thanks AI, so all that data has been lost in time like tears in rain. There's ample evidence that the Greens washed their existing holdings through their foundation in 2009 but most of it was them selling to themselves.

Perhaps the Greens, in their inexperience, did not understand the magnitude of their actions. Perhaps the Greens just didn’t care.

Perhaps the author should go to the library. Fuckin' libs have been losing their minds over Hobby Lobby since Randi Rhodes was on the air.