The Wal-Mart Parking Lot Phenomena

In the past folk songs were written about finding America on the New Jersey Turnpike or the like. The new window into America seems to be the Wal-Mark parking lot.

I've come across a significant number of mentions on the Web with the term "parking lot" near "Wal-Mart." In fact, "parking lot" is consistently one of the most frequently discovered noun-phrases occurring near Wal-Mart. When I first found the "Wal-Mart Parking Lot Phenomena" I figured it was some anomaly in the data, but no, it's real.

A lot of things happen in this new public space. A few I found just in the past 7 days: a person witnessing a mom slap her child, FEMA information booths for Katrina victims, geospotting caches, a suicide victim found, volunteer sign-up tents, fireworks sales, lab puppy sales, a man who reportedly hid under a woman's car and then licked her toes as she loaded the trunk, people finding Jesus, and young people finding love. Ah, Wal-Mart, your clarion call beckons us all.