At today’s Amy Goodman event here in Eagle I had the good fortune of talking to Nicole Magistro, proprietor of the Bookworm, a local bookstore in Edwards. I asked Nicole how she was able to stay in business in a world of Amazon.com.

Nicole’s facial expression immediately changed to determination and grit. “It hasn’t been easy, ” she explained. She’s added a coffee shop, which brings people in her store. So in other words, she’s had to invest to keep her doors open. I think Nicole also benefits from being a small town, where people still believe in buying from their neighbors.

I asked Nicole if she bought anything from Amazon.com. “No”, she said. “I don’t even have a login. In fact the only time I’ve had an Amazon login was by mistake, because I ordered something from a website that Amazon owned. When I found out they were owned by Amazon, I cancelled the login”.

I admit, my family hasn’t done a damn thing to break our addiction to Amazon.com. In fact our addiction might have gotten worse. The UPS guy comes here far too often, my family is guilty of consumerism. In part, because it’s so fucking easy to order from Amazon.

After the event today, Nicole sent me this study

AMAZON and EMPTY STOREFRONTS

Nicole’s bookstore was a sponsor of today’s Amy Goodman event. I’ve never seen Amazon.com sponsor anything to do with Democracy Now! After listening to Nicole’s views, after getting that it was because of Nicole’s efforts that Amy was here today, I made Nicole a promise that my family will break its addiction to Amazon.com. I’m going to start by buying books from the Bookworm.