So Kmart Holding Corp. has appointed Aylwin Lewis, formerly an executive at the restaurant operator Yum Brands (think ex-Pepsico restaurants), as its new chief executive and president.

Some people think K-Mart is a dinosaur, doomed to failure. But it's entirely possible that K-Mart can do much better, financially, over the next few years. They have some good assets, and a decent brand. If K-Mart can build a strategy that stops fighting with their brand - a strategy that USES their brand to build market share - they could have a winner.

Frankly, they could probably score heavily by adopting a "We aren't Wal-Mart" approach to the communities they still have stores in... many communities would probably welcome a store that would fill the market space Wal-Mart fills without crushing local businesses. It might also be useful to push hard against Wal-Mart's weaknesses in supplier relations and overdependence on cheap imports.