It always feels a bit strange to work on black friday. My wife reminded me, when I commented upon that, that we are not black friday shoppers. And while I usually enjoy shopping, I have no regrets about missing today's crowds.
I do feel sorry for the guy that died at the Walmart on Long Island. I am not clear on how it happened- was he trampled by people struggling to be the first to get in, or did he just collapse from a heart attack? Heart attack in your thirties, strange but I guess it happens. Also a bit strange that the other people in the Walmart refused to stop shopping when told there's a dead guy at the entrance, you have to leave now. Did I get this all wrong? It is filtered through my wife, so I may not be getting the details straight.
But the missing thing in all this is; Why? For too long, we have run our lives as if flat panel TVs matter. They don't.
What would the flat panel TV do for us anyway? Show us the mourning relatives of the Mumbai dead? The starving millions of Zimbabwe, hostages to the personal rule of an eighty-something-year-old crazy guy? The Somali pirate crews, driving home another million dollar ship loaded with hostages? Or perhaps some silly sitcom. With a little sex. Which is what most of us prefer to watch, so that we can ignore the real world of Zimbabwe cholera, Mumbai terror, pirate attacks, and the melting arctic. Reality bites, that's what the flat panel is for.
Our materialism is getting to be an old habit. Old habits die hard. Happy holidays, America!
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 12
sheez, that is just absurd. I find myself thinking, great, at least they are both dead so we get to spare the expense of a court trial.
Not shopping, but more likely some sort of gang feud? Note the presence of loaded guns.-
Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson said police told him two men with handguns shot and killed each other. "I think the obvious question everyone has is who takes loaded weapons into a Toys "R" Us?" he said. "I doubt it was the casual holiday shopper."
who takes loaded weapons into toys R us? Anybody who wants to, you dummy. This is the USA.
How many people continue to live beyond their means just to buy cheap Chinese junk that isn't even safe to have around children with the credit scam and then cry poverty later?