No Black Friday Shopping for Me

I wrote the following in 2010, and sadly it is still relevant. If you are one of the avid Black Friday shoppers, I apologize if this upsets you. It is meant as social commentary, not a personal slam.


I remember a time when shopping the day after Thanksgiving was fun. A lot of people were doing the same thing, but there was no pushing, no shouting, no mad rush to get the latest must-have toy, and nobody grabbing it out of your hands once you had it.

For the most part, everyone was relaxed and in a Holiday mood. Smiles were exchanged and clerks and cashiers wished everyone a Happy Holiday. It always made me think of the wonderful Christmas song, "Silver Bells", and I could imagine we'd entered some magical place where people passed "meeting smile after smile. And on every street corner you'll hear..."

It was also a time when stores opened at a normal time, and people came and went, then more people came and went. Stores did not open at some ungodly hour in the AM, so shoppers had to set alarms to get there on time. Folks also didn't camp out in parking lots and on sidewalks for days to be the first ones in. And they   didn't stampede into a store and injure other people in their desperation need to make sure they got the best deals offered.

For most of this past week, we were bombarded with reminders of this all important retail day. The media made a big deal out of Black Friday, airing what I'm sure they thought were cute human-interest stories about what people were doing to prepare. Plus there were all the ads from department stores, and it seemed like they were competing to see who could open the earliest. Some were even open on Thanksgiving and just stayed open all night and into today.

Watching this all unfold, I realized that Thanksgiving is getting lost. Think of all the retail personnel who were not able to truly celebrate the day because they had to get ready for The Big Day. And what about all the people who opted out of getting together with family at all because they preferred to be the first in line at Best Buy. One local man was interviewed on television and said, "Sorry, Grandma, we're not coming for Thanksgiving."

He laughed. The news anchors laughed. But I wanted to call up Grandma and tell her how sorry I was that her family preferred the X-Box over her.

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What about you? Do you think society has taken the holidays way too far into the retail arena?

Friday's Odds and Ends

Shame on President Obama for doing the photo op at the Vietnam War Memorial on Memorial Day and double shame on him if it was his idea. I'm hoping it wasn't. Even though I don't always agree with him, I saw him as a man with more sensibilities and compassion. But maybe that was before he got caught up in the political system and started listening to political advisers.

In addition to all the veterans and families of veterans who came to Washington that weekend to visit the Wall, about 140,000 members of the organization, Rolling Thunder, had ridden motorcycles from across the country to meet up and honor the fallen who are memorialized. It was the official Rolling Thunder XXV "Ride for Freedom", and one of my friends had made the trip from Omaha, NE. To say he was disappointed is an understatement.

Since the beginning of recorded history there have been incidents of genocide that are so horrible one can hardly get his or her mind around it. Ben Kiernan, a Yale scholar, has labelled the destruction of Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War (149–146 BC) "The First Genocide", and more recent history includes the 1890 massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee by the United States military, the killing of millions during the Holocaust and the ongoing genocide in the countries of Africa.

In this day of enlightenment, one would hope we could get past these barbaric acts, but it appears we never will. The genocide continues across Africa and now there has been more mass killings in Syria that some consider genocide.

Every time I read about the horrors we inflict on each other, I wonder why. I found one answer when I was researching one of my nonfiction books on bigotry and found this book by Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. In it he states that people throughout history have always had the ability to see other groups as alien. "People have always had a name for themselves. In a great many cases, that name meant 'the people' to set the owners of that name off against all other people who were considered of lesser quality. If the differences between the people and some other society were particularly large in terms of religion, language, manners, or  customs, then those others were seen as less than fully human. If they are considered less than human, then they could be a threat and should be eliminated"

That thinking has created the Them or Us mentality that fuels bigotry and the atrocious acts that come out of bigotry. Do you think we will ever grow out of this?

On a much more pleasant note,I read an article in The Dallas Morning News about a teen in Arlington who spearheaded a wonderful act of kindness following the tornado that tore through the town in April. Kate Atwood and her mother drove around after the storm and noted how many people were digging through wreckage to try to find pictures and mementos that may have survived the devastation. Kate got the idea of trying to help, and she enlisted the aid of librarians at Lake Arlington Branch Library. About 40 people have joined the effort to bring pictures and other items to the library where residents can come and claim them. According to the news article, about three-quarters of the items have been claimed.

Kudos to Kate and all the others who are helping to bring these treasured pictures and mementos home.

Friday's Odds and Ends

What is it with some people and their attitude toward kids? In one week's news in Dallas there was a story about a woman who killed her boyfriend's son by setting his bed on fire. The father woke up, but was unable to save the boy. 

Another story was about a mother who bit her five-week-old baby all over his body. There were also other signs of abuse, and she told doctors that she did it because she didn't want the child.

What's happened to maternal instincts?

"Ecologically it's not responsible & maybe ethically it is not a good idea either." Franklin Percival, wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survery questioning the wisdom of flushing pet alligators down the toilet when they get too big.

"What the heck?" Maryann Miller questioning the wisdom of folks who have alligators for pets.

Another oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. Do we need to take a serious look at the safety of off-shore drilling?

And ending on a lighter note. I love to read the comics in the newspapers. One of my favorite strips is Pickles and a recent strip had Opal and a friend at the beauty shop sitting under a hair dryer. Opal is reading a magazine and says, "I'm feeling more irrelevant all the time."

"Why?"

"Every time I read a People Magazine it seems like there are more celebrities I've never heard of."

I'm not so sure I want to admit to how much I can relate to that.

Friday's Odds and Ends

The wealthy American mother of three children who were found dead in an Edinburgh town house will face criminal charges in a Scottish court. Authorities issued an arrest warrant against Theresa Riggi, 46, as police completed autopsies on her children — 8-year-old twins Augustino and Gianluca and their sister Cecilia, 5. Riggi is currently going through a bitter divorce with her American oil industry executive husband, Pasquale Riggi, 46, of Colorado. They were contesting the custody of their children. 

Why do the children always have to suffer?

And speaking of suffering children. What about all the children "forgotten" in vehicles who die horrible deaths in the heat? We read about it all the time. A parent forgot to drop a child off at day care. Or a day-care worker forgot a child in the back of the van. How can you forget? It is beyond my comprehension. Some people think it is understandable what with all the distractions in the world today. They also think that Congress should step up and require automakers to install technology that would remind parents to remove kids from the back seat.


If parents are so busy and so stressed out that they can forget their children, then maybe it is time they re-evaluate their lives.


A recent headline: GM Shows Healthy Profit
General Motors shows signs of strength as it posts $1.3 billion profit, but the automaker still owes the government — and American taxpayers — more than $43 billion in federal bailout money it took after it declared bankruptcy last June. Okay, GM execs, are you going to forgo your bonus so we can have our money back?

Christ United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas builds a house every summer for a needy family. Applicants have to be employed  and able to make the mortgage payment of about $550. For that they get a nice 3-bedroom house. Sweet.

Friday's Odds and Ends

As football season gears up the news is full of stories about signing contracts and the high cost of buying an athlete. In perhaps one of the biggest deal this year, Sam Bradford got a $78 million, 4-year contract with the St Louis Rams. Thirty years ago a $30,000 signing bonus was considered a nice deal. Even taking into consideration the value of a dollar then and now, it is still obscene what athletes are getting. And the more they get the more they think need.

There's a syndicated cartoon, Plugger, that leads with "You know you're a Plugger when..." It pokes fun at people of a certain age and a certain economic status that is far, far below the lifestyle Sam Bradford will be enjoying. I came up with one, "You know your a Plugger when your after-dinner mint is a Tums."

Here are a few headlines from this past week:

Right-Wing Pundit Phyllis Schlafly Decries Government Assistance for "Unmarried Moms." Oh, right. Let's do all we can to encourage unwed mothers.


SEC Lets Citi Execs Go Free After $40 Billion Subprime Lie. And the thousands of people who lost their homes paid the ultimate price.

Puerto Rican Man Still Working at Age 104. Emilio Navarro, former professional baseball player for the Negro League, still works at the business he started and likes to go dancing. It is said he prefers to dance with blondes. You go, Emilio.


$3 million for Chelsea's wedding. Talk about a waste. How can people justify paying that much when so many others are struggling just to survive. One columnist wrote that Chelsea deserved it all because she has been such a model daughter. So wouldn't a nice wedding at about $100,000 have worked?

Right is Right, Wrong is Discretionary. No comment.