Black Death Friday

Be careful out there! Or stay the hell home.

The NY Daily News reports today that a Long Island, NY Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death early this morning trying to hold back the throng of Black Friday shoppers pushing their way into the store to take advantage of today's shopping specials. A female shopper suffered a miscarriage after being knocked to the floor. Can anybody tell me why such a tragedy can happen. I saw the flyer. There's nothing there to stomp somebody to death for.

I've never gotten the insanity over this day after Thanksgiving "tradition". You stand in the pre-dawn cold for hours fighting with people to save, literally, a couple of bucks over what it was the day before or will be the day after. Instead of the spirit of the holiday, you see the ugliness of greed.

I know money is tight - the economy is in free-fall. Everybody loves a bargain. But will the people who rushed the employee and pregnant woman really enjoy that digital camera or LCD TV? Will they tell their kids, "You'd better enjoy that, I killed a man for it"?

For me, it's time to get back to basics. I'm personally a little tired of being marketed to, and brainwashed by, the big corporations who create this false hope of a happy holiday via low prices.

Yeah, I'm buying things - but much less and mostly online. We're going to use a good chunk of this year's Christmas budget to join family out of state. No big-screen TV's, no flashy electronics - just some family and food and a good time.