The great state of consumerism

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I did! So now onward we roll toward the remainder of the holidays in a mad dash to the end of year, right? And may I emphasize the phrase "mad dash"?

OK, I'm going to step up on my soapbox now and express my opinions on something that I think has gotten way out of control: consumerism.

Take the case of a seemingly unsuspecting temp worker at a Walmart in Long Island. I don't know his whole story, but I would assume since he's working as a temp he needs some extra cash and so his job that day was to attempt to manage the crowd that was gathering before they opened their doors at 5 am this morning. Well, he was trampled to death. Trampled to death by people running to get the best deal on a laptop, a toy, a stereo or whatever they are in such a hurry to buy. And again, this guy was trampled to death by a group of shoppers. No, these weren't needy folks in search of food because they were starving, no they were shopping.

Yep, shopping.

This is surely a Black Friday.

And I never shop on this day. Good thing, because I may get trampled to death.

(My sympathies go out to this poor man's family)