I was sitting here reading my local paper where the featured story, with accompanying photographs, was about Black Friday and the lines out side of Best Buy, Circuit City, and Kohls, when I came across the story of a man killed and a women who miscarried at a Walmart Stampede this morning.
A 34-year-old man died when they were trampled in a rush of Black Friday shoppers at a Long Island mall today, police said.
What a shame.
At least the running of the bulls is steeped in the tradition of practicality when, in 1591 residents merely had to herd the bulls to the bull-fighting arena where they would be killed in the evening.At first only the drovers were used to lead the bulls. The event eventually became more popularized.
What’s our excuse tradition?
In the id 1960’s someone in Philly called it Black Friday to denote the heavy traffic at shopping areas the day after Thanksgiving, but in the eighties realizing this day was the day many retailers went from “in the red” to “in the black” it started to be used as a marketing tool. We bought it, hook, line and sinker.
It’s all about the money, like it was when someone decided they could make more money by giving credit to people who were less likely to be able to pay their bills on time and ditched the age old policy where they required people to have established themselves as responsible by working a couple years and saving a little money.
Who is to blame, those who give the credit to those who can’t afford to pay their bills because that is the easiest way to make billions of dollars, or those who accept the credit?
Who is to blame for the death of a stock clerk, Walmart for allowing the stampede, those who stampeded, or the stock clerk for taking a risk and working on Black Friday?
What have we become when are acceptable losses are human, and based on greed?
Peace
I read this in this morning’s internet trolling…shameful. This is part of the reason that I will be doing most of my shopping online this year…that is, what little shopping I will do.
The craziness is something I can do without…and I certainly wouldn’t willingly put myself in the middle of it.
Marvalus’s last blog post..Old School Friday: A Stevie Wonder Tribute!
It’s beyond ridiculous, just plain sad.
I just read about this. I don’t know what to say. Is it s part of our culture we’ve just come to accept “death by shopping”?
The worse part for Walmart is it wasn’t someone who was voluntarily in the stampede, it was an employee. That is not an acceptable risk. I hope his family sues Walmart making retailers think twice about instigating a greed based behavior that is based on their own greed.
john’s last blog post..Weekend Links
it’s just so typical of everything around this country.
I love this theme.
I’m a shopper but never on black friday. Beside that you can shop online. It’s too bad that a innocent worker had to be killed. The store is responsible for managing their customers.
kaitlyn’s last blog post..Holiday Dressing
You are a shopper but then again one think I am always in the market for is a black dress. Give me a couple black dresses and a couple pair of jeans and I’m good to go.
There is nothing in Wal Mart or any other store, at any price, on any damned day of the year, worth a human life. Do we blame the corporations who dangle their wares under the “Black Friday” banner, or the “bargain”-maddened public who trade price for priority?
Kat, IMHO, there is none to blame but the member of the feral herd who hasn’t enough respect for another human being, or themselves, to back off and say “After you sir, or ma’am, whichever the case may be.
I have been around farms and animals a good deal of my life, this is a perfect example of how animals act, only they generally do it for fear or food, not raw greed. This is what happens when the apex of creation cannot rise above the flesh, when the sentient being gives reign to the feral animal within.
Ah, I try not to worry when someone dies in a way that’s funny. The only real tragedy is an unamusing death.
Doug’s last blog post..Novel
Funny? Not so much in this case. It may have been more so if them man was a shopper I don’t know.
People, corporations, both?
This is the picture of America the world sees. It’s a true picture too.
casey’s last blog post..More From The Free State
Oh yea it’s what they see — gluttonous ‚greedy and impulsive. They also blame us for the spread of these tenancies to the rest of the world.
We suck. That’s all their is too it.
G’s last blog post..We Suck
Yes we do.
That story should strike all of us. What on earth is wrong here?
If ya think it can only happen in long island think again, we are the stampeding herd.
jacob’s last blog post..Have I Got a Job For You
I agree of course.
Last year, I waited nearly 2 hours in line for Circuit City to open on Black Friday. The line was really long in the frigid temps, but everyone was civil. Boy Scouts were out, even at that early hour, selling donuts and hot coffee.
So what happened at Wal*Mart? Could security not get people lined up instead of having them form a large throng at the door? Have they never seen the video of all those women on that one day in spring when Filene’s opens its basement to prospective brides?
Wal*Mart asked for this. They advertise popular loss leaders and then do nothing when a massive crowd shows up. The same type of crush occurred across the country the past couple of years when the store chain put up large LCD televisions at ridiculously low prices. Of course people come! And of course they charge down the aisles in a rush to grab the biggest prize first!
I hope Wal*Mart pays thru the nose for this. That poor man’s family should never have been put in the position of having to bury him, especially at this time of year.
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Don’t you think the people who herded down the aisle have some culpability though?