I'm Sickened That I Contributed to Black Friday...

I started this blog with the idea of posting pictures and comments about my recent trip to Europe and thought that over time I'd start to post some various thoughts and ideas I had about the world in general. Alas, I must start, however, on an incredibly sad note, as I found out that an employee of Wal-Mart who was right about my age died today after being trampled by throngs of Black Friday shoppers.

There is a lot of senseless death in the world to be certain, but I am hard pressed to find a death more senseless than this one. The people who perished in the recent terror attacks on Mumbai hotels were certainly victims of senseless violence, but not every death in this horrible attack was senseless. A hotel employee shielded a family from a spray of bullets (it is unknown as of this writing whether or not he survived), yet in Long Island, a man died because people couldn't wait a moment longer to get their hands on a cheap toaster oven.

Just when I was starting to feel like maybe things were getting a little better for the good old U. S. of A. (let's just say I'm very excited about the return of complete sentences to the White House), I see this tragic story, and I take serious pause. I fear that Edward Gibbon's theory that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to a loss of civic virtue may come about again, and what more dramatically demonstrates a lack of understanding of the good of the community than squashing a man under your heel for the sake of consumerism.

Alas, I was a part of that cog today. I stopped at my local computer superstore to buy some cheap digital photo frames for a quasi-modern-art-project-thingie my wife and I have been thinking of doing for the past few months but have avoided putting together due to the prohibitive costs of digital photo frames. My experience was very civil -- I stopped by in the afternoon, there were plenty of frames in stock, the store was crowded but the staff was friendly and helpful, and the lines to check out were reasonable. The whole transaction took about a half-hour, but it makes me wonder if I added any fuel to the fire that is Black Friday. The same fire that left a 34-year-old temporary maintenance worker dead.

Whenever a tragedy happens and I hear about an act of heroism, I ask myself if I would do what the hero did? Would I shield a family I didn't know from a spray of bullets? I can't answer that with any certainty. I think that question can only be answered in the moment of finding yourself in such a terrible situation. But I would like to think that I would.

So, although I would never camp out overnight in front of a Wal-Mart on the eve of Black Friday, I would have to think that as I made my way into the store, if I saw a man on the floor being trampled, I would do something. I've never been in a fight before in my life, but I hear this story, and all I can think is, "Why didn't someone -- anyone -- push, punch, scream, kick, bite... not to get to the bargain first, but to protect further boots from stomping the life out of this poor man?" Not just one or two people, but several people, must have felt or seen a body under their feet as they made their way in, and they just kept on moving. Maybe someone screamed "Stop!" but not enough people listened or fought back the crowd that was pushing from behind. It may be impossible to prosecute the people who kept on moving, but if somehow the local police can charge those who were a part of this man's death, I sincerely hope they get to spend Christmas in jail learning from a 400 pound man named Sugarlips what it feels like to have the life squeezed out of you with no one around to help you.