I’m an optimistic guy, I love people, and as much as I talk/joke about American consumerism, I’m not all that bitter about it. People want stuff, they buy stuff, it’s life. Heck, I may be cheap, but I like stuff.

But good lord, I’ve never felt so disgusted by someone else’s behavior until I heard that story from a friend. I mean, yeah, the big business corporate Great Satan is behind the idea that in order to be happy, we need to fill our homes with more crap. But for that many people to buy into it so completely, that someone literally was crushed by their greed, that’s…geez. What made me sadder was how when the crowd was asked to leave because Wal-Mart, having just had an employee trampled, was closing, they complained. COMPLAINED. Because they waited ‘all that time.’ And they continued shopping.

All this over a holiday traditionally celebrating someone who lived and believed in the saying “You come into the world naked, and you leave the same way.”

Black Friday indeed.

Admittedly, Christmas isn’t my holiday. Hanukah is, but the gifts are supposed to be small. Still, I love Thanksgiving because, aside from gluttony, it’s not aimed at so many sins. You’re supposed to eat with people you love, and then nod off in a tryptophan stupor.

The idea of getting up to be at a store at 5 AM is my picture of hell. I like to shop as much as the next person, but as a form of entertainment, not a blood sport.

Shopping as blood sport?

Hmmm… I gotta call Mike Grell.

Thanksgiving is probably the only holiday that hasn’t been overly commercialized…yet. It’s about good food and good times, something Christmas used to be about.

Haven’t any of those yutzes ever heard of shopping online? I did and it saves so much hassle. Honestly, what at Walmart is of sufficient quality to warrant a stampede? It’s obscene and it probably won’t be the last of these sort of stories.

I have a hypothesis that electronic items made for the big box stores are made with inferior materials in order to keep the cost down. That way, the prices can be so low as to attract sharks that are in a feeding frenzy, giving the sharks a “bargain” that is surely going to last a shorter time than the same item bought elsewhere at a normal price.

Why are so many Republicans willing to ignore the plight of the auto companies? Because they wish to break the Union, as well as all unions. It won’t be long until everybody makes minimum wage and all product will be bought at Wal-Fart…excepting the super rich.

Alan wrote, “Why are so many Republicans willing to ignore the plight of the auto companies?”

What? Seriously…What? Republicans? Are you on crack? This is NOT a “Republican” thing. It also, is NOT a “Democrat” thing. Alan, you need to see through the haze of blue.

This IS a “GREED” thing, as Mike was apt to point out. Greed, has no party affiliation. There is corruption on BOTH sides of the aisle and in between.

You imply, that this is Union Busting…Guess what? They are part of the GREED problem. Why is it that Toyota, or Honda plant workers aren’t having the same issue as those of GM, Ford, and Chrysler? Hmm?

There damn well should be voices of dissention on Capitol Hill, because the people inside were HIRED by us via elections.

You do realize Alan, that there are approximately 70-75 lobbyists for every Senator and Congressmen. THAT is the problem, and until people realize that our elected officials are no longer listening to us (to the tune of 83% of the populous AGAINST the September bailout) this is the type of crap that will continue to clog the plumbing of our country.

The unions are part of the greed problem? Maybe; I’m pro-union because the greed on the top is much larger than the greed on the bottom and because I don’t want thumbs in my hot dogs, but the unions have grown out of touch with their mission some time ago and become bureaucracies that, at least until now, stopped appealing to the majority of workers. Unions protect wages over jobs; we need a balance.

Having said that, I’m amazed at the amount of bullshit the Right has laid at the feet of the UAW. First and foremost, the crap about the “average” autoworker being paid $70.00 an hour, when you include benefits. Total lie. Absolute bullshit. The New York Times was too lazy to do the math before they published it, and even though they ran a retraction, it’s still there for all to Google. The average auto worker makes $38.00 an hour INCLUDING all benefits. Those of us who have ever been on COBRA know just how high that is for all of us.

I also question the veracity of that 83% against the bailout number. A lot of people were, and are, both in favor of it and against it at the same time; a necessary evil. If that money had been dedicated to actual human beings instead of partying bankers who shouldn’t have their jobs in the first place, the bailout would be quite popular.

Now everybody is wandering around dirt poor facing a bleak retirement, unemployment and repossession, muttering “where’s mine?” About 30 years ago, the sainted writer Mike Royko suggested we replace “E Pluribis Unum” with “Ubi est Mea?” Today, that would be justifiable.

Jdimytai Damour, Jimbo to his friends. Maybe we can start calling Black Friday, “The Jimbo Damour Memorial Shopping Day,” Maybe stores will stop advertising “Door Busters.” It’s a sad and creepy phrase now.

What will we remember about Jimbo Damour? What will we learn from this tragedy?

I wonder how many 42″ Polaroid HDTVs were on sale at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart that Black Friday. They were only $598. What a DEAL! Who are the proud owners of those TVs now? Are they proud? Did they say to themselves, “I’d kill for a TV at that price”?

Wal-Mart employees had a hard time getting the crowd to leave the store. Some shoppers had been in line since Thursday morning. What a fun way to spend Thanksgiving, waiting to become a deadly mob!

Maybe we can all remember Jimbo Damour next year on Black Friday with a day of retail silence. Just not buy anything. We can decide to wait until Saturday to start Christmas Shopping. Spend the day with family instead.

It’s taken over reformed Judiasm as well. Channukkah used to be a “minor Holiday”… where “8 days of Gifts” were mostly practical, or educational… with a rare “fun” present thrown in the mix. Thanks to Capitalism, Commercialism, and Non-Secular Christmas has mutated a celebration of a miracle into an 8 day marathon of “who can get the coolest toy”.

Lucky for me, my parents are “Real Jews”… who knew with a birthday three days after Christmas, I would never be “for want”… so I never felt the twinge of greed that bathes over some many folks during this season.

My friends and I used to live beyond our means and buy gifts for one another… and now, this year we finally figured it out: The gift is in the friendship and time spent together. It saves us a bunch, and makes us all happier.

It is beyond a shame what has befallen Detroit (once and future home of Robocop). But it’s not like we weren’t warned of this before. I wonder if the absence of the Justice League Detroit lended to the economic downfall…

Um, the blood is foremost on the hands of those who smashed the doors down and trampled the poor man.

Others share responsibility yes, but in no way does that absolve the people who allowed themselves to become an insane mob.

“Others share responsibility yes, but in no way does that absolve the people who allowed themselves to become an insane mob.”

You’ve never been in a real, textbook riot. I’ve had that privilege, several times. “Mob mentality” is an oxymoron, and under the appropriate circumstances — such as those at Valley Stream — it only takes one insane (or clever) person to start a riot.

Six cops for the entire shopping mall. Let’s start there.

Mob mentality is a strange thing. The people who “smashed down the doors” may well have been the people at the BACK of the mob. When the crowd starts to surge and the people at the back start to PRESS, the people at the front have to move and trample or they will be crushed. The problem is, if the crowd is big enough, the people in the back will have no clue what’s going on up front. It’s hard to find someone liable for this crime.

In hindsight, there should have been security outside, making sure a line formed no more than three people wide. In hindsight, Jimbo Damour shouldn’t have tried to block the door with his body.

In past years,I have watched the mad dash of holiday shoppers on the news and just thought, “Isn’t that wacky!” Now, it’s just sad and a bit pathetic. Will Jimbo Damour be remembered? How much will this tragedy change the culture of next year’s Black Friday?

Mob craziness of this sort is one reason that when I had money I stayed away from big stores on prime shopping days. It’s been a long time since I was in good enough shape to elbow my way through a gang of retail-crazed humans, and even then it was an iffy proposition.

Loss leader deals always attract the sort of folks who act like the world will end if they don’t get that last Furby before it’s too late. There’s always going to be overstock, and it’s going to wind up at the local Dollar General or someplace similar. I got my Darth Tater at Family Dollar for seven bucks.

And people in Nashville toss things all the time. I’m not ashamed to say that I go bin diving, and get most of my clothes in thrift stores. People move out of homes and what they don’t want to bother with moving gets tossed. I have designer ties that were tossed. Cufflinks bought at a retro shop. I wear a fifty-year-old Royal Stetson Long Oval Stratoliner fedora that I got for sixteen dollars. The same style of hat pops up on eBay every now and then for over two hundred.

My wife has an Armani tux jacket. I wear a Hildreth and Herricks tweed blazer and, when the weather calls for it, an Oleg Cassini trenchcoat. It needs washing, and has a few cigarette burns that I put there. The computer I’m typing this on is a hotrodded Compaq Evo with a 2.5Ghz processor, a gig of RAM, a single DVD burner and dual hard drives. It cost me nothing.

My computer services company is named after two characters from The Great Escape: Robert Hendley and Colin Blythe, the scrounger and the forger. While forgery is not something I’m into, I’ve no compunctions about scrounging. If some moron is dumb enough to leave a good wool varsity jacket with a big Samuel Adams Beer logo on the back laying on the sidewalk, I’m smart enough to pick it up and sell it to buy groceries.

I’ve gotten off course here. Jimbo Damour’s death is a horrible thing, but it’ll be forgotten by this time next year. Wal-Mart will give his family a settlement that will look nice at the time, they’ll use it to keep themselves going for awhile, the mall will hire additional security for the holidays, and next year somebody will get run over again. This guy will survive. And in 2010 nobody will remember or care.

That’s the sad truth of it all.

Jimbo Damour will ultimately be as forgotten as the poor unidentified bastard who died in the Kings Cross subway fire in 1988. There’ll be a picture on the wall at the store where it happened, and people will walk by and never notice.

What does that say about our culture, and us as a race? Not much.

Miles