- This photo is 2 years old. Cass still looks exactly the same, that jacket still fits her, and I don’t think that screen door has ever been cleaned.
- Every day I run across a headline that says either, Stock market rallies after shaky start, or Dow drops 20 bajillion points as investors get nervous. Every day, the stock market either rallies or drops. Doesn’t it always? I know it’s not funny, but the wording strikes me as funny. It’s the same thing every day.
- The other big news is that the market is unsteady because of a drop in consumer confidence. I don’t know, I’m no economic analyst or anything, but I think I’d be more confident if I wasn’t reading all this bad news about the unsteady market!
- That poor man trampled at Walmart.
I’ve read a lot of articles about this tragedy, about how people were so desperate to get to their flat-screen TVs that they climbed right over this man trapped under a glass door. To me, though, this isn’t a story about consumerism. It’s far more sad than that.
This speaks to more than mere materialism and greed- this is a hardening of the heart, a lack of empathy, a total disregard of our personal responsibility to our fellow man. The need for a deeply discounted HDTV is a symptom of this greater problem.
How can they expect a harvest of thought
who have not had the seed time of character?-Henry David Thoreau
I’m tired. And the media makes me more weary. Good night.
#2 – I noted this the other day too. And people think the stock market is an indicator of something. It's just wobbly.
#4 – That is so depressing. I'm not sure I agree with you that it's a symptom of a deeper problem; I could argue that consumerism has just turned people blind toward others. But I'm not sure what problem you are referencing, so any argument I come up with would be blind.
I have never understood shopping on Black Friday, but that may be because I dislike shopping in general. Shopping when a billion other people are out in droves too, that would drive me insane.
Yesterday, the market plunged, I noticed. So I predict it will "start low" and "rally" at the end of the day.
I think that people- speaking generally- have lost their ability to connect on a deeper level with other people. I think that partially TV and internet are to blame, as we fill our days and lives with non-physical relationships. And I think on some level this leads to an emptiness, a dissatisfaction with one's life, that marketing cleverly informs us we can fill with "things".
I've never done Black Friday. In fact, I haven't set foot in a mall in three years. I'm a bit claustrophobic.
That last time I went into a mall I couldn't go into any store. Just felt too closed off. So I definitely understand feeling claustrophobic in there!