| Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving, filled with family, friends, beloved pets and lots of good eating! And I hope you were grateful for all you have. Today is Black Friday, and it appears to me that someone, somewhere, has sucked the joy right out of it. Copies of the ads were available online weeks ago, many "deals" were not deals at all, and if they were, you could buy them online at one minute past midnight in your pjs. I was, however, glad to see that steps have been taken to avoid the trampling deaths of last year at the Wal-mart. We'll see how it goes: often Black Friday is the test of how good or bad the holiday retail season will be. In case you don't know, it's named "Black Friday" because historically it was the day retailers went from operating in the red to operating in the black. In an economy like ours, it matters this year. Since 70% of the economy is consumer-driven, a great Black Friday could mean a shot in the arm all around to start the Main Street recovery. I have made one Black Friday purchase already (yes, in my pjs) and I'm telling you about it because it indirectly affects you. I bought something I've been considering for a couple months. It is something that is made exclusively in America, helps protect American jobs in media, distribution, retail, and logging. I re-upped my USA Today subscription. They had sent an email indicating that for Black Friday, they were cutting the cost in half. And it was just too sweet to pass up. So, you'll be seeing their information and terrific investigative reporting discussed here again. I'll be off line until probably tomorrow - going to catch up on some relaxation, and yes, spend some time at the stores. This is a great day to buy toys to drop off at Toys for Tots, gloves and scarves to drop to the clothing drives, and drop a few bags of food to the local food bank. My mother instilled in me the law of "tzadakah" - which is an involved Jewish concept of charity: no matter how much or how little you have, others have less. Everyone who knows me over the age of 18 knows that in lieu of any holiday presents, they'll get a note saying something along the lines of "the money that would have gone to your present was donated in your name to X charity." She also taught me that when something great happens, you should celebrate by writing a check that hurts to charity. Yesterday, I watched Olivia eat turkey. The dog that didn't have a chance of making it to her favourite day of the year, happily eating turkey. For me, there are no politics today, only big bags of food for people who didn't have as good a day yesterday as Olivia did. Back tomorrow - I hope y'all have a fun day. And to echo something MisterEd wrote in the comments yesterday - big thanks to the police, fire, medical and Armed Forces people who don't ever get holidays because they are there, protecting and serving those of us lucky enough to get that time off. Floor is open... |
