Greed And Envy (a.k.a. these are a few of my favorite sins...)

On Black Friday, a Wal*Mart employee was trampled by indifferent shoppers greedily looking for cheap electronics. With this disturbing display of human nature, I wanted to mirror a post I made on another blog. The original article from the NYT click here.

"It seemed fitting then, in a tragic way, that the holiday season began with violence fueled by desperation; with a mob making a frantic reach for things they wanted badly, knowing they might go home empty-handed."

I think the idea that the event might have been fueled by our "spend more" programming or the possibility of "leaving empty handed" takes away from the real issue which is much deeper. Part of the human condition is having certain vices - in this case greed and envy. This is not the case of mom trying to get a Tickle Me Elmo for her 5 year old to make his Christmas special. These are mostly adults buying "presents" for themselves or their households. They should be able to deal with the possibility of "leaving empty handed" because if the parenting had been in place when they were young, they would have been taught another crucial life lesson -disappointment.

When I was a kid I wanted an Atari 2600. My dad waited forthe last minute to buy it and as a result I received a few little gifts and a card from mom and dad with money for my 2600. Every kid knows if you don't get the electronics on Christmas day, retailers usualy have low stock until February or so. You know what? I learned to wait. I learned that life doesn't work out the way you want, sometimes it's nice that at least someone tried and that the thought DOES count.

There is no personal accountability or responsibility in the conscious of the average American. Forget civil duty, we lack basic morality. I find it incredible that a nation that claims "In God We Trust" ignores the teachings of the same. Perhaps we should say "in my neighbor I covet" since to me the basic cause of this employee getting crushed was Bob wanting to show off his new TV to Larry over the game on Sunday.

Don't get me wrong, once Wal Mart managers noticed so many people outside, cops should have been contacted for riot control. That's just smart business. But the problem here is the human heart. One only has to read Lord of the Flies to remember that we are capable of pure evil.

"'Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!'"
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies, Ch. 9

Does An Eye For An Eye Leave You As Blind As Acid?

On Friday I read that an Iranian court order a man blinded for throwing acid in a woman's face and blinding her (read article). Basically, the ruling is legit according to the Islamic code of equivalence.

When I first read this I was outraged. Blinding a guy for a crime? Savages!

Then I thought about it. Isn't it in our basic human nature to seek justice for wrong doings? I know the biblical ideal of "an eye for an eye" just leaves everyone blind, but what happens when someone is malicious. This was not an accident. This was malice.

You only have to read (or watch) the news to see that the world is getting crazier by the day. Terrorists in India, the perpetual Middle East crisis, Iraq, Iran, Al Queda, etc. Aside from religious zealots and the mentally insane, add those with malicious intent towards their fellow man (or woman in this case). Do we really need this added on? What would be the American response to this? Jailing the man for 5 -10 years. Would that cure his malicious intent? Can someone like this be cured? Would this deter the next offender or just assure that he elevated his crime to murder so there were no witnesses.

Would we forcibly sodomize a rapist or pedophile in the name of justice? We kill murderers in most states, don't we?

I don't know what the answer is. My civil brain calls it cruel. My human core calls it fair. The one thing I do believe is that at least the victim will be able to sleep peacefully at night.

The Cult Of Plinko

I was home this morning and the TV happened to be on CBS when I turned it on to watch during breakfast. As I watched, I was amazed at what I saw: the television syndication of a daily cult gathering that has been ongoing since 1972 (show started in 1956 but was not a cult yet). These people meet daily like a cult and meet to receive the generous bounty of gifts provided by their god.

I'm referring to "The Price Is Right."

Let me help you understand where I'm coming from. Here are the reasons the show participants and watchers are a cult:

1. Members attend weekday services daily
2. The cult technically began with the appointment of Bob Barker (1972) as head. Bob often required models to sleep with him to prove their loyalty to the cult. The heir to the throne was Drew Carey who most would agree gets no such perk.
   
3. Members wear the traditional ceremonial clothing -basic white tee shirt or other tee. This tee sometimes has painted or written words like "I love Bob (the original deity) or Drew(the heir ).
4. Often the ceremonial virgin is offered in the form of a "large breasted" participant with the above mentioned comments on her tee shirt jumping up and down profusely for the cameras as she runs from the top of the studio stairs to the bottom where the ceremony will take place.
5. Members are allowed to touch their deity when chosen and are also forced to call out other members they have brought into the cult during a ritual called a "shout out." Often people will call out those they have indoctrinated in their home towns ("Hi mom, grandma, little Susie and Bobby")
6. Unlike organized religion, members are encouraged to dress down. Showing up in a tie and gown won't get you to the ceremonial altar
7. Attendees from various areas wear regional colors or uniforms to indicate they are there together (pink girlie shirts, white tees with logos, tees with pics of the host,servicemen, etc.)
   

I get it. The shows early popularity was based on the interest of the tons of housewives who knew about only one thing - shopping for the household. It's 2008. You would figure we would have something more interesting than a "Betty Crocker" like show.

Or maybe it's that the show offered people of low expectations a chance to win a car or other lavish gifts by just knowing the price of Spam, but it's still disturbing to see some of the groupies go on stage and act like this is their ONE shining moment in life.

I wish you all the best if you get to meet Drew but if not, here's a parting gift... {SPACE OPEN FOR ADVERTISING}

The Smile Felt Around The World

This post is a bit awkward. For the past few hours I've been speechless. I went to vote early this morning and instead of seeing the grumpy, beaten down characters I usually see at the local junior high school on election day, I saw something different. Sure, there were more people. New people. Many younger and some much older. There were heads of household that had brought their entire families out to make sure all possible votes in their household were counted. Regardless of whom they were voting for, I saw something everywhere - pride. At the cost of sounding cheesy, I hadn't seen this in a long time. Real American Pride had not manifested itself since the painful events of 9/11. Not the divisive "country first" pride I had seen in recent weeks, but the real thing. Living in NY, I was as proud to see it this morning as I was back then. I had almost lost hope that we could get right the one thing that we used to excel at - an election.

I usually ignore my house phone anyway, but I made sure I didn't pick up any calls this week so I didn't get one of the automated voting calls that have been calling me all week (yesterday, my mom called and told me she was called by Mike Bloomberg). All day I've gotten texts, emails and calls celebrating just the fact that friends have voted and are hoping for change (see my friend's post here). While the sadistic part of me wants to ship Palin and her family back to Alaska and drill wells in her backyard, the better part of me looks at the historic event that happened today.

Look past the mixed heritage of the president-elect. Look past the record numbers of voters and new voters who stood in line this morning (personally, my fat ass had to stand in line next to neighborhood people who I really didn't feel like speaking to at 8am in the morning). Forget that the world opinion of this great nation has been in the gutter and the the world is looking for us to set the example - to be the example. Forget that after years of election shenanigans, everyone doubted we could still get it right.

Instead, focus and revel for a moment in history. For those of us that are younger, this may be our Bobby Kennedy, our JFK, our vessel for change . However, this is a Pyrrhic victory. We have already lost so much. Some more than others. For a second though, forget everything else and just enjoy the moment.

Today I don't gloat. Today I hope that change does come.

This Week's Observations

A few miscellaneous observations from this past week:

Even notice that whenever you see public servants they're never working? They're always on break. I went to lunch and saw firemen hanging out on the corner. A few blocks down, two cop cars (one double parked) were just hanging out talking to each other. The Con Ed gang by my house has been working down the same manhole cover for weeks. Probably because they have 2 guys on traffic flag patrol.

I heard an ad on the radio this week for a site called AshleyMadison.com. Apparently, this is a site for people who want to have affairs. Yep - affairs. The site states that you should go there to "change your life" or if you are in need of "something more." I didn't know that we needed a specific site for affairs. What happened to good old fashioned lying on every other web site? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that lying was part of what made affairs so attractive.

On TV, I saw a commercial for one of those hungry children organizations with Laurie Metcalf (TV Rosanne's sister) pleading for donations. There should be a few mandatory rules to using "stars" to solicit donations. The 1st being that the star power should at minimum dress up and look like a star. It's not difficult. Sally Struthers was a cow, but at least she always dressed up and made herself look nice for the cameras. Metcalf on the other hand looks busted. There's no other word for it. She literally looks like she snorted coke for a decade ten rolled out of bed to beg for donations. They would have been better getting one of the two "Becky" characters than this old hag.

...all for now...