season of goodwill

[realthog]

The BBC reports what has to be one of the most repulsive stories around at the moment. Here's the start of it:

US stores lure hard-up shoppers

US stores have opened early and offered steep discounts to encourage consumers to part with their cash as the Christmas shopping season kicks off.

Crowds of shoppers turned up at dawn to snare the best deals.

A worker died and at least three people were injured after being trampled by a crowd of shoppers at a Wal-Mart in the New York suburbs.

Season of greed, more like -- pure, unadulterated, and now murderous. And people ask me why I loathe Christmas so much . . .

Comments

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

Some of the West End stores opened at 7.30 this morning, for much the same reason, I guess. No casualties.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

It's not the sales I object to: it's the greed for BARGAINS!!! becoming so all-consuming that the possibility of trampling underfoot and killing a poverty-wage employee seems a trivial matter.

I mean, kind of, well, euggh! Who are these people?

[hutch0.livejournal.com]

True. When the new Ikea store opened in Edmonton a couple of years ago there was a riot. That's Edmonton a couple of miles along the North Circular from us. Not the Edmonton in Canada. Obviously.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Humans. Consult Thomas Hobbes.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I tried, but he said he was dead.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Very troublesome that way those Sages of Malmesbury, being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.