SOAPBOX: Shopping on Thanksgiving

Forgive my little editorial, but I have to say that I chuckle when I hear so many people complain about the "Black Friday bleed" into Thanksgiving that has retailers opening on the holiday.


I operate a small business, and my business will NOT be open on Thanksgiving. But I'm not going to act self-righteous about it. Although Thanksgiving is perhaps my favorite holiday, the fact is, if there were a lucrative enough reason to open on Thanksgiving, I probably would. But the chance to take a day off & give my crew some time with their families currently outweighs any benefits I would get from being open for business this Thursday.






Money talks. And money is the reason that many retailers & restaurants are open on Thanksgiving. For every person complaining about how commercialized the holidays are getting, there are dozens of people driving to malls & opening their wallets for perceived bargains.




I would love it if everyone decided to NOT shop on Thanksgiving. I would love it if the entire world would take the day off and just engage in some community fellowship under the rubric of gratitude & sharing.


But it's not going to happen.


And it may actually be better that we live in a society where you have the choice to shop or not.


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. However you choose to observe it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

It is the anniversary of one of the greatest speeches in American history.

It's short & eloquent, more a poem than a speech.

The entire text:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address

Today's Meditation Quote

Remind yourself that acceptance of the present moment has nothing to do with resignation in the face of what is happening. It simply means a clear acknowledgment that what is happening is happening. Acceptance doesn't tell you what to do. What happens next, what you choose to do, that has to come out of your understanding of this moment.

- from Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MALCOLM X

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MALCOLM X

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”

from The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Now Reading: No Place To Hide by Glenn Greenwald

“The ability to eavesdrop on people’s communications vests immense power in those who do it. And unless such power is held in check by rigorous oversight and accountability, it is almost certain to be abused. Expecting the US government to operate a massive surveillance machine in complete secrecy without falling prey to its temptations runs counter to every historical example and all available evidence about human nature.”

Excerpt From: Greenwald, Glenn. “No Place to Hide.”

What I'm Reading Now

Sometimes the most important thing about words is what they enable us to leave unsaid.

• from Going Nucular: language, politics and culture in confrontational times, by Geoff Nunberg.

You Should Read This

“The weirder something is, the more I want to know about it. The less likely it is for a guy like me to be a part of something, the more I want to get involved. My philosophy has always been “Why say no to anything?” The only things you have to abandon in order to live by it are common sense, a command of reason, and social acceptability. Not a bad trade.”

Excerpt From: Chris Gethard. “A Bad Idea I'm About to Do.”