Wal-Mart worker dies in Black Friday stampede -- Newsday.com

Wal-Mart worker dies in Black Friday stampede -- Newsday.com

Worker, 2 Black Friday Shoppers Killed

This is hideous.

Canadians don't really have a Black Friday. I cannot think of a single day in the Canadian calendar that exemplifies quite the level of consumer excess that Black Friday represents to US retailers. The day after Thanksgiving is usually one of the biggest shopping days of the year and is frequently associated with doorcrasher sales and prices well below normal. Every year you can see videos where surging mobs of people press up against the doors of Wal-marts and Toys-R-Us', pounding on doors and, once inside, fighting like dogs over small towers of electronics and appliances.

Hence the headlines. A seasonal Wal-Mart employee trampled to death by a mob of people who broke down the door to get inside so they could be the first to the piles. Pregnant women injured. Men shooting each other. Is this really how far we value our status symbols. Is that 42 inch TV worth a mans life or a loss of your own humanity to the will of the mob?

I'm not sure which is more distressing to me: The lack of any effort on the side of the retailers to acknowledge and account for the mania these deals inspire in the consumer population or the mass of people pounding at the front doors of these places every year who have devolved to little more then a lizard brain at the prospect of a camcorder for half off.