A question on a quiz for the students... Here are the results:
3.) Mooses
2.) Meeses
1.) Mice
What?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
'Tis the season
After stuffing your face with as much turkey, gravy, potatoes, yams and cranberry sauce, it's time to get serious and start thinking about Christmas. With the closing of Thanksgiving, it only means one thing - Black Friday and bargains! While talking about this topic with local friends here who are not American, I had to roughly translate this concept, "ι»ζζδΊ" and talk about on this day, many American retailers and companies expected to make enough money to help raise their profits out of the red and into the black. What I didn't know, was that the first time the term was used was in 1965 by the Philadelphia Police (PhPD?) to describe the traffic and crowding conditions and how people get crazy when it comes to Christmas shopping. Not much has changed in 40+ years.
Wanting to catch up with news from back in the US, I run across this article at cnn.com:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/02/walmart.trampling.suit/index.html
My first thought was that only in America can you exercise your right to sue and use the legal system to help you be compensated for something so avoidable and stupid. I think I've grown numb to overcrowding and pushing and shoving to get from one place to another ever since I moved to China, but I never thought that the US would have this kind of incident. Deep down, people are all driven by this drive and greed, unwilling to act graciously or even accommodate other human beings. And what was it all for? 50% off a tickle me Elmo? Or more realistically, 50% off of a TV? It's truly sad that our selfish desires is what most often is our motivation for what we do. In the celebration of the birth of Christ, I hope the wise men and shepherds weren't shoving and pushing each other down to catch a better glimpse of our Savior. Maybe there were 4 wise men, but one was trampled to death and thus not referenced to in the Gospel. Probably not.
Yes, there were good points to defend the case, the police should have been there to facilitate, Wal-mart could have used preventative measures to avoid such a trampling and the economy could have been at a much better point so that it wouldn't expose people for their greed and desire to save a few bucks at the expense of others around them. But honestly, a man was killed in this incident. This is not some terrorist act, not some battlefront in the Middle East, but at the doors of a nation-wide chain department store? While I'm not a big fan of Wal-mart, it does frustrate me that the family is able to place blame on the store despite it is the foolish actions of the crowd/herd around them. In nature, a stampede is a mass impulse designed to help a herd of animals escape predators. In humans, a stampede is a reaction most often seen in "religious pilgrimages, professional sporting and music events. They also often occur in times of mass panic, as a result of a fire or explosion, as people try to get away." (Wikipedia.org) Haha, just wanted to throw that in there.
How can we let Christmas, a celebration of hope, joy and the ultimate expression of love, amount to nothing more than discount prices and animal behavior? Tasteless America, tasteless.
Wanting to catch up with news from back in the US, I run across this article at cnn.com:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/02/walmart.trampling.suit/index.html
My first thought was that only in America can you exercise your right to sue and use the legal system to help you be compensated for something so avoidable and stupid. I think I've grown numb to overcrowding and pushing and shoving to get from one place to another ever since I moved to China, but I never thought that the US would have this kind of incident. Deep down, people are all driven by this drive and greed, unwilling to act graciously or even accommodate other human beings. And what was it all for? 50% off a tickle me Elmo? Or more realistically, 50% off of a TV? It's truly sad that our selfish desires is what most often is our motivation for what we do. In the celebration of the birth of Christ, I hope the wise men and shepherds weren't shoving and pushing each other down to catch a better glimpse of our Savior. Maybe there were 4 wise men, but one was trampled to death and thus not referenced to in the Gospel. Probably not.
Yes, there were good points to defend the case, the police should have been there to facilitate, Wal-mart could have used preventative measures to avoid such a trampling and the economy could have been at a much better point so that it wouldn't expose people for their greed and desire to save a few bucks at the expense of others around them. But honestly, a man was killed in this incident. This is not some terrorist act, not some battlefront in the Middle East, but at the doors of a nation-wide chain department store? While I'm not a big fan of Wal-mart, it does frustrate me that the family is able to place blame on the store despite it is the foolish actions of the crowd/herd around them. In nature, a stampede is a mass impulse designed to help a herd of animals escape predators. In humans, a stampede is a reaction most often seen in "religious pilgrimages, professional sporting and music events. They also often occur in times of mass panic, as a result of a fire or explosion, as people try to get away." (Wikipedia.org) Haha, just wanted to throw that in there.
How can we let Christmas, a celebration of hope, joy and the ultimate expression of love, amount to nothing more than discount prices and animal behavior? Tasteless America, tasteless.