Oh What a Piece of Work Is Man!

So I'm sitting at my computer, wondering how I was going to get rid of 20 pounds (my mother's idea of small) of turkey, and patting myself on the back for not going into the mall to fight off greedy shoppers this past weekend. I'm reading Yahoo! NEWS when I come across a story about the various insanities which had occurred that day. To my amazement, it was truly insanity.

As reported by USA Today staff writer Gary Strauss, Black Friday was a mess for the giant retailer.

First off is L.A. where, at a local Walmart, a woman used pepper spray to fend off would be competitors so she could get a discount Xbox 360. Twenty people injured.

In San Leandro, at Walmart, a shopper is shot when he and his family resisted two gunmen trying to steal their purchases.

In South Carolina, two shoppers were robbed outside the Hilton Head Island Walmart. (Maybe I'm seeing a pattern here)

In upstate New York, two women were injured in altercations that broke out at a Rome Walmart.

In the Phoenix suburb of Buckeye, Walmart shopper Jerald Allen Newman was roughed up by police as he put a video game in the waistband of his pants as he tried to lift his grandson so he wouldn't be trampled by a crowd.

In Kinston, NC, an early Friday scuffle erupted between Walmart customers trying to snap up cellphones marked down from $200 to $35.

Police used a stun gun to subdue Walmart shopper Brian Shellnutt in Milford, CT, after he allegedly hit another shopper in a Thursday night fight while waiting to buy video games.

A man was arrested in a scuffle at a jewelry counter at a Kissimmee, FL, Walmart.

And near Muskegon, MI, a teen suffered minor injuries after being knocked over and stepped on repeatedly in a consumer rush to the electronics department.

So after all is said and done I think we can take two things away from these events. First, greed is a nasty sin. It brings out the absolute worst in most humans. It is probably the ugliest sin in the bag and unfortunately, we humans fall for it way too often, and it is always an indication of a civilization in decline. Second, don't go to Walmart on Black Friday.

Now, most of us are grown adults so we should have learned this lesson from our parents as children, but in case there's been some sort of mass delusion or cosmic radiation which has wiped out the old memory circuits, Christmas is a time for love, compassion and charity.

Christmas is not about all the materialism that's evidenced by these shopping extravaganzas that bring no true happiness to anyone; and, as evidenced by these incidents, they bring out the worst in people.