Yeah, I know this isn’t news at this point, but there is a reason why I try to avoid going anywhere near a store on the weekend after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. It’s not just Black Friday, but the entire season.

In fact, if it were possible to not spend any money at all during this season, I’d likely do my best to do so. Christmas long ago lost its true meaning and became all about mass consumerism.

Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, the Christmas season should be a celebration of life and of family. It should not be about buying stuff.

Wal-Mart worker dies in rush; two killed at toy store - CNN.com

(CNN) — Three violent deaths in two stores marred the opening of the Christmas shopping season Friday.

In the first, a temporary Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death in a rush of thousands of early morning shoppers as he and other employees attempted to unlock the doors of a Long Island, New York, store at 5 a.m., police said.

In the second, unrelated incident, two men were shot dead in a Toys “R” Us in Palm Desert, California, after they argued in the store, police said.

Suicide Rock Base Holds Huge Amount Of Garbage

It is an icon that most Utahns know or have at least heard about.  Suicide Rock rises majestically out of the mouth of Parley’s Canyon, and is covered in paint and graffiti.
 
Myth surrounds the painted rock.  According to legend, a Native-American maiden stood upon the sheer cliff waiting for her beloved brave to return from battle.  When she learned of his death she leapt to her death. 
 
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s it stood sentry over the old Parley’s Canyon Reservoir, until it was drained at the beginning of the 20th century.  It has been tagged, painted, and sprayed for years and years by graffiti artist, teenage lovers, and fraternity pledges.  
 
For many, the graffiti is harmless, even entertaining, but if you look below the surface you will see what amounts to a modern day tragedy.  At the base of the rock are hundreds and hundreds of discarded paint cans and other garbage thrown without care any and everywhere around Suicide Rock.
 
There are cans in the grass, cans floating in the creek, even cans dangling from the trees.  Take a trip off of the Bonneville Shoreline trail and you find empty 5 and 10 gallon paint cans, the twisted remains of an old bike drifting in Parley’s Creek, and where the creek flows the heaviest an abandoned shopping cart blocks the water.

I wonder how many, if any, bags of garbage and empty spray paint cans Chris Johnson (the KUTV reporter) and the rest of the remote crew hauled away after they finished the story … or do you suppose they just threw it all back down on the ground for the rest of us to clean up?

Op-Ed - A Holiday to End All Wars - NYTimes.com

TODAY is the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War, and it will be commemorated very differently on each side of the Atlantic and across the borders of Europe. It’s a reminder that not all “victors” experience wars in the same way, and that their citizens can have almost as much difficulty as those of the vanquished states in coping with the collective trauma of conflict.

For Americans, Veterans Day celebrates the survivors of all the nation’s 20th and 21st century wars. In France and Britain, by contrast, the mood is altogether more somber. In these countries, it is the dead who, since 1919, have been the focus of the ceremonies.

Why this difference? After all, for citizens of all three countries the date marks a shared victory. In the jargon of the time, Nov. 11, 1918, was the day of their soldiers’ triumph over “Prussian militarism,” the vindication of a “fight for civilization” and the successful finish of a “war to end all wars.”

I wonder what it will really take to end all wars … why can’t the memories of tragedies past keep our world’s nations from continuing to wage battle causing countless meaningless deaths? Over what? Religion and ethnicity, primarily. Land, oil and money secondarily.

On this Veteran’s (or Armistice) Day, let’s take after our French and British brethren, and remember the dead, rather than celebrate the victory; for what have we won?

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

  — Lt. Col. John Alexander McCrae (1872 - 1918), Canadian soldier who died in Belgium, January 1918

TWO GALLANTS - STEADY ROLLIN’

You might have seen me ‘neath the pool hall lights.
Well baby I go back each night.
If you got a throat I got a knife.
Steady rollin’, I keep goin’.

I don’t mind how quick the seasons change.
You know to me they’s every one the same.
The sweetest sunshine drips the drain.
Death’s comin’, I’m still runnin’.

Well I come from the old time baby,
too late for you to save me.
If I remain then I’m to blame.
But if you should ever need me,
I’ll go where’er you lead me.
It’s all the same, the same old game.

My lovin’ lady she’s a ball and chain.
I still can travel but my speed has changed.
I bring the money, I take the blame.
Steady rollin’, I keep goin’.

But I shot my wife today,
dropped her body in the Frisco bay.
I had no choice it was the only way.
Death’s comin’, I’m still runnin’.

Well I come from the old time baby,
too late for you to save me.
If I remain then I’m to blame.
But if you should ever need me,
I’ll go where’er you lead me.
It’s all the same, the same old game.

Out waltzin’ with the Holy Ghost,
from the Bowery to the Barbary Coast.
The land I’m from you know I love the most.
Steady rollin’, I keep goin’.

And everyday is just another town.
The more I search you know the less I’ve found.
Me, I’m a sucker, just a slave to sound.
Death’s comin’, I’m still runnin’.

Well I come from the old town baby,
where all the kids are crazy.
If I remain then I’m to blame.
But if you should ever need me,
I’ll go where’er you lead me.
It’s all the same, the same old game.

Sometimes, I really miss San Francisco.

ANTI-FLAG - ONE TRILLION DOLLARS

One trillion dollars could buy a lot of bling
One trillion dollars could buy most anything
One trillion dollars buying bullets, buying guns
One trillion dollars in the hands of killers, thugs

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh
Fuck the world
Fuck ‘em all

One trillion dollars in Africa, Iraq
One trillion dollars and it’s never coming back
One trillion dollars could buy some bad ass drugs
One trillion dollars makes me wanna kill myself

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh
Fuck the world, yeah, yeah
Fuck ‘em all

Until the sun burns from the sky
Until the sun burns so bright this world is no more
Sun burns from the sky…
And all the people are just dust on the ground

One trillion dollars could buy a heart, a soul
One trillion dollars buying nations … all the world
One trillion dollars could make the fat ladies sing
One trillion dollars, what a bullshit useless thing

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Fuck the world a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
Shit loads of money spent will show us wrong from right
Fuck the world
Fuck ‘em all.

Award-winning comedian George Carlin dies

Carlin was probably best known for a routine that began, “I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can’t say.” It was a monologue, known as “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” that got Carlin arrested and eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The “Seven Dirty Words” bit prompted a landmark indecency case after New York’s WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that the sketch was “indecent but not obscene,” giving the Federal Communications Commission broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.

George Carlin was a genius … and to honor him, I can’t think of anything more appropriate than the following:

Yep, that’s ten words, not seven, but as every Carlin fan knows, the list morphed over time.

Requiescat in pace.

NBC’s Tim Russert dead at 58

WASHINGTON - Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after suffering a heart attack at the bureau. He was 58.

Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” broadcast when he collapsed. He was rushed to Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, where resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.

Tim Russert was one of the finest political journalists this nation has ever known.

Requiescat in pace