New York Wal-Mart Employee Trampled and Died: How our society is changing.
Submitted: 12-03-08
Reporter Joseph Toth
Washington Micro Bank BBS
On 11-28-08 Colleen Long of the Associated Press reported a incident in New York where a Wal-Mart employee was badly trampled at 5:03am in the morning just three minutes after the doors were opened for Black Friday early shoppers. She further reports that the customers rushing the entrance of the store was so great that some door damage was also detected. Shortly after the trampling, the man trampled passed away.
I (Joseph Toth) now look at this asking what is our society coming to. I find absolutely no cause for such activity to be happening. Our society is losing the true meaning of the winter holidays, People acting as if they’ve totally forgotten the fact that Christmas is a religious holiday. More and more, people every year lose just a little more of the reality of the Christmas season.
It isn’t just the customers I’m talking about with the commercial twinkles in their eyes. More people come into fault for this, a lot more people. Marketing and advertising businesses, retailers and even public radio stations. That’s right, radio stations. There are radio stations that start broadcasting non-stop Christmas music at or before Thanksgiving and a few stations start doing this shortly after Halloween. There is no reason for this. In fact it is getting out of control.
Something else I am noticing is the negligent spelling of the Holiday itself is showing up more and more. I find this really disturbing because people who spell Christmas the four letter way that starts with a ‘X’ are showing absolutely no acknowledgement of the Holiday for what it represents. This brings up a strong memory from my youth. A lesson I will never forget.
As a small boy in Sunday School, … in the winter months, the Nun incharge of my classroom gave every student a window to finger-paint a holiday scene on. After recently seeing the wrong way to spell Christmas in a public area, remembering such … I painted that word into my painting on the window. A classmate next to me got my attention causing me to look up and behind me, which I did. The Nun was standing behind me and didn’t look happy at all. As I looked up at her, she looked me in the eye and asked me “HOW DO YOU SPELL CHRIST?” I spelled it for her. Then the ping-pong paddle came out of her robe, she bent me over and I got one right across the back pockets. She then told me to “never cross Christ out of his own Holiday ever again”. I hardly even felt the paddle at all, … but it was the lesson that hurt the most because I knew I was wrong and she was right. And as I said above, It’s a lesson that I will never forget.
A lot has changed in fourty years. Christmas is becoming more of a commercial season than a Christian Holiday. The Christmas season is supposed to be people loving and caring for each other. A time of peaceful sharing and being nice to others, and most importantly, Peace On Earth.
Nobody is saying everyone should convert to a Christian Faith or lifestyle to take part in Christmas, … of coarse not. Simply remember it’s the time to remember to be peaceful and pleasant to others.
Maybe if we still had the respect for this holiday that we did 40 years ago, … the incident in New York might not have happened.
Clearly what happened in New York wasn’t peaceful and definitely not pleasant, but rather it was an act of people acting uncivilized and out of control while demonstrating selfish behaviour that in fact, … brought another persons life to a end.
The way retailers take part in baiting this kind of activity should really be halted. If such sales are held to warrant customers lining up in large masses; Extra security forces should be in place prior to and during the sale. Especially at the time the doors are unlocked. Even at that, … before unlocking the doors, security forces should be outside giving the group lectures on acceptable entry to the facility once the doors are opened.
A ounce of prevention can provide a pound of cure if implemented correctly. It doesn’t sound like that is what happened here. In fact, … they now have a incident that you can’t put a price on.
By no means am I singling out just one retailer. All retailers should take a lesson from what happened and use this knowledge to prevent anything like this from happening ever again.
