This. Must. End.

I'm sorry ladies and gents, I'm going to be departing a bit from my usual beat in this post, but I think it's plenty warranted.

A man died today.

I didn't know him. Odds are neither did you. It doesn't matter.

He was sacrificed upon the altar of rampant consumerism. A twenty-something temporary employee at Wal-Mart, just working to get by. Trampled. To death.

Was there a riot? Was there a bomb threat, or fire, or life-threatening emergency?

No. There were good deals on jeans and high-def TV's. And for that, a man lost his life.

My little brother is a temporary employee at a big-box store. That could've been him. Mr. Damour had a mother and a father, and probably a brother or sister, maybe even a wife and kids. They will never see him again. He is gone, lost to all of us forever, and why? Why? $6 jeans.

This must END, America.

This cannot go on. There is NO sale big enough, NO discount deep enough, to warrant trampling a man to death.

You don't hear of people dying for sales in Europe, or in Canada, or in Australia. No, this obsession with stuff, and this devil-take-the-hindmost attitude, is uniquely American. For the sake of cheap electronics and clothing, we vandalize and destroy stores and kill our fellow man... and then we refuse to even respect the event enough to step around the rescue workers, or leave the store when they try to close it to investigate. No, our stuff, our petty consumer products are so much more important than anything around us.

Black Friday must be stopped, now, before it takes another life.

This must end.