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Last updated on July 27th, 2017 at 11:54 am
Michael Gawenda, The Age’s source of Washingtonian wisdom, doesn’t know when Thanksgiving ends and Black Friday begins.
- I don’t think anyone can be that obtuse without it being intentional. Is Gawneda just being a prick?Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 01 at 01:57 AM • permalink
- Well, then, ozpat, no pumpkin pie for you!Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 01 at 03:52 AM • permalink
- I’m not sure where these phrases, Black Friday and Cyber Monday come from, but they aren’t part of our true American folkways, they’re media names for good retail shopping days. Many of us, at least I and people I know, stay away from the madding crowds as they descend upon the malls. Plenty of days left for that.
But the meaning of Thanksgiving has never been clearer for me, personally. I love that we have this remarkable feast in thanks for our lives and for the bounty God has given us. It’s a holiday many people, here and abroad, just don’t understand.
And I’m thankful, too, when the retail sales are up. It’s a good thing. If America goes in the toilet, the rest of the world feels the water swirling in the bowl. That’s just the way it is. People like this Gawenda creature should be thankful as well. His standard of living is more dependent upon us doing well, in the commercial world, than he would like to admit.
It’s a global thing. He wouldn’t get it. He’s above such mundane events, after all, isn’t he?
- He’s just repeated an old urban legend, debunked at Snopes.Posted by walterplinge on 2005 12 01 at 05:01 AM • permalink
- Donna,
Likewise. I suspect it’s the media’s Hip Buzzword Of The Day(tm).
Posted by Cybrludite on 2005 12 01 at 08:14 AM • permalink
- Just as Snopes has debunked “Black Friday”, Slashdot has debunked “Cyber Monday” here. Not only as a term (invented just this year) but as a shopping phenomenon. Besides, any reference to “Black Friday” without homage to Steely Dan is ignorant.Posted by Some0Seppo on 2005 12 01 at 10:48 AM • permalink
- Thanksgiving is meant to be a day of gratitude (to God, to the nation, take your pick according to your beliefs) for having a life of ease and plenty, or for just being alive and free. It has nothing at all to do with Black Friday, which is just the day that happens to fall on the day after Thanksgiving and kicks off all the Christmas sales.
No doubt some blow-dried newscaster thought he/she was being clever by naming the day that, and it just stuck because the shopping crowds really are horrendous (and in some cases, crazy, as when they stampede stores and run over people trying to get to that rebated XBox game). I try to put it in perspective (while hiding out at home) by being grateful that people are stampeding Christmas sales instead of storming barricades in the street. It’s a freedom and democracy thing, therefore not something Mr. Gawenda can fully comprehend, apparently.
- So has this guy somewhere heard people talk of the Thanksgiving shopping season? I certainly haven’t, and I’ve been part of quite a few Thanksgivings.
Or does he simply categorize shopping days according to the holiday closest to it (never mind that “Black Friday” happens AFTER Thanksgiving).
What a dolt!
Posted by tim maguire on 2005 12 01 at 11:25 AM • permalink
- 10
Away in a manger,
No crib for a bed,
The small plastic turkey
Lay down his sweet headThe stars in the bright sky
Looked down where he lay
The small plastic turkey
Asleep on the hay.This doesn’t quite work for me.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 12 01 at 06:24 PM • permalink
- Commercial excesses at Thanksgiving? The reason T-giving is one of my favorite holidays is precisely because it is uncommercialized. You don’t buy anything but food, which we would have bought anyway. I did spend some money at the liquor store, but don’t the libs love it when you give money to the government?
Side note—liquor store employees are the only useful government employees. Not sure why they know everything there is to know about alcohol, but they do, and are very helpful.
- # 15
I always attributed the term ‘Black Friday’ to positive balances in bookkeeping
Right, the retailer finds it’s way into the black after the holiday.
Nothing to do with how sucky the crowds are or anything. Even though they are.
The term must have leapt from the board-room into the pop-culture lingo only very recently. I’m a thirty six year old American, who only heard the term for the first time this year.
Initially I thought it was a negative reference as well and thought; “Man, if shopping crowds are among our biggest woes, we truly do have alot to be thankful for.”
And we do.
A “Swell Swill” to thetree hugging sister for the original link!