28 November 2008

Underemphasis

UPDATE: Gumby the Cat has a more complete (and appropriate) version of the story. Stories like this make me wonder why anyone would specifically want the shopping season associated with their own preferred name of the holiday. Is it okay that the employee was trampled to death if he said, "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas!"? 'Cause that's the message I get from the "War on [Censored]mas" loons.

Below is half the text of a BBC news article. Emphasis mine.

Crowds of shoppers turned up at dawn to snare the best deals.

A worker died and at least three people were injured after being trampled by a crowd of shoppers at a Wal-Mart in the New York suburbs.

The day after the Thanksgiving holiday is viewed as an important test of how willing consumers are to spend.

Police said a throng of shoppers broke down the doors to the Wal-Mart store in Valley Stream, Long Island shortly after 5am, knocking the 34-year-old worker to the ground.

Electronics retailer Best Buy and department stores Kohl's and Macy's also opened their doors at dawn.

Toys R Us offered up to 60% discounts from 5am to 10am.

Several major retailers indicated that crowds were at least as large as last year's, but deep discounts are likely to hurt retailers' profit margins.

"The traffic is up compared to last year, but the bag count is down," said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group.

"There may be more casual shoppers, but they're not buying as much as last year."


Now, is it just me, or does a death deserve more than two sentences buried amongst a whole bunch of trivial shopping descriptors? At the very least, it ought to be set apart from the rest of the nonsense.

1 comment:

John said...

It amazes me that some brave defenders of xmas get so angry at any other greetings that they snarl "Merry Christmas" in a tone that implies they actually mean "F*ck you"