The Short Names

This year’s Christmas shopping season has had a shadow cast over it. A dark shadow of anger, violence and selfishness – the opposites of what the season is supposed to represent. There have been a couple of shootings – one in a mall, another in a Toys R Us store.
But the defining tragedy of this season is the death of Jdimytai Damour.

The 34 year old Damour was working maintenance and stock overnight at a Wal-Mart in the Vally Stream Mall on Long Island, NY. Black Friday deals had lured thousands of customers who lined up outside the store, eagerly awaiting their chances of being one of the lucky few to seize a bargain item. When Damour started to open the doors, the crowd had grown too eager and impatient, and stampeded through the doors, breaking them down and knocking Damour to the floor.

The crowd proceeded regardless, trampling and stepping over the dying man. They rushed past and knocked down other employees who tried to come to his aid. They shopped around the paramedics who tried to save his life. They became angry and refused to leave when it was announced the store would close due to the death.

We can blame commercialism or we can blame retailers that entice shoppers with limited items at special savings. We can point to a lack of security, or the foolhardiness of setting one man to open the doors to such a mob.

We will try to find someone or something to blame, but the truth is that people just like you and me, your neighbors and friends, were responsible for this tragedy. Commercialism isn’t thrust upon us, we make a choice. The crowd bursting into the store on Friday made a choice, they decided that a bargain was worth more than a human life.

But had you asked any member of that crown beforehand if they would kill someone to get a low price on a plasma TV, the answer probably would have been “no”. So what happened?

Simply, the human life that was discarded belonged to each and every shopper. Each of those responsible, each person who stepped over the stricken employee, each shopper who continued past the scene after the fact to complete their shopping, each and every one of them gave up their human lives and assumed the herd instinct of animals in their stampede.

If anything brings home the need for all that Christmas represents, it’s this realization.

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, the next logical step is to post what I’m not thankful for. Actually, I was trying to wrap my head around writing a Euclidean Distance calculator for our algorithm when I decided to take a bathroom break. The seat was down on the toilet in the men’s room. And yea, I know you don’t want to hear it, but the person who used it last didn’t need the seat down, but felt no need to put it up. So… I began to wonder why some people don’t think about anyone but themselves.

So here are some of my pet peeves, in no particular order:

1) Leaving the toilet seat down and peeing all over it (this bathroom peeve includes people who don’t wash their hands when using the restroom)
2) Not using a blinker (this is probably near the top of the list)
3) Not saying thank you
4) People who can never accept they’re wrong
5) eBay
6) Constant negativity (caveat: while I complain a lot on this blog – I assure you I pass along a good bit of positivity here and there)
7) Not taking out the trash (when it gets to the point of stinking)

It’s time to look back at the last year and think about what we’re giving thanks for today. Here’s my quick list:

1) Family. While I’m not with them today, I’m thankful for a happy, healthy, and supportive family. They’ve been behind Vyoo, well, not since the beginning, but they’ve come around.

2) Friends. We all need these. They too have been supportive, in both my personal and professional life. My good friend Nader Ghaffari always tells me, “surround yourself with good people, it serves to make you that much better”. I think I’m doing a good job of that, which is more a testament to my friends than to me.

3) The end of an era. Thank you Mr. Bush for not increasing term limits. It’ll be nice to see some positivity coming out of the States going forward.

4) Turkey. I love Thanksgiving dinner. It’s my favorite meal! Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes. Apple pie. Mmmmm!

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