Till We Drop

Is it just me, or was the post-Thanksgiving media hype about "shopping" greater than usual this year? For the past few days I've seen blanket coverage, to a degree that clearly meets the standard of bizarre. On Friday, I saw a CNN anchor interview a "foreign policy expert" (the names of both escape me) who confided breezily that immediately after the segment -- during which he opined on the escalating violence in Iraq -- he was headed out to shop.

It seems almost as if the country has decided (along with its titular Decider, as this blogger observes) to forget about the civil war underway on its watch in another part of the word, and to take refuge in the salve of "stuff."

Alas, some reality here and here.