Extreme Shopping

Black Friday is usually a day most people in America get quite excited for, but maybe almost too excited. Yeah of course the outrageous sales and deals that are put out are something to be thrilled about; and the perfect timing of the date, only being a month before christmas, is also an excuse for someone to go crazy about. However, when we look at the big picture of Black Friday, and what has happened in the past with it, it gives some of us a reason to almost be scared to participate in it.
There have been too many stories in the past, and even during the most recent Black Friday which took place only yesterday, where people shopping have gotten blatantly injured and even killed by other shoppers. To me it sounds almost a little extreme, to risk buying something in exchange for possibly harming your life. Some of the most famous and brutal Black Fridays accidents can be viewed in the link here.
Number one on the list is one of the most famous cases where in 2008, a crowd of over 2,000 people busted open the doors of Walmart, and ending up trampling a worker and killing him. Another person affected was a pregnant women who was knocked to the ground, and ended up having a miscarriage; thus, another life being taken away by hungry shoppers.
This year, shoppers waiting outside the store Urban Outfitters were able to smash the tall, glass door; which resulted in 5 shoppers being injured by the glass shards.
What do you think about what has happened in the past and also the present with the holiday? Do you feel as though this reflects on our society as a whole being cold hearted? To what extent do you feel America is driven by profit and greed? Comment below.

Fox and Enemies

Many people I'm sure by now have seen the viral video of a former New Trier graduate, Max Rice, on Fox and Friends. If not, I found it on this website. In the video, he's being interview by one of the hosts on Fox and Friends, however, things don't go exactly as planned. The interview was meant to give Americans a view on how a young, unemployed individual, like himself, has switched his vote from Obama to Romney, because of how bad things have become for people like him in this country.

However, instead of taking the interview seriously; he decided to give amusing, and not serious responses to the host, as you can see on the video. Later, it claims that in the text, he did this interview as a joke because of his hate for "Fox and Friends." He says, “I’ve always hated ‘Fox & Friends’ . . . It’s so horrible for this nation, it’s so clearly fake. Now I know firsthand."
One of my brother's friends, Nathan Rice, who is Max Rice's younger brother told my brother that in the situation, Fox gave his brother a script to read off of, so everything he said would've been planned and out of Fox's mouth... nothing Max said would've been his own thoughts and opinions. So when it came to the interview, instead of reading the script, he decided to throw it out and wing the whole thing, and give completely non-serious responses in an effort to try and embarrass the show. So when the host started to hear him say these unplanned things, they shut him off and didn't let him return back.
Do you think what he did was right? In class we've been discussing the limitation of civil liberties... Do you think this is a case where the freedom of speech was taken away?
We've also been discussing how to view the world in more of a critical manner... this makes me really question the things we see on the news, and how true and genuine things really are.