And so the madness has spread

At the end of each month, we induct something or someone into the Sick Phoque Club. November 2019’s induction is Black Friday. It starts right after the American Thanksgiving holiday and it’s the traditional beginning of the Christmas shopping season, and it has become notorious for shoppers fighting over the huge discounts. The ritual has begun to spread to New Zealand, where I have seen several retailers here getting in on the action (but fortunately none of the fighting) including a gun shop. That’s right, I saw a gun shop in Christchurch advertising Black Friday discounts. The gun shop in question was one called Gun City, which opened a second Christchurch location at the roundabout on the corner of Blenheim Road and Main South Road a few months ago. This is not the sort of thing that should be peddled so soon after a terrorist shooting. Having all those discounts on firearms in the name of “but everyone else is doing it” is totally disrespectful to the memory of those who died on March 15. And Black Friday in general is no better. It’s just another excuse for humanity to spend and consume itself to the brink of extinction. Christmas is already a time when capitalist and socialist causes alike are out to squeeze every last cent out of you.