Would You Give Gifts Bought At Wal-Mart Where Man Died?

JeanneSager — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:01:00 GMT

Even the most die hard Black Friday shopper had the good grace to stop talking deals when the news of a man trampled to death by shoppers at a Long Island Wal-Mart started hitting the airwaves.

What about those shoppers? Are they in their attics right now, wrapping the results of consumer greed gone horribly wrong? Do people actually feel good giving their kids ill-gotten gifts?

Maybe I'm just not one to ask. I have never been the "up at three a.m., out the door by four" shopper. I have taken extremely well to the push toward Cyber Monday over Black Friday, even if my mega-deal is swallowed in part by a shipping charge. I like to think I can be savvy without being swallowed whole by commercialism. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good deal as much as the next mother trying to make ends meet.

But isn't there a time when a deal is just too good? Must have fallen off the truck good? I mean, it's one thing to buy the kids a fleece with a ripped tag . . . another to buy them a box of "Tunka" trucks from the vendor on the street corner. Some people say what the kids don't know won't hurt them. But as parents, you know. Whether it's a game console purchased the day a man died or a pile of games picked up from a shady street dealer, there gift that's supposed to bring kids such happiness has already been marked by incredible sadness. I couldn't do it.

Could you?

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Babies And Benjamins: Should Celebs Sell Photos?

Amy Kuras — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:02:00 GMT

With the long-awaited birth of the Jolie-Pitt twins this week came the inevitable bidding war over their first photos. The couple reportedly got $11 million from People for the newborn's first photos.

They claim they'll donate it to charity. But I am still thoroughly disgusted. ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS.

I live in a city where people are losing their homes, food banks are empty, and old people can’t afford to go to the doctor and some idiot thinks THAT'S the most appropriate use of $11 million?

There's a better and more in-depth discussion of the issue here. As one of the journalism profs in the article noted, this is a couple who is already, to say the least, in a position to donate huge sums to charity. The fact that they donated half – half! – of the $4 million they got for pictures of their daughter Shiloh to worthy causes is certainly better than those celebs like Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony who say "thankyouverymuch" and pocket the cash without a second thought as to the good that money could do. And by "good" I don’t mean several new pairs of Manolos.

The only reason celebrities are celebrities is because they already have a good deal of our money. I mean, someone saw Gigli. To give them yet more for something as silly as baby pictures just feels wrong, like the world's out of whack.

And it leads to scary celebrity worship. I understand celeb's attitude that they wantot control when and how the pictures come out, but as the article linked points out, other magazines certainly don’t respectfully step off once a star inks a deal. It just feeds the cultural sickness that means Britney Spears can't go get a Slurpee without 70 photographers hounding her. Would be still even be hearing about Nicole Richie or Tori Spelling if they weren't pimping out their babies? If we gave a fraction of the attention to serious matters, not to mention a fraction of the money, that we give to celebrities and their babies we would not be in half the trouble we're in economically, politically and socially.

And, you know, there's the whole pimping out their babies aspect. I think if you're going to show off your baby as a celeb, do it for free. Otherwise, it's just exploitive. Even if the money goes to a good cause. Use some of your own millions for that and let the baby have some shred of normalcy, please. How would you feel is you'd been treated as a commodity from before you were born?

Oh well, as Northwestern journalism professor emeritus Abe Peck said: "The bottom line is the public wants to see this stuff. In a better world, maybe someone would pay $20 million for photos of Nelson Mandela's grandchildren."