Home
In this issue
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 12, 2006 / 22 Kislev, 5767

Tis the season for chaos

By Brad Dickson


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Tis the season. The season for long lines, impatient people, and occasional news reports of fatal shootings over parking spaces. A season of greed, gluttony, and simmering rage as multitudes of Starbucks-fueled shoppers, many ill with colds and flu, battle it out for merchandise, while coughing, sneezing, sneering and cursing at one another.


I want to make it clear, I enjoy the holidays. Ok, that was a lie. It seems like the politically correct thing to say. But you’ll have to excuse me, I just spent ninety minutes on a trip to the store that would normally have taken half an hour. After fighting heavy holiday traffic I made it to the retail establishment, one of those places where you pay to be a member so you can enjoy the privilege of spending 4.95 for a drum of shampoo that will last you through 2012.


But that beats the alternative. Never a fan of malls, the last time I voluntarily went to one when I wasn’t staring at a birthday or holiday deadline they still featured organ stores. Now malls feature elaborate, tricked out food courts because Americans are so fat we can’t possibly walk fifty feet from Sears to the record store without stopping off for a slice of pizza and a half-gallon of Haagen-Daaz.


So we shop, with pizza cheese running down our chins, crust dangling from our hair, our noses dripping onto for sale items, having to endure the inane “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” for the five millionth time, screaming into our cell phones to be heard over that repugnant dog barking “Jingle Bells.” If you have not been to a big city mall in mid to late December picture a European soccer riot if the rioters were less civilized and carrying brightly colored bags.

Donate to JWR


A couple years ago a shopping mall Santa in California was fired for making an obscene gesture at a teenager who heckled him, and to me this sums up what this season has devolved into.


I miss the old days when stores weren’t so crowded, things weren’t so commercialized and hectic and people weren’t so angry. I miss the days when store Santas were conscientious about their work, and little kids didn’t leave “ jolly” St. Nick’s lap screaming in bloody terror over the alcohol-fueled missives of an embittered man in a red suit, sending our tykes off to years of therapy.


I miss the days when this country wasn’t as overpopulated and we could actually travel from Point A to Point B this time of year without encountering mass chaos. When people seemed happy during the holidays, when excitable, healthy children with their rosy red cheeks aglow ran up the mall down escalator. Now our children have piercings through their cheeks and are so obese they make it halfway up the down escalator before running out of breath and collapsing into fat, tattooed, illiterate heaps.


I long for an era when people were considerate of one another and respectful of strangers. Now the stores are battlegrounds, domestic Fallujah’s, only the poison gas is dispensed by fake-smiling, Botoxed, Stepford women at perfume counters.


I pine for a time when mall parking garages didn’t turn into demolition derbies and cacophonies of honking horns, screeching brakes, blasting stereos, car alarms and motorists who feel their rights have been violated shouting expletives in 13 languages and threatening to strangle one another with their “ Peace On Earth” bumper stickers.


If malls were POW camps the U.N. Security Council would step in and shut them down for operating under inhumane conditions.


I miss yesteryear when at least some folks did their Hanukkah and Christmas shopping early, and didn’t wait for the “biggest shopping day(s) of the year” when the stores basically turn into raging cauldrons of hate. There has to be a better way.


I’ll be doing the rest of my shopping online.


Scrooge was a visionary.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Comment by clicking here.

JWR contributor Brad Dickson was a monologue staff writer for The Tonight Show With Jay Leno for 13 years. His latest book, "Maybe Life's Just Not That Into You: When You feel Like the World's Voted You Off" will be out shortly. Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.).



Archives

© 2006, Brad Dickson

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works