From A Letter To Elise by The Cure
Oh I just take as much as you can throw
And then throw it all away
Oh I throw it all away
Like throwing faces at the sky
Like throwing arms round
Yesterday
I stood and stared
Wide-eyed in front of you
And the face I saw looked back
The way I wanted to
But I just can’t hold my tears away
The way you do
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-1125shop,0,6753979.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
Woman, 73, says she was knocked down, stepped on during ‘Black Friday’ at Sawgrass Mills
By Joseph Mann
Sun-Sentinel
November 25, 2005, 9:26 AM EST
“Black Friday,” the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, began in South Florida early today with a 73-year-old woman being knocked down as a crowd at an electronics store rushed a metal security gate to get inside.
The crowd of shoppers outside BrandsMart USA in Sawgrass Mills, angry at being forced to wait by security personnel, pushed their way under the security gate and down a hallway into the store, forcing dozens of people against the walls and trampling the woman.
“I was trying to get out of the way, but they knocked me down,” said Josephine Hoffman of Coconut Creek, who was standing immediately outside the gate as a human wave rushed inside, carrying her along.
“I hit my head on the floor, and people stepped on me,” said the woman, who was resting on a box of merchandise inside the store following the 7:30 a.m. incident. “I don’t understand why people do these things.”
A store manager asked whether she needed medical attention and called for assistance, while Hoffman’s two daughters phoned the police.
The incident came as shoppers lined up all over South Florida for Black Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season and the second-busiest shopping day of the year, after the Saturday before Christmas.
A woman at a Pembroke Pines Wal-Mart was also injured and required hospital treatment when she was pushed to the ground by another shopper, according to fire officials.
Shopping crowds were reported to be large around the United States because many retailers offered deep discounts, hoping to spur consumer buying amid an uncertain national economy.
Moments before the crowd burst under the metal gate at BrandsMart , Tony McLeod, another BrandsMart manager, tried to calm down shoppers, telling them the store could only allow groups of about 20 to enter the store at one time to avoid overcrowding.
BrandsMart personnel tried to keep the total number of shoppers in the store to about 500 to meet fire department regulations, he said.
“There is more than enough for everybody. The sale is going on all day,” he shouted as frustrated shoppers shouted back, complaining they were tired of waiting.
“We have your money out here,” one woman responded angrily. “We need to go to other stores. I can’t stand here all day.”
One man shouted through the gate that he had been waiting for an hour and half. A woman from Brazil, nearly in tears, asked in Portuguese whether she could be allowed inside because her husband was already there. Others complained that security personnel lowered the metal door and left them isolated from family members.
Inside the store, shoppers were calmer. There were a few hundred people inside since the store opened, but the aisles were not crowded and most of those inside were waiting patiently in long lines to reach one of the store’s 17 cashiers.
People began lining up at BrandsMarts two entrances before 4 a.m. Friday, hoping to snag some of the doorbuster specials or hundreds of other discounted items. “We came in about 4:45, and there were already lines,” said Cosmo Adamo, the general manager.
By 6 a.m., when the store opened, hundreds of people waited in long lines snaking around the building outside the main entrance, which faces a Sawgrass Mills parking lot, and at the mall entrance.
Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Shoppers Storm Stores; Officers Stop Fights
ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando police officers were called to break up some fights between shoppers early Friday as Central Floridians flocked to stores for one of the busiest shopping days of the year, according to Local 6 News.
Line jumpers at a Best Buy at the Fashion Square Mall apparently started a fight at around 11:30 p.m. Officers responded and there were no arrests.
However, one person may be arrested for starting a fight at a Wal-Mart in east Orange County early Friday.
Some shoppers waited for as long as seven hours to be the first in the doors for bargains.
The day after Thanksgiving is known as “Black Friday” because traditionally it’s seen as the day most retailers go into the “black” and start earning a profit for the year.
“I am looking for a plasma TV,” Central Florida shopper Laura Campbell said. “I can get it for $287 instead of $700.”
Local 6 News showed video of store shelves already empty.
According to a national survey, 64 percent of people polled said they plan to shop Friday.
local6.com
“You aren’t going to be her first, her last, or her only. She’s loved before, she will love again..but if she loves you now what else matters? She’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if she can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and admits to being human and making mistakes, hold on to her and give her the most you can. She’s not thinking about you every moment, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break. Don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t expect more than she can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when she makes you happy, yell when she makes you mad and miss her when shes not there. Love hard when there is love to be had”
“You aren’t going to be her first, her last, or her only. She’s loved before, she will love again..but if she loves you now what else matters? She’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if she can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and admits to being human and making mistakes, hold on to her and give her the most you can. She’s not thinking about you every moment, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break. Don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t expect more than she can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when she makes you happy, yell when she makes you mad and miss her when shes not there. Love hard when there is love to be had”
| Jimmy Carter: Bush not in line with American Values |
| Kansas City, MO – President Jimmy Carter says President Bush’s policies conflict with American values. More than a thousand people packed into Unity Temple on the Plaza for the former president to sign a copy of his new book “Our Endangered Values.” Reviews call the book biting political commentary, despite the fact that there’s an unwritten rule in American politics that former presidents do not criticize current ones. Carter says he wrote this book reluctantly, but did so because he just couldn’t stay silent anymore. “In the last 5 years there’s been a dramatic and disturbing and radical change in the values of this country,” Carter said. For example, he says peace is an American value, not pre-emptive war: “we don’t wait until our country is threatened,” Carter said, “we publicly announced our new policy is to attack a county, invade a country, bomb a county.” He says another American value is human rights. For decades the US has supported the Geneva convention saying we won’t torture prisoners, but he says now “our senators are voting to keep torture. It’s inconceivable this would happen in the United States of America.” Carter also says American politics is being infused with what he calls “fundamentalist” religion. Carter, who is a born again Christian, says blurring the line between church and state is dangerous. Carter says he’s not in politics anymore, and his new book is not partisan. He criticizes Democrats for being out of touch on the abortion issue. “I don’t think the Democratic party ought to identify itself with freedom of choice, with abortion,” he said, “it’s a litmus test for many people and I have a problem with abortion.” Carter hopes his book helps Americans debate these issues and decide on election day what America’s future will look like. Carter’s own presidency was controversial, but since then his humanitarian efforts in the world earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. Tess Koppelman, Fox 4 News tkoppelman@wdaftv4.com |
It’s always been
Wait and see
A happy day
And then you pay
And feel like shit
The morning after
But now I feel
Changed around
And instead
Of falling down
I’m standing up
The morning after
Situations get fucked up
And turned around
Sooner or later
I could be
Another fool
Or an exception
To the rule
You tell me
The morning after
Crickets spin can’t come to rest,
I’m damaged bad at best
She’ll decide what she wants
I’ll probably be the last to know
No one says until it shows
See how it is…
They want you or they don’t
What's your pleasure?
Have You Had Your Tiki Today? 