tarnished for me. Two of my most revered traditions were murdered.

tradition of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving where

America’s insane gather at stores all across the country to

celebrate items on sale. It is the preparatory day to the next

holiday, Christmas, which has become an icon of greed. Everyone

that is welcome in our family. Although I make fun of the Admiral’s

obsession with the day and her hours of planning to make it a

success, it is a great savings to us, and I do love having the

Friday after the Thursday to myself with all the cold turkey

sandwiches I can stomach. That tradition is dead now. Greed has

is Black-Thanksgiving Night. The Admiral no longer rises while the

sun is still lighting China to be in line for the 5 a.m. openings.

This year, we barely got the dishes and kitchen cleaned before she

left at 10 p.m. to be in line for the midnight openings, and all

because of greed. The fault lies not so much with her, or her

myriad co-shoppers, but on the part of corporate

planning in June, “How can we get more out of Black

offers some junior executive who is destined for the

to midnight,” says another, “it’ll still be Black Friday, but we

have another five hours for shoppers to

Black Friday was murdered; indifference to family in pursuit of the

dollar. That is greed. I fear for what is next. Will we now have

Black Halloween so we can start Christmas shopping the last day of

Thanksgiving Day was one that I have celebrated every Thanksgiving

of my life and one that I thought would never die, but it has. The

Texas-Texas A&M game was played for the last time this past

Thanksgiving Day. It too died of

business. The University of Texas sports programs produce millions

of dollars in revenue annually. Some say a billion. That’s really

Conference was beginning to fall apart with the exit of Nebraska

and Colorado, Texas was wooed by the Pac 10, and almost went, but

decided to stay to save the Big 12. How noble of them. What wasn’t

reported at the time was that Texas stayed because the conference

guaranteed them more money. Remember, this is about

Texas to create its own media sports outlet called the Longhorn

Network. Good for Texas, but what about the other big school in the

who have always thought of themselves as the little brother in the

state, and they too wanted a bigger piece of the pie. There wasn’t

can’t make the money here at home, we’ll make it elsewhere,” and

they did. When 2012 rolls around, the Texas A&M Aggies will,

for the first time in their, and the University of Texas’ history,

not be in the same conference. A&M will be part of the SEC, and

if you want to know why something happens in business or

government, follow the money trail. Greed, it has murdered a

traditions. I hope there will be a point when we as consumers will

say “enough” to corporate America and put a stop to this

encroachment into Thanksgiving. I also hope that cooler heads will

prevail and someone will write a check to get out-of-conference

games for both schools re-scheduled, and the game will be played

away as long as we value the temporal things of the world over

spiritual and family values. Perhaps we are already past greed and

onto something worse. I wonder, but I hope. I can’t abide another

murdered tradition for the sake of a