Hello to you all on this Black Friday morning. NO, I am not, will not and have not been shopping today. There is nothing we need or want so badly that we will go out. The morning news has shown pictures of the major malls in the area and they are all packed. Nor are we going to do any shopping for Christmas. Several years ago the old tradition of buying gifts for everyone in the family became onerous even for the best-off of us. We went through the phase of doing the 'Secret Santa' for one adult and focusing on the children (under 16, which made some of them unhappy--poor babies). But, although all the grandkids are over 16, the great-grands now number 10, I think, not counting the step kids of the blended families. Too many, and we don't really know their likes and dislikes, wants and needs, well enough to shop for them. There are times when a little bit of money is the only way to go.

We had a nice little Thanksgiving dinner at Sister's. This year she insisted that all of her kids, all adults with families of their own, hold their own family dinners. Both she and Sister-in-Law are getting older and the burden of these mass dinners are getting to be much too much. It was rather nice to have an (almost) adult only meal.

The protest over the 'porno-scanners' and TSA 'security gropes' appears to have gone nowhere. I am not surprised. With most people wanting to simply get to where ever they were going with the least hassle possible during this holiday period, it was simply the wrong time. Many may have been sympathetic to the complaints but had more pressing concerns. I think the attempted strike actually targeted the wrong party. Michael Moore, in one of his posts I get by e-mail, noted that during the health insurance industry's efforts to smear him the major fear of the industry was that his movie, 'Sicko,' might ignite a populist fury that would target them and their profits. As I read that I thought that those who want to reign in the TSA should have targeted the airlines. If enough people decided to take the pronouncement of which ever government official that was who told us that flying was a 'priviledge not a right' seriously and opted to use other transportation alternatives, the airlines would push for changes because their newfound profits would be threatened. What troubles me even more is the hits I have been hearing about extending the airport measures to other areas of mass transit. So some 65 years after WWII we institute Nazi style travel restrictions and sacrifice freedom of movement in the name of security???