I'm sorry. I didn't mean any disrespect to folks who stay home on bnd. As I said, I stay home too, but mostly because I'd have to be a lot crazier than I am to go shopping that day. I was reacting to the notion that anybody who intentionally stays home that day is somehow an activist, and that folks who do go out and shop are all mindless consumers. I was reacting specifically to a person who mouthed off about his own uberhipness (and how do you do the umlauts, please?) and about the parasitic nature of anybody who didn't also stay away from the stores. I took this personally because he's a rich white college boy and he was talking about a poor black woman in my neighborhood. I was also responding to the smug attitude I've encountered from lots of armchair activists about this whole thing, who act like they're radicals just because they stay home on this one particular day. I love Christmas, and I love giving presents. I make most of mine, and I don't spend much because I don’t have much to spend. But I like thinking about other folks and making or buying some little thing that I think will please them. I don't feel obligated to spend a lot, and I don't feel guilty or inadequate because I can only buy my kid a few things for under the tree or because I can't match my brother in spending, etc. Some of the same folks who feel shamed and unworthy because they can't be good little consumers are also being shamed and made to feel unworthy because they try to do what little they can to fit into this mass hysteria. It's fine to stay home of course, and really the only sane thing to do on bnd. It's grand to rail against our economy of excess and poverty, and to march against the politicians who celebrate this stark inequality and call it prosperity. But it isn't fine to dehumanize anybody (except maybe the politicians) and that's what I was reacting to in my (admittedly) ineffectual way.