Happy non-shopping day!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all and a happy non-shopping day today.  In addition to NOT shopping today, I'm going to try to get out to Small Business Saturday tomorrow and support local stores. Yes, I hate to shop. Yes, I know that this is something being supported by American Express, and yes, I know Consumerism is Bad yadda yadda yadda, but at least it's in the right direction and AmEx deserves some props for it, don't you think?

My desire to support local businesses is inspired by Amazon's evil Judas action last year about turning stores into shopping showrooms and local shoppers into unpaid agents in its quest for world domination so that it can undercut the prices online. I have heard that some people even do this in independent clothing stores: try on clothes and then write down the information so that they can get the clothes online for cheaper.  It's legal, but it's unethical. I'd say it would serve these people right when there are no more stores because they've driven them out of business, but that would be an expensive "I told you so" for the rest of us, since the stores would have to cease to exist for that to happen.

Yes, it's more inconvenient, not to mention expensive, to pay shipping rates and stand in line at the post office for stuff you buy locally, but here's the thing: If we don't support local independent stores, who's going to?

And since this is a MOOC-free post, any parallels you see between this and previous questions raised about MOOCs on this blog are purely coincidental.