That is the quote from a Wal-Mart shopper earlier this morning who witnessed the brutal death of a Wal-Mart employee on Long Island. While trying to hold back a crowd of approximately 200 shoppers around 5:00 am EST, the 34-year-old overnight stock clerk was trampled to death after the swarm of people took the doors off the hinges and rushed into the store. Reports state that even after it became very obvious that the man was dead, most people continued to rush by and begin their frantic Black Friday shopping. Even as emergency crews attempted to revive the man, they continued to push through.

As much as I wish this was some sick joke, it is not. There are in fact people this disgusting here in our country, with such little regard for others. My sympathies go out to the victim’s family. I am not an avid supporter of capital punishment but my sincere hope is that as many as possible of those directly responsible are identified on security tapes, apprehended swiftly and put to death after a trial. I’m not talking about lethal injection here either – these filthy fucking pigs should be drawn and quartered. The kind of person so careless and reckless as to disregard another man’s life in an effort to save money while shopping, in my opinion, does not deserve to remain alive.

Read the report from the Daily News.

Quite some time ago, I was chatting with a group of people about Nokia’s effort to break into the US market with its high-end smartphone lines. Among those in the group were two well-positioned higher ups from Nokia, two bloggers and a handful of people I hadn’t been introduced to.

At one point during the conversation, we began talking about advertising and marketing. Being a marcom guy, I jumped right in. Nokia had hardly been aggressive up to that point in time (not that it is aggressive now) and I began talking about what might help the company position its devices a bit better in the US. Directly addressing the Nokians, I talked about apps.

There are only a handful of factors that separate one phone from the next in the eyes of the typical US consumer. Styling and form factor are among those factors; camera quality and dedicated multimedia keys are not. Why not focus on some of the amazing applications that have been developed for Nokia handsets? Why not bring some of this functionality – that is entirely unheard of where the typical US consumer is concerned, mind you – before the consumer and wow him/her? Show him that his handset can automatically switch profiles to silent or vibrate when he arrives at the movie theater to catch a flick. Show her that she can snap a picture and upload it instantly, without pressing a single button, to her Facebook page. Show them that they can actually speak to their handsets and their speech can be converted into text, to then be emailed/posted/texted and so on.

They looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my forehead.

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History has been made. America now has its first black President Elect and come January 20th, we will have our first black President. One can only imagine how the pioneers of the civil rights movement would feel on this day, when public writings like these two emerge:

Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States – Fred Wilson

Proud To Be an American – Mark Cuban

Had someone looked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the eyes during his toils and told him that on November 4, 2008, the American people would elect a black President at a staggering margin, his eyes would have welled instantly. To have known that his efforts and the efforts of other civil rights visionaries would bear fruit to this extent – I cannot even begin to fathom what he would have felt.

Had that person gone on to tell him that the very next day, rich white Americans would not only publicly welcome this black President, but also embrace the tax increases for the wealthy he would put in place… Dr. King would have fallen off of his chair.

November 4th, 2008 will go down in history as one of the most significant days this country has ever seen and Obama has achieved one of the greatest accomplishments of our history as a united nation. Congratulations are in order for him but more importantly, for America. In a time where the United States is literally on the verge of collapse in every sense of the word, Obama’s victory instills a new hope. He is brilliant, he is motivated, he is young, he is ambitious and perhaps most admirably for a politician, he is sincere. Barack Obama is the change this country so badly needed to survive. He will inherit America in a time of turmoil and his will be the most important Presidency of our collective lifetime. His performance as head of state remains to be seen but I firmly believe that under Obama’s leadership, we can finally begin to undo the unmitigated disaster that our political leaders and financial institutions have brought upon us over the past decade.

Dr. King had a dream and against all odds, his dream has been realized. What a country.

VOTE.