The place where the human spirit gets a final, crushing blow, or a Black Friday paradise?

• Pro-death: If you haven’t already heard, 31-year old Savita Halappanavardied in an Irish hospital last week because doctors refused to perform a life-saving abortion. She was already having a miscarriage. I’ll give you a minute to rage.
• Hate, hate, go away…: The last thing I did in high school was watch It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (really). But sometimes I wonder if we really are living in a mad world (and not the cool kind like Mad Men). What’s up with schools suspending students for wearing pro-LGBT shirts? (And did you hear about the all-black football team that was called “spooky?” WTF?!)
• Damn dirty apes: Okay, monkeys are not apes. But this video showing what happens when two monkeys get paid unequally sure is an interesting commentary on how it feels when things are wrong. Perhaps we could all learn a thing or two about pay equity from our primate cousins.
• The jig is up: Why are all the lady-lawyers on TV so… fake? This is a funny and insightful look.
• Black Thursday: So, Target, Walmart and a number of other retailers are opening their doors for shoppers on Thanksgiving night. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I worked retail for years and I worked every damn holiday there ever was because I needed time-and-a-half pay. But even though I worked so many Christmas Eves and Black Fridays, you always had the feeling that one thing was sacred; You would get at the very least two days a year off: Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I get that. On the other hand, I worked many years as a full-time journalist and worked every damn day of the year (including Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, New Year’s Day…). Bar none! Nothing was ever guaranteed and I had no union. (Same for the crew who picks up garbage on my street, and they do have a union.) And if I didn’t like it… well, there was a door I could use. Now, I didn’t like that. But it was also just the way it was. So part of me feels like sometimes in certain jobs you just have to suck it up. Does that suck? Abso-fucking-lutely. Another part of me thinks that there is something wrong with our society if we can’t curb our consumerism for a measly two days a year (and you still get to eat pie, damn it). Really. Two. That’s all. You still have 363 days of the year to shop! And the internet is always open. So… It just feels like a lose-lose here. And it also feels to me like this is never going back. Retail makes their money in the fourth quarter (that’s why they call it “black” Friday, folks) and they need that consumer engine to start right now (and in a sense, that is about jobs, too). Anyway, if you are so inclined, there’s a petition to encourage Target to change its mind.

** Some of my fellow Fem2.0 colleagues are involved with the newly launched Dame Magazine — a feministy, internet magazine in the flavor of Jezebel, et al. Something to peruse this week when you’re pretending to work…

** The winner of the charitable giving poll — by a landslide — is Safe Nest! They will be featured in the annual charity list coming out later this week!