Strange Days

Pepper Spray attains rock-star status

After its recent high-profile uses, pepper spray is moving up: It now rides along with iPhones.

Excuse me, we might as well make that Pepper Spray, who has recently attained rock-star status.

If you follow the news, you know Pepper Spray has been getting out of hand, but that’s only helped his (her?) popularity.

Just this past weekend, Pepper Spray inserted himself into a scuffle between an unruly Disneyland park-goer and a security guard.

Not long before, in Utah, Pepper Spray accompanied officers to a high school football game and helped break up a traditional Polynesian war dance – a dance that has never called for pressurized extracts of cayenne pepper. Apparently, neither the officers nor Pepper Spray realized a traditional war dance was taking place, so they assumed it was riot.

Although the war dance incident occurred back in October, the officers and Pepper Spray were cleared of all charges earlier this month -- another testament to Pepper Spray's power influence.

Of course, Pepper Spray’s meteoric rise to fame began back in November: his partnership with a police officer who thought UC Davis college students shouldn’t be sitting on a sidewalk in an act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

All that should be enough, but it's not.

Now, Pepper Spray is riding with your iPhone.

The SmartGuard iPhone case includes a snug sidecar for the iPhone 4 and 4s.

Apparently, it's faster to spray cayenne pepper extract than it is to dial 911 on an iPhone.

If I had an iPhone -- I'm an Android kind of guy -- I think I would be a little nervous about letting Pepper Spray so close to me face.

I do, however, see Pepper Spray sleeves and pockets as a growth industry.

Imagine, for example, baby carriers -- those backpack things -- with a sleeve on the strap for Pepper Spray, including a choice of blue or pink mini-canisters.

We could have can koozies with slender loops for spray canisters.

Maybe there's even a market for Pepper Spray wristbands.

Anything, basically, that keeps Pepper Spray closeby -- and close to your face.

-Colin Foote Burch

We aren't the world

Maybe it’s the memories I have of the 1980s.

Maybe it’s the death of Whitney Houston.

Maybe it’s the Kia commercial with Motley Crue and the band’s 1989 single “Kickstart My Heart” – you know, the song that came out when the commercial’s other star, Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima, was 8 years old.

More likely, it’s the wish that we Americans really were just like everyone else, which ironically queues in my mind another blast from the past, the feel-good single “We Are The World.”

That’s because, as I’ve watched the recent news from around the globe, I’ve come to an undeniable conclusion: We aren’t the world.

At least we in America aren’t much like the rest of the world, and that’s mostly a good thing.

While we argue about our need to reclaim something we’ve lost, or to add something we’ve never had, only 34 percent of us believe the U.S. is headed in the right direction.

Still, we’re going about the heated discussions in far better ways than other countries.

We have something other countries don’t. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but consider some contrasts.

First, look at the Occupy Wall Street movement versus popular protests in the Middle East.

In America, we might have a few people arrested and dragged off public property.

In Syria, during the past week, dozens, if not scores, have been killed daily by their own government.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters have the spine to stand – or sit – with their convictions, but they know their rights. The cops can only do so much. Lawyers will be readily available.

In Syria and in other Middle Eastern countries, popular protests don’t face ridicule from conservative radio talk show hosts and a possible trip to the city jail. Instead, they face live ammunition, military grade weapons, and unaccountable, powerful leaders who value their positions more than human life.

We aren’t the world.

Consider the financial difficulties we’re having in the United States. The sensible Simpson-Bowles plan has been more or less ignored, and politicians are debating about what to cut and whether to raise taxes.

Meanwhile, after years of being coddled by their own government – a government that required sweet employment benefits – the Grecian people responded to unavoidable cutbacks with riots and arson. "Athens Burns,” screamed The Drudge Report’s headline this past weekend.

We aren’t the world.

In England, last year’s riots, fires, and muggings might have struck a sympathetic chord among some Americans, but we’re still not expressing our concerns with a comparable level of destruction. At least not recently.

What’s probably worse is the less dramatic, yet equally disturbing, ubiquity of surveillance cameras in England. Sure, we have surveillance cameras, but not quite everywhere, not quite like England. As I’ve said in a previous column, I was surprised by the incredible number of cameras – everywhere – during my recent trips to the motherland. How could I not become self-conscious of every move I made? I was always being watched.

Something makes us different. Smarty-pants types and egg-head intellectuals might want to hose down my patriotism, but I’m not exactly waving a flag and chanting “We’re number one!” I’m just saying, look around – we aren’t the world. Really.

-Colin Foote Burch

Living in the Era of Control Freaks

We're living in the era of control freaks. You know the type -- Enlightened Ones who believe they can make the world a better place by meddling in other people's lives.

Sure, they have good intentions. Shoot, they might even have great intentions.

But their means just don't make sense, and God save us from the outcomes.

Think I'm kidding? Consider a few things the control freaks have been up to lately:

I.

At issue: SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, or the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. While attempts to move these acts into law recently became public-relations disasters for their sponsors, politicians continue to work hard to introduce new Internet regulations.

Supporters believe: Illegal online file-sharing justifies shutting down websites – without due process.

The truth is: Boom boxes with dual cassette decks – not to mention dozens of other gadgets – are just as guilty of pirating copyrighted material as file-sharing websites.

The better approach: The government should go after people who illegally use technology, not the technology. Or the websites. We still have to watch the Enlightened Ones in Washington, D.C., because they're still trying to punish websites for the crimes of some users.

II.

At issue: Smoke Free Horry’s attempt to banish cigarettes from bars and restaurants, and the organization’s recent success in North Myrtle Beach.

Supporters believe: One size fits all. The potential damage from second-hand smoke justifies one approach for everyone and every business.

The truth is: One size fits no one. True diversity and real freedom allow some businesses to accommodate smokers. Forcing all businesses to act the same way impedes commerce.

The better approach: If the North Myrtle Beach council really, really couldn’t resist shoving a new rule in our faces, they could have required businesses to post signs announcing whether their establishments are smoking or non-smoking.

Absolutely no moral or ethical principle dictates that every person should be able to go into every business and dictate the environment. Few, if any, local bars and restaurants are publicly owned.

Furthermore, employees in many industries opt for work in fields that are risky for a variety of reasons. If there had to be a new rule, the city could have required employers to provide a form explaining the risks of second-hand smoke, and that form could be signed by employees who want a job in a place that serves smokers.

The city could also have required businesses that serve smokers to install ventilation systems that would reduce the potential impact of second-hand smoke.

III.

At issue: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s recent proposal to extend his state’s sales tax to candy and beverages with added sugar. Presently, the sales tax does not apply to foods.

Supporters believe: Americans consume too much sugar, sugar is tied to several serious health problems, and anything that curbs the sweet tooth is justified.

The truth is: Your lack of self-control isn’t the government’s – or anyone else’s – responsibility but your own. “Health concerns” in our country seem to justify placing the equivalent of training wheels on damn near everything.

The better approach: Don’t add taxes to any industry during economic hard times. Use already established institutions – like public school systems – to educate citizens about the impact of sugar on their bodies. Then allow them to make their own decisions about what they eat.

One bright spot

On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – notorious in many conservative circles – struck down California’s ban on same-sex marriage, also known as Proposition 8, which passed by popular vote in 2008.

I like the upshot of the decision: a state shouldn’t be in the business of deciding who marries whom.

In other words, the overturn of Proposition 8 is one bright spot in a nation increasingly run by control freaks.

-Colin Foote Burch

Middle-school bootleggers, Ugg-ly boots, and my career as a high-school smuggler

Middle school bootleggers at Pottstown Middle School near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have forced the hand of Principal Gail Cooper.

She has banned Uggs, the fuzzy, trendy boots that allegedly feel like slippers.

I’m hoping this ban becomes a trend.

I don’t know about middle school girls, but as far as older females go, nothing ruins a great pair of legs like Uggs.

Somewhere, someone came up with the fashion-stupid idea of having women in shorts and short skirts wear Uggs. It looks tacky. It’s a turn-off. It’s just not attractive. Cosmopolitan editors, take note of this insight into the male mind.

But that’s not why Cooper banned Uggs – and any other pair of boots with loose-fitting tops.

Apparently, the middle-schoolers have been smuggling cellphones and other devices in their Uggs. The loose tops of Uggs make them easy places to stow contraband.

The principal might be accusing the middle-schoolers of breaking the rules, but I’m praising them for creativity and innovation. How many people would take trendy, fashion-stupid boots and turn them into mules for secret cellphones? Sharp move. This is the entrepreneurial thinking America needs right now. And hey, at least the kids’ Uggs aren’t carrying what the original bootleggers smuggled: booze.

This reminds me of my career as a high school smuggler.

Back in the days when the Miami Vice TV program ruled the United States, I went to a strict Baptist high school in Raleigh, N.C.

This was during the 1980s. While both law enforcement officials and popular entertainment were focused on illegal drugs, at my strict Baptist school, the contraband was different: rock-and-roll cassette tapes.

We had to smuggle our rock-and-roll cassettes if we wanted to share them with friends. We didn’t use boots. We smuggled our rock-and-roll music cassettes with the inside pockets of Members Only jackets and in the bottoms of duffle bags.

If we were caught with rock-n-roll music, we would most likely be suspended from school for one to three days. Once, one of our culottes-wearing cheerleaders had attended, during her regular out-of-school hours, a concert by Alabama, the country music super-group that years earlier had got its start at The Bowery in Myrtle Beach. For attending that concert, the cheerleader was suspended for three days.

So one day, I stood at my locker in the hall, waiting for the teachers and students to shuffle into their classrooms so I could make a transfer.

In the boy’s bathroom just minutes earlier, I had received a new shipment: the first album by Black ’n’ Blue, a band from the days of Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, and Ratt.

Black ’n’ Blue was safely stashed in the inside pocket of my Members Only jacket. Of course, Black ’n’ Blue’s first album was chocked full of rock music, so it was banned by my strict Baptist high school.

Better yet, one of the songs, clearly visible on the cassette cover, was entitled “Wicked Bitch.” My prohibited music also displayed a prohibited word.

I had a side pocket on my duffle bag. I unzipped it, pulled it open, and casually dropped Black ‘n’ Blue into the side pocket.

At some millisecond between the cassette leaving my hand and the cassette reaching the bag, the pocket decided to close flat against the bag.

The cassette slid off the side of the bag and landed on the hard, pure floors of the strict Baptist high school.

The cassette cover separated into its two pieces, and the cassette slid away. Three pieces of Black ‘n’ Blue sat uncovered in the middle of the hallway.

The principal’s wife rounded a corner in the hallway, and she walked toward me at an alarming rate of speed.

I was busted. I was in big trouble. The principal would kill me, and then my parents were going to resurrect me and kill me again. Better yet, I was going to have to give an account of “Wicked Bitch” to a woman, to the principal’s wife.

Suddenly, however, the principal’s wife took a quick turn down a short hallway. She had been heading for the faculty restroom all along.

I dropped to the floor and scooped up the three pieces. I shoved them into my bag.

Other cassettes were similarly endangered during smuggling operations at the strict Baptist high school, but never quite to that extent.

Now that I’m older, I look at schoolhouse smuggling this way: At least those middle-schoolers in Pennsylvania have been smuggling something their parents already know they have.

And maybe prohibiting something just encourages people to find creative, innovative ways to transport and hide forbidden things.

-Colin Foote Burch 

The dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking rich

Nope, I didn’t vote for Mitt Romney, and why the hell would I?

Mr. Precious Clean-Cut Elite gave 13.73 percent of his income to charity in 2010, and an estimated 19.14 percent in 2011, according to tax returns.

That’s $2.98 million Romney gave from $21.7 million he earned in 2010, and a projected $4 million from $20.9 million he earned in 2011.  

What is he doing – showing off?

Clearly those two years of charitable giving were designed to damage the president, but I think the Obamas were more sensible. Of the $1.2 million Michelle and Barack earned between 2000 and 2004, they gave $10,772 to charity, less than 1 percent.

Now that’s a presidential family I can identify with.

I’m not sure what relieved me more: to know that President Obama wants to increase taxes on the rich, or to know that the Obamas' $1.2 million over the course of 5 years isn’t rich. I’m going with the latter, unless I win the Powerball drawing.

Recent events – the mortgage crisis, unemployment, outsourcing – indicate the rich in this country are out of control. And they’re all in it together.

The rich are a class of clones, an elite cabal of likeminded individuals, an assembly bonded in groupthink, a gaggle of Republican gangsters. Therefore, George Soros isn’t rich.

The craziness of the rich has manifested itself locally, too.

For example, a few years ago, a local newspaper columnist wrote about a Briarcliffe Acres woman who was paying the electrical bill for street lights in a disadvantaged section of Myrtle Beach.

Now we all know what we would do – we would have spent that money on a 22-year-old single malt scotch, or maybe a 22-year-old single girl. That’s what the rich do each day while we’re slaving away: They’re drinking and screwing.

Speaking of what the rich do with their money, consider Bill Gates. I can’t believe how wealthy he’s become – simply by holding us hostage to Windows. We can’t possibly use anything else to run our computers, so Gates is to blame for our predicament, and while he holds us in this predicament, he picks our pockets.

The man has become so wealthy, he and his wife started The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, you know, just in case someone forgets their names. Their foundation is doing a bunch of stuff outside America, like trying to end polio, fight malaria, and grow better rice to feed the hungry – projects basically focused on foreign countries.

But we Americans are part of the political and economic project that made Gates’ wealth possible, and we live in a democracy. Shouldn’t we be allowed to decide how much of Gates’ money he should be allowed to use as he sees fit? We could vote on that amount, and then we could make sure the rest is handled by our lean, efficient, upright federal government.

Hey, it’s not our fault those people in foreign countries have polio, malaria, and hunger pains. Gates’ money – and the money of all wealthy Americans – should be used on us.

-Colin Foote Burch

Please don't change the world

Following the Myrtle Beach debate among Republican presidential candidates, I’m wondering what kind of person really wants to be a leader.

I don’t have the Myrtle Beach debate’s transcript in front of me, but I’ve noticed that many of these controlled political food-fights involve the word “I.”

To be a candidate is to brag.

Brag about yourself and belittle others.

The candidates want to change the world, and they try to convince us to let them do it.

Which is worse – when would-be voters start to believe the candidates’ public-relations campaigns, or when candidates start to believe their own PR?

Maybe our political situation is worse when both happen at the same time.

Some psychological research suggests that the most engaging, charismatic leaders are less likely to be stable.

In other words, the more appealing a leader is, the more likely he’ll be crazy.

(Yes, that’s the male pronoun, because in most cases, devastating political and religious leaders have been men.)

Len Oakes, a psychologist and cult survivor, has researched so-called “charismatic” personalities. Following a path carved by sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), Oakes sees this puzzling, underlying quality called “charisma” behind many religious and political leaders.

In his 1997 book Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities, Oakes writes about research conducted by psychologist Heinz Kohut.

“Kohut studied a difficult class of disturbed patients with what is known as narcissistic disorders. As he studied them, he noticed similarities between them and charismatic leaders. Kohut spoke of charismatic personalities rather than leaders because most of his patients were not leaders — indeed, some were barely able to function — but they possessed many of the traits of charismatic leaders.”

So crazy people and charismatic leaders have something in common. Lucky us – you know, us non-leaders.

My use of that quotation, isolated from the rest of the book, isn’t entirely fair. Charismatic politicians have the ability to “arouse the passions of the followers” and “channel them toward good or evil ends,” Oakes writes. His political examples include Churchill and Gandhi as well as Hitler.

However, as Oakes continues to summarize Kohut’s research, I find it hard not to think of some politicians in America today.

“What was it among his narcissistic patients that made Kohut think of charismatic leaders? He initially noticed that when they presented for therapy, they showed grandiose self-confidence and – unlike most patients – an extraordinary lack of self-doubt.”

Self-doubt is a tricky subject for political leadership. After all, a bold vision isn’t a bad thing, and the Republican candidates at least are trying to convince us of their bold visions.

John F. Kennedy is presented as a strong, visionary leader in an Autumn 2010 Personnel Psychology article by Benjamin Galvin, David Waldman, and Pierre Balthazard.

“For an example of a bold vision, we can identify President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1962 address before a joint session of Congress of the United States, in which he proclaimed his vision of how the United States should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Such a vision was very much in line with the bold qualities described earlier and has been called ‘one of the boldest initiatives ever uttered by a national leader’ (Jordan, 2003, p. 209). Specifically, it was grand and unfettered by existing doubts and constraints. It was also motivational in its appeals to American values of exploration and technological advancement. Further… it was extremely bold, it was also likely perceived by most people to be at least within the realm of possibility, thus making the vision to be at least somewhat realistic and tangible...”

Nothing wrong with that. Arguably, JFK changed the world for the better.

What motivated him to do that? What drove him? We can’t easily know.

What we can know is why some people are attracted to charismatic leaders.

As Oakes explains, old-time sociologist Weber thought that Western civilization was becoming increasingly ruled by rational processes. This created a kind of “iron cage” for the human soul, “turning daily existence into an alienated, mechanical, meaningless routine.”

“But Weber also believed that ideas – especially religious ideas – can profoundly influence society, and that they cannot simply be dismissed as a function of underlying social processes,” Oakes writes. “One source of new ideas is the periodic emergence of charismatic prophets.”

In a sense, we want charismatic leaders. We want them to bring renewed – or rediscovered – meaning to our lives. We want them to tell us the world can change.

We just don’t want those charismatic leaders to be crazy, to lead us into suicide or genocide.

The trouble, especially in politics and religion, is the level of commitment to a leader. I think people tend to place more trust – and more actual heart-felt hopes -- in political and religious leaders than any other type of leader. This opens followers to heartache, maybe even tragedy.

Perhaps some people who involved themselves with politics and religion really want to influence the world with ideas and convictions bigger than themselves.

Perhaps some people are just wired to serve and put others first.

But considering the work of Oakes and others, I’m going to be wary of those who are eager to lead.

Sometimes that eagerness is just plain craziness.

-Colin Foote Burch

They don't care if it's wrong or if it's right -- just if it's illegal

I stood waiting in the checkout line at the Walmart on U.S. 501 between Carolina Forest and Coastal Carolina University.

A couple of rows away, a sign announced that selling cigarettes to kids is not just illegal – it is wrong.

Thank God for that sign. I didn’t have to sort out whether it was just illegal or actually wrong.

That’s one of the most confusing things about the world today – you can do something illegal that can't possibly be wrong -- except to certain types of busybodies.

Take, for example, this horrible sex crime, as reported by Kristine Gill of the Scripps Howard News Service:

NAPLES, Fla. - The assistant principal of an elementary school called law enforcement to report a "possible sex crime" after two students shared a kiss.

Deputies were dispatched Wednesday to Orange River Elementary School after Assistant Principal Margaret Ann Haring telephoned her concern.

Haring told deputies she had two students, both under 12, who kissed while in physical education class. Haring said one of them was debating about who liked who more.

The student then went over and kissed the other. The smooch was witnessed by a teacher.

"This incident is more of a simple assault, though by definition there would have to be a victim," Sgt. Stephanie Eller said.

Exactly. There would have to be a victim. But our world is now full of victimless crimes.

Sometimes, law enforcement officials just have to imagine the possibility of a victim. And apparently, you might be a threat if you’re reading a book. Charles Oliver notes:

Folk singer Vance Gilbert says he was pulled off a flight from Boston to Washington by Transportation Security Administration agents and officers from the Massachusetts State Police and questioned about his reading habits. They apparently found it suspicious that he was reading a book about vintage aircraft while flying.

He had to be questioned because everyone knows you can take control of a high-tech jetliner with a little information about old flying machines.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing new about our nonsensical American disconnect between what’s wrong and what’s illegal.

In his 1994 book The Death of Common Sense, Philip Howard told this story of counterproductive laws:

In the winter of 1988, Mother Teresa's nuns of the Missionaries of Charity walked through the snow in New York's South Bronx in their saris and sandals looking for abandoned buildings to convert into homeless shelters. They found two, which New York offered them at $1 each. The nuns set aside $670,000 for the reconstruction, then, for a year-and-a-half, they went from hearing room to hearing room seeking approval for the project.

Providence, however, was no match for law. New York's building code requires a lift in all new or renovated multiple-story buildings of his type. Installing a lift would add upwards of $130,000 to the cost. Mother Teresa didn't want to devote that much money to something that wouldn't really help the poor. But the nuns were told the law couldn't be waived even if a lift made no sense.

The plan for the shelter was abandoned. In a polite letter to the city, the nuns noted that the episode "served to educate us about the law and its many complexities."

I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure those Sisters walked away saying, “What total bullshit!”

Canadians, as you might expect, are even sillier, considering another dispatch from Oliver’s blog:

Officials at Earl Beatty Junior and Senior Public School in Toronto have banned all balls that aren't made of sponge. The move comes after a parent was hit in the back of the head with a soccer ball.

That parent is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Perhaps we can take comfort knowing that such nonsense happens overseas, too. Oliver writes:

Dinah and Stig Mason took four acres of neglected and overgrown land in Devon, England, and turned it into a small farm and orchard. They also took a small horse barn on the property and turned it into a home, and local officials say that is too much. The land is zoned for agriculture, not a residence. So they evicted the Masons from their home.

Maybe it’s time to bring our idea of illegal and our idea of wrong closer together.

-Colin Foote Burch

Welcome to the last year in human history

Welcome to 2012, the last year in human history.

Some people think the world will end in December. Having just survived the holiday season, I’m fine with the end of the world.

But it will never happen. Nothing says “divine punishment” like standing in a line of after-Christmas returns – and when the money spent on that frigging Cuisinart could have been sent to Haiti, you know we’re all in for a little divine punishment.

In 2012, I believe something less spectacular, but probably more meaningful, will happen: the Rapture of all the books in the Left Behind series.

But if the Southern Baptists are caught up in the clouds, too, I’m OK with that.

Be warned: At one moment, you’ll be admiring your shelf of end-times-titillation literature – and the next moment, an empty shelf.

Part of the basis for the Left Behind series, the Biblical book of Revelation, is so popular, most folks don’t know the great Protestant Reformer Martin Luther didn’t think it even belonged in the Bible.

That’s because Luther suspected someone like Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins would eventually create the Left Behind series.

Missing out on a little inspired writing is far better than sparking something like a book series that results in a Kirk Cameron film.

Anyway, the West is going through a long spell of religious questioning and Bible fatigue, so we like to look to other sources of Doomsday prophecy.

That brings us to the calendar that ends on 2012.

Supposedly, some tribe in some departed South American civilization ended their calendar at the year 2012, and of course that has everything to do with what happens this year.

The Mayans were great prophets and prognosticators, and they are valid sources of information today because, uh, they were ancient and exotic.

I haven’t watched enough Discovery Channel or History Channel to be sure, but I don’t think anyone has theorized that perhaps the Mayan calendar ended at 2012 because, say, the guy making it was a lazy jackass, or the gal designing it was a virgin scheduled for sacrifice just before she got to 2013.

Right when she completed 2012, the high priest said, “Thanks for your hard work and sexual purity. Now we’re going to cut out your heart so we’ll get a good harvest after you’re dead.”

If you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto, you know exactly what Mayan sacrifices were like – in Gibson’s bloody daydreams.

Enough people have questioned the popular understanding of the Mayan calendar – and others have questioned the accuracy of Gibson’s film – but still, many people believe the world wraps up later this year.

I want to ask these folks – are you really embracing a calendar produced by people who sacrificed fellow humans?

Is that what makes the Mayan’s so appealing?

No. The appeal is mystery, myth, and mysticism, and maybe the otherworldliness of a lost civilization with an active imagination -- one that encompassed the seen and the unseen, the past and the present and the future.

When someone becomes obsessed with the end of the world, I don’t really understand.

Plenty could happen in the meantime. 

For most of us, the bigger concern is the 18-wheeler crossing the U.S. 501 median, the nut-job entering Chick-fil-A with an automatic rifle, or the stray baseball landing at just the right spot on the skull. 

-Colin Foote Burch

Shop or your neighbors will lose their jobs

You know some kids – whether in Horry County, South Carolina, or in a third-world village in Africa – had a lousy Christmas. Maybe they had no Christmas at all.

As Christmas Day gets closer each year, ministers and do-gooders remind us that Christmas isn’t about material things. They remind us to keep Christ in Christmas, tell us that it’s better to give than receive, and bemoan the intensity of our consumerism.

Yet two days after Christmas 2011, the news suggests we might not have spent enough on our friends, families, and selves.

Sears Holdings Corp. announced they are closing “between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores.” For the eight weeks ending on Christmas Day, Sears and Kmart sales were down a combined 5.2 percent. We have seven Sears stores in the greater Grand Strand area, and three Kmarts, according to the companies' websites.

While Sears Holdings hasn’t said how many jobs will be affected, The Inquisitr notes that other Sears and Kmart stores probably can’t absorb all the employees of 100 to 120 locations.

So thanks a lot, acquisitive, consumerist Americans – you obviously didn’t spend enough on Christmas this year.

Were you giving to charities instead of retailers?

Did your family decide not to make this Christmas about shopping, spending and big gifts under the tree?

Oh, that’s so good of you. Now people are going to lose jobs in an already struggling economy.

Spending at retail stores is charitable giving. If you don’t shop, someone could lose a job.

Admittedly, that’s not the full picture.

You did shop, didn’t you? Shopping wasn’t quite the issue, was it?

For one thing, U.S. retailers, as a whole, saw a 4.5 percent increase in sales during the last week before Christmas, when compared to the same week last year.

So consumerist, acquisitive Americans did a little better this year – pat yourselves on the back. Most of you simply decided to steer clear of Kmart and Sears.

That’s probably because, at some locations, Sears and Kmart stores can make for uninspired shopping experiences.

Sears and Kmart stores don’t have that Target sparkle that appeals to every middle-class mom with a Suburban. Even Walmart can be, in many locations, a more enjoyable shopping experience than Sears.

But maybe the plight of those Kmart and Sears stores – and their workers – points out something about our economy: It depends way too much on people buying things they don’t absolutely need.

For better and worse, we can’t withhold our money from Retail Land -- no matter what we're buying -- without impacting our neighbors. And when our sales-associate neighbors lose their jobs, not all of them will have the computer-whiz abilities to slip into an information-technology career.

Maybe the real issue is the sustainability of our retail economy, at least in its current form.

On one hand, as reported by The Two-Way, 120 Sears and Kmart stores would amount to about 3 percent of the parent company’s 4,000 locations, even if the executives haven’t said how many people will lose jobs. Three percent doesn’t seem like much. Just a minor adjustment.

On the other hand, consider why these stores are closing. According to Sears Holdings, for the eight weeks ending on Christmas Day, Kmart sales were down 4.4 percent and Sears sales were down 6 percent.

I don’t have a Masters in Business Administration degree, and I realize budgets are tight. So I’ll just play the dummy: I don’t understand how anything can be sustainable with such a slim margin for error. Consumers are fickle and the economy is a roller coaster, even in better times.

Perhaps this is a chance for Sears to reinvent itself. Some commenters on an NPR blog have noted that Sears more or less moved from a full-time sales staff to a part-time sales staff, and that took the appeal from the department store.

Perhaps Sears and Kmart can find an appeal like Target’s.

Old names can reinvent themselves.

Consider the brand of world-famous rock band Van Halen. Brothers Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen brought back their original front man, David Lee Roth, one of three lead singers over the years. Then the brothers added Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang on bass guitar to replace original bassist Michael Anthony.

With something old and something new, they’re getting ready to tour in 2012, and I bet tickets will sell out.

-Colin Foote Burch

The rise of the Bon Jovi myth

Twitter, my favorite social networking site, recently became the conduit for a fake story that Jon Bon Jovi had died.

Bon Jovi responded to the false reports by posting a photo of him with a sign that read, “Heaven looks a lot like New Jersey.”

I’m not sure how he got Heaven and Hell mixed up, but that’s not the point.

Think about how many fake things have shaped and influenced our world. Devious tweeters have also posted fake death announcements for Mick Jagger, Will Smith, Bill Cosby, and Justin Bieber. Colin Powell became the vehicle for a fake story about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. “The Girls Next Door” and “Kendra” on the E! channel became vehicles for Kendra Wilkinson’s fake boobs.

I follow various news organizations on Twitter – thus creating a personalized news feed – but the thing that bothers me about the social networking site is how quickly it can deliver false information. A few people decide to “re-tweet,” and before our national debt can jump another billion, everyone on the planet knows the news.

Imagine this scenario: Someone tweets the false news of Bon Jovi’s death, and just after that, terrorists hit power grids across the United States.

For hours, days, weeks, perhaps even months, everyone believes Bon Jovi is dead.

The nation, already in severe withdraws from television and Internet, trudges through the additional burden of knowing Bon Jovi would never sing “Livin’ on a Prayer” around a post-electricity campfire.

This mass deception further dispirits the struggling millions who don’t know how to cook over an open flame – no freezers plus no microwaves equals no meals. Livin’ on a prayer, indeed.

So while most Americans believe that Bon Jovi is dead, the man himself begins appear to groups of people and proclaim he really is alive, never died, and the death announcement was just a hoax on Twitter.

This only complicates matters.

Some claim to have seen the ghost of Bon Jovi. Others claim he has become a zombie. Still others claim that he has risen from the dead, adding that it kind of makes sense because Bon Jovi concerts were religious experiences.

But at least without Twitter, these rumors take longer to move around.

Then again, that makes the rumors into taller tales.

As the months pass, news of Bon Jovi spreads. Now some are saying he touched a darkened television set in Sayreville, N.J., and the tube illuminated with re-runs of VH1’s “Pop Up Video.”

Others now say he levitated above a crowd under a New York City bridge and proclaimed, “You live for the fight when that’s all that you’ve got.”

Many copied down those words on their tablets – paper tablets that required pencils.

But some copied down, “You live for the night,” not “fight,” so divisions form among Bon Jovi’s followers. Most people feel obligated to choose a side, so one’s beliefs about Bon Jovi become the central matter of identity in the U.S.

The "night" side and the "fight" side come up with various rituals and institutions to memorialize their founder and instill proper beliefs in their youngsters (how are those youngsters going to rebel? Become religious fundamentalists?).

Entrepreneurs invent hand-tooled leather bracelets that read, "WWBJD?" All the kids wear them.

So even in the post-electricity apocalypse, Twitter creates a new myth, a new religion, and Bon Jovi’s name lives on in a blaze of glory.

-Colin Foote Burch