Word: blackness
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Here's hoping you avoided the food coma: you'll need your wits about you for Black Friday. The traditional day-after-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza has become a full-contact sport, with crazed shoppers determined to find the best deals, sometimes with tragic results. In last year's frenzy, a worker at a New York Walmart was trampled to death when the store opened its doors; two shoppers were shot in a dispute at a Toys "R" Us in California. The ensuing safety concerns may have prompted some shoppers to think twice, but retailers still expect a bonanza: the weekend...
...term Black Friday itself was originally used to describe something else entirely - the Sept. 24, 1864, stock-market panic set off by plunging gold prices. Newspapers in Philadelphia reappropriated the phrase in the late 1960s, using it to describe the rush of crowds at stores. The justification came later, tied to accounting balance sheets where black ink would represent a profit. Many see Black Friday as the day retailers go into the black or show a profit for the first time in a given year. The term stuck and spread, and by the 1990s Black Friday became an unofficial retail...
...Nevertheless, retailers continue to tie one-day in-store sales to Black Friday. In the Internet era, bloggers race to obtain leaked circulars and post them online weeks in advance of Thanksgiving. Many forums and websites chart the deals, helping shoppers make a plan of attack for the big day. And attack they will - the National Retail Federation anticipates 134 million people will hit the stores on Thanksgiving weekend. After the deaths last year, there's an added focus on making sure stores are ready to handle the crowds. Walmart extended hours to keep stores open on Thanksgiving...
Does she know that 60 percent of all Medals of Honor awarded since WWII have been given posthumously? Does she therefore look forward to seeing Harvard’s daughters killed on the battlefield? Why did President Faust not also bemoan the fact that there are no black or Native American Medal of Honor recipients from Harvard? In fact, President Faust could take an active role to encourage more women to join the military and earn this award if she would allow ROTC back on Harvard’s campus...
...ultimate rite of passage during the Hajj is circling the Kaaba, an immense black cube, spiritually considered by Muslims to be the center of the world, and literally located in the center of the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca. During the Hajj, vast swells of worshippers seeking forgiveness circle the Kaaba counter-clockwise, seven times. Completion of all of the mandated rituals is believed the guarantee the pilgrim a place in heaven as well as the title of hajji (literally, one who has performed the Hajj) - coveted and admired in Muslim communities around the world...