Black Friday, Meet Buy Nothing Day -- Discuss

Everyone knows it's Black Friday, the traditional jump-start of the holiday shopping season, and the media loves to remind us about it with endless stories about desperate shoppers camping out in the cold in front of stores, rushing the doors at 5:00 in the morning, fighting over the last flat screen TV and, at least this year, being nearly trampled at Fry's Electronics in Sunnyvale.

But it's good to remember that today is not all about rampant consumerism -- it's also the 15th Buy Nothing Day, a call to rest the credit cards and resist the siren calls of endless buying on the day after Thanksgiving. To that end, Union Square shoppers will get a healthy dose of activism today when the United Elves Guild of San Francisco go on strike (corner of Powell and Market) to support New York City's own Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping in their Buy Nothing Day parade down Fifth Avenue. The Rev's not-so-great-sounding documentary "What Would Jesus Buy?" opens tonight at the Lumiere Theater.

Buy Nothing Day pic from adbusters.org

-- Brian Bernbaum