We spend too much money -- too much of our unprecedented wealth (even with Bush's King-Midas-in-reverse economic touch, we're still the wealthiest nation ever on earth) on inessential, mindless crap. It is all, of course, designed to be disposable and instantly re-replaceable. Our entire way of life is built upon a broken paradigm, a lie. That lie is: progress means consuming more STUFF.
-- Alan Bisbort, The Hartford Advocate, 7 August 2003.
Photo: Black Friday at Walmart in South Setauket, N.Y., 25 Nov 2005. (AP Photo/Ed Betz)