Yesterday, Turkey Day, we had a top story previewing Black Friday, that traditional frenzied shopping day for which retailers are especially thankful. The story this year, of course, is that shoppers will be looking for bargains, possibly buying fewer gifts and items overall, in this fragile economy of far less available credit, and the hovering Ghost of Christmas Present: layoffs.

Today, shoppers at many Lower Hudson Valley stores were lining up as early as 3:30 a.m. to get those early-bird specials, as several stores opened at 4 a.m., our staff writers reported in this story.

Just as I was writing this, The Associated Press moved a story that, out on Long Island, a 34-year-old Wal-Mart worker died after being trampled by a throng of unruly shoppers, police said, shortly after the store where he worked opened this morning.

If that doesn’t give pause to what is supposed to be a holiday weekend, what does? At the very, very least, it’s worth remembering that while, yes, the economy needs a boost, and yes, it may be tradition for a lot of families and friends to storm the stores the day after Thanksgiving, there are a lot of folks who have to work the holidays, including the ones that seep into four-day weekends. They are taken for granted by just about everyone but their own families: nurses and aides, drug store workers, food preparers and dish-washers, stock guys, cashiers, and yes, retail workers. The list goes on.

I’ve generally worked this day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, for 30 years. Frankly, it keeps me close to home; I can justifiably turn down invitations to traffic-clogged destinations far away; and I can avoid temptation and the shopping crowds. Of course, Internet shopping can now keep you “safe,’’ but not necessarily your bank account.

Meanwhile, USA Today reported today that, according to Google, Web searches for the words ”Black Friday” are up 41 percent from last year, and searches for the words ”coupons” are up 59 percent, ”free shipping” up 11 percent and ”buy one get one free” up 200 percent.

So, yes, bargains are being hunted, in-person and on-line. How much shopping is being done safely, and smartly, remains to be seen.

If you’ve woken from your Thanksgiving turkey coma and Black Friday shopping isn’t your thing, then maybe you’re in the mood for a little deep thinking and Friday morning quarterbacking. Read our package of Community Views by four local Republicans on what the party needs to do to retrench and get back in the game, then tell us what you think.

Here’s what some readers have said on our forums:

I believe that even politics is cyclical. You recall the Dems a few years back when they were in this position? It happens … Republicas need to gather and reinforce their platform, values and unite. I personally believe that our Republican philosophy and values are important and should be represented accordingly.

It’s plain and simple. Go back to the roots of conservatism. As an activist in the conservative movement I ask all my brothers and sisters to read Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. Time to get rid of these RINOs like McCain, Graham, Specter, Hagel and these other deadbeats. Conservatism didn’t lose on 11/4, It was big-government liberal Republicans.

Your parents’ Republican Party is dead. Given the traditional family structure of husband and wife has been effectively destroyed and the concept of one working spouse is long gone, the party has a long period of transformation ahead of it. Into what is hard to predict.

Are you a registered Republican? Were you disappointed in how the party handled the national election? What do you think the party needs to do to attract voters and stay viable?

We often get letters sent to us that are part of a letter-writing campaign – it is up to us to weigh the merits of these letters (Are they too repetitious? Is the subject matter worthy?), but one type that we give no leeway to is the obvious form letter or circulating petition. A more-blatant-than-usual example arrived in our mailbox this morning (reproduced below in its entirety, minus the letter-writer’s ID):

To all citizens: please copy/paste my letter to George W. Bush, below, remove my name then sign your name at the bottom, and send it on to our president. It’s disgraceful that these two U.S. Border Agents will remain in jail for 12 years while the Mexican drug smuggler they captured walks free. Ck story out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Ramos
(thanks to Shavana Abruzzo, Courier Life columnist).
Bush’s email address is president@whitehouse.gov

To: President George W. Bush,
As a citizen of the United States I am outraged to learn that two U.S. Border Agents, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, have been convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms for doing their jobs—pursuing illegal aliens who cross our border. I am calling on you to officially pardon these men for their actions.
I am even more outraged to learn that this illegal alien (who was attempting to smuggle about 800 pounds of marijuana into our country), was tracked down by a Department of Homeland Security Investigator and granted immunity for his testimony against these two agents!
This is a terrible injustice, and I urge you to use your considerable authority and power to pardon these two agents and right this obvious wrong!

Now this one wasn’t meant to be sent to newspapers per se, but at least one letter-writer thought this was worthy of publication. Needless to say, it won’t see the light of day our newspaper. Future posts will explore the not-so-cut-and-dried examples of letter-writing campaigns and how we decide what gets published.

Inexplicably, The Journal News/LoHud.com gave their cartoonist the keys to this shiny new blog, so not one to waste an opportunity, I thought I’d let you know I spent some time prior to Thanksgiving feasting to prep a special cartoon for today’s editorial page. Instead of the usual edit page format, the opinion acreage was turned over to prominent local GOP leaders, who opine thoughtfully over what their party did wrong in ‘08 and what needs to happen to remerge from their self-imposed political wilderness. Unsurprisingly, my helpful suggestion takes its usual measured, respectful tone. I strongly encourage you to run out, buy the paper, take a look, then write a letter of protest to the editor.

You gotta hand it to Bill Ryan, chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators. As the last “presenter’’ of a proposed budget to his own board’s Budget & Appropriations Committee hearing this afternoon, Ryan got his fellow board member’s flipping—flipping and flipping back and forth through their foot-high 2009 budget books. While the monster budget proposal mostly belongs to the Spano administration, one important part belongs to the lawmakers—their own operating budget for next year.

Ryan, under heat from a lot of sectors, including within his own board, announced he had cut his previous budget, prepared shortly after Labor Day, by almost $300,000. He also did away with some controversial job titles (some paid $96,000 to $103,000), a lobbyist position and some stipend money, and reallocated funds to some part-time positions.

Next stop: The board has to review everything that was presented them by all commissioners, department heads and Ryan himself, and decide whether to add any money back in on Monday, Dec. 1. Final cuts to budget lines are due by Dec. 8, the day the board wants to approve a final 2009 budget.

My colleague, staff writer Gerald McKinstry, will have more in tomorrow’s paper and in the days ahead.

Stay tuned……it’s exciting when elected officials not just hear the cry from flattened taxpayers, but may also be listening.

The good news at this time of year usually involves the generous spirit of those who reach out to help the less fortunate. Certainly, this year is no exception in that regard, as Brian Howard’s story today about the increase in food bank donations shows. When those who are able to help know there is a need, they step up. 

But today’s story about the decline in cancer rates is good news of a different sort. Cancer death rates have been dropping for some time, due to improved medical care and earlier screening. Now cancer diagnoses are down, 0.8 percent a year for every year from 2001 to 2005, according to a report from the National Cancer Institute. This means fewer people are even getting cancer, a trend attributed in part to healthier lifestyle and better pre-cancer screenings that can prevent certain lesions from developing into cancer.

Better public health education programs can take some of the credit for some of these changes. So, rather than the kindness of strangers at Thanksgiving, it is ongoing, smart public policy that brought us this good holiday news.

Thanks to the Internet, there are lots of rumors and misinformation landing in people’s e-mailboxes – and some of them wind up in ours in the form of irate letters to the editor. Fortunately, there are Web sites devoted to debunking Internet rumors (and confirming those stories that are true). When I hear from someone who claims that President-elect Obama’s birth certificate isn’t valid, or calling for a boycott of Pepsi for having allegedly removed the words “under God” from a patriotic soda-can design, the Web sites I turn to most often are www.snopes.com and www.truthorfiction.com. On each, you will find a summary of the rumor, an example of how the rumor is being circulated, and what the actual facts are.

One example: a persistent writer from Yonkers has sent several letters over the years denouncing Sen. Hillary Clinton for refusing to meet with a delegation of Gold Star Mothers, women whose sons or daughters were killed in U.S. military combat. However, the story simply isn’t true. Truthorfiction traces the rumor to a story on the NewsMax.com Web site in May 2001 claiming that “Gold Star Mothers New York chapter president Shirley Jones and member Mary Wheeler were in Washington D.C. visiting the offices of U.S. senators but ‘The only office that refused to meet with the New York Gold Star Mothers was none other than New York Senator Hillary Clinton. She and her staff simply refused to meet with them.’ The National President of The American Gold Star Mothers, Georgianna Carter-Krell, told TruthOrFiction.com, however, that the two mothers did not have an appointment with Senator Clinton and that, it turns out, she wasn’t even in her office that day.”

Someone else wrote in to note that, according to a study by the Lovenstein Institute, President Bush has the lowest IQ (at 91) of any president in the last 50 years. Turns out this story was nothing but a hoax, but, according to Snopes, at least two newspapers, The Guardian in London and the Southland Times in New Zealand, fell for it and published the hoax as a real story.

So, please, before you fire off that letter of outrage, check to see if there’s any truth to the rumor!

The Republican Party, as you no doubt have noticed, has been engaged in a whole lot of soul searching in the aftermath of its Election  Day losses.  In  New York, Barack Obama’s romp only continued a string of defeats. Already shutout in statewide posts, from the governor’s office to comptroller, the GOP relinquished its grip on the state Senate (pending resolution of some intra-Democratic Party squabbling). The other chamber already belongs to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

What’s a party to do?

We put that question to some GOP notables: Liz Feld, mayor of Larchmont and failed Senate candidate; Greg Ball, re-elected to the Assembly in November; Mike Edelman, the political consultant and commentator; and Ben Gilman, the former congressman from Rockland.  They share their prescriptions for revival — all four are remarkably and refreshingly candid — in a full-page report on Friday. (Matt Davies, the editorial cartoonist, gets his say, too.)

They’re compelling reads. Be sure to look for them in print and online Friday.

Times have been tough, but sometimes you see something that reminds you that we aren’t exactly experiencing a depression.

Spotted the other day at a popular eatery on Broadway in a rivertown was a notice to diners advising that “during these uncertain economic times” the restaurant would be giving customers a 15 percent discount on their first bottle of wine and 20 percent on their second.

Left undisturbed on the menu was the $32 — I repeat, thirty-two dollars — a dining couple would pay for two cheeseburgers, fancy fries included.

Obviously, sympathy for the budget-weary can only go so far.

If you are older than, say, 25 you may not know that the night before Thanksgiving is one of the biggest bar nights. All those college kids coming home catching up with their friends, as well as people taking advantage of the holiday the next day.

According to Rich Liebson’s story today, bar owners aren’t the only ones gearing up for the big day. Police are also out in force to make sure all those partiers make it home safely to enjoy their turkey the next day – even if they do have a bit of a hangover. Several police spokespeople cautioned drivers that they can expect to see a lot of extra officers on the road over the next couple of days. Driving in to work this morning on Interstate-684, I was only slightly surprised to count 5 state police cruisers in the stretch between Route 35 where I get on and the end at I-287. Since I gave up my lead foot when gas prices soared this summer, I wasn’t too worried about getting pulled over. But it just reinforced the message from many departments to remember to have a safe holiday.

Photo by Mark Vergari/The Journal News