The importance of local business

In my home state for the last few years pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to buy dinners or give other gifts to doctors. Currently there is a move afoot to repeal this law. Why? Local restaurants have lost business as a result. Amazing isn't it, lack of business trumps bribery.

Taken to the extreme you have to wonder if the Commonwealth should repeal murder laws because it will crimp sales at the local gun shop. Is this too absurd? May be not. There is also legislation pending to limit gun purchase to one a month. Gun owners will just have to suffer with a mere dozen a year. Will such legislation end gun violence? Not hardly, but it is a tool that will help certainly.

So, how's the legislation doing? It's held up. Why? Sales at local gun shops will be hurt, if it is passed. Lets keep priorities clear, gun shop owners and gun lobbies contribute to campaigns; dead people don't.

Isolated Social Networks

Today a large group of people try to stay connected by subscribing to social network sites. They do this while they are alone. I am not a psychologist, but that does not seem to be connected. The more socializing that is done, the more isolated people become. I am an introvert who values his privacy, so I do not have a face book page. I have never visited face book nor have any desire to. I am fairly close to being asocial. Yet, even I worry that there is a generation that lives in an imploding egocentric universe, however unintended. I wonder if it is any coincident that Apple, the ultimate electronic marketing machine, starts all its product names with “i”? Do they recognize the shape of the future as being both egocentric and a small universe?

Re Apple as a marketing machine, I noticed on the news today all the folks who lined up today in order to get one of the limited supply of iPhone 4s. At least locally, unlike those who line up for tickets to sports events or concerts, this group were all ignoring one another.

Most will only be able to order one. Apple did not have enough available. Didn’t the same thing happen with the iPad? Is Apple just poor at planning? Or is there some rationale behind this?

The worms that follow Apple I am sure do not care. I swear if Jobs put a battery pack behind a pile of dung; an Apple logo on the front and dubbed it iPoop, there would be a line of folks queued up the night before to buy that as well. Would there be enough to go around?

Addendum: There is an old joke, likely last told by Henny Youngman, about a man, Harry, who picks his new suit up at the tailors. The fit is awful, but the tailor tells him to hold this sleeve, hunch his shoulder just so and stand slightly tilting to the left. After leaving the tailor with his new suit, Harry meets some friends and stops to chat. After Harry leaves, one friend turns to the other and says, "God, Harry looks awful, nice suit though." Today Apple announced in order to get proper reception with the new iPhone4 it is necessary to hold it just so. Nice suit though.

Why blog?

I read an article yesterday in the Boston Sunday Globe, Idea section, by James Parker, in praise of not blogging. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it. Certainly I am like the vast majority of citizens in that I read about problems, get irked and then let inertia take over and do nothing. I am not sure what I would do. My Congressional representative and one senator seem to be on my side of the issues. The other senator has spent the majority of his limited time in office surrounding issues. If I call or write, he will be sympathetic and sort of be with me and against me.
But the real issue for me is, why do I blog? Certainly I do not write very often. Initially, I felt obligated to scribble something at least twice a week. As is obvious, it has steadily waned since then. Unless this is the guilt I ought to feel, it does not bother me that I do not often note down anything. I would be surprised if anyone is reading it and I do not particularly care if there is.
I do not do any of the social network stuff, like Face Book. I value my privacy too much. What would I care to share? Not much that I believe is anyone’s business. Not to mention, if I had thousands of friends on these sites, imagine the chore of Xmas cards.
So why do I care to share this? I have come to the conclusion that it is like a song that gets stuck in your head and you cannot stop it. If I blog about a thought that keeps recurring, writing even a trivial bit about it seems to stop it. So, like many things in life, it likely is for my own amusement. Now I can stop worrying about the when and why I am blogging and start worrying about why I am inflicting it on others.