Liquor and Tobacco


My Bride was sick for a short period of time, and, as a result, was at home watching what passes for television entertainment during the daytime hours.  No, no, she’s fine now, thank you all the same.  It was just a little cold that knocked the stuffing out of her for a bit.

She’s not quite the TV addict that I am, so she was overwhelmed by the pervasive, aggressive, ubiquitous marketing of prescription medicine, medical appliances, over the counter medicine, and a spate of ambulance chasers at the ready to sue if things don’t go quite right.  Insurance companies seem to have plenty of money to advertise too.  Odd.  Since they’re on our side and all.

I’m not altogether certain that we’re better off now than back in the days when big tobacco, big liquor, and Detroit paid the freight and ran the commercials.

My advice?  Glad you asked:
-Make it illegal for lawyers to advertise
-Make it illegal to advertise prescription-only medicines
-Require insurance ads to begin with at least 30 seconds of their net worth and the average income of their agents
-Technical schools will be mandated to offer employment rates and starting salaries of their graduates as a major part of their ads

It’s unlikely that tobacco and liquor will re-take the helm here.  I’m sort of vice-free these days; having quit tobacco and liquor altogether years ago, but maybe some NEW vice can take over.  I’m thinking legal marijuana or maybe high capacity firearms here.  Anything would be preferable to the lawsuit-ready mouthpieces and catheter ads.  Anything.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Very Simple Request

In the late 1970s (that would be during the Carter administration and THAT gas crisis), I drove a Datsun 1200 for a while.   It was a good, small, simple car, and I could afford it even though I had virtually no money. As I recall, it had 12 or 13 inch wheels, no power anything, a four cylinder engine, and a four speed manual transmission.   It was light weight with no amenities.   None.   It had an AM only radio and a tinny little speaker.   No air conditioning either—can you imagine?   No AIR??   On the freeway, when larger cars would pass, the jet wash would buffet the car slightly after the larger car passed.   It was orange, and it routinely got 35 to 50 MPG.   40 to 50 on the freeway and 35 to 45 around town.   When the tires wore out, it was about as expensive as putting new tires on your bicycle.   If it needed brakes, it was about as expensive as putting brakes on your bicycle.   Did I just repeat myself? Here's what the car did.   It provided reliable transportation
Read more

Karma

I see that the Marlin's Scott Cousins has been placed on the 15 day disabled list with a "lower back strain", and has been replaced on their active roster by Hanley Ramirez.  And that the Marlins are 3-18 since leaving San Francisco. Karma's a bitch.
Read more

Spring Training

It’s a sad season for fans of the SF Giants. Sad. I have no idea who these guys are—I read that they have employed 17 big-league coaches. Jeebus...17 coaches. The general behavior of the club is the same as an expansion club that’s trying to decide who it wants to be when it grows up. I also read that they’ve signed so many players and coaches that they’ve run out of jersey numbers and have issued “0” and “00”. Now, I don’t know if all that’s true, but I do read the McCovey Chronicles, and one of their pieces on the web site this week is entitled “ Which Fictional Character Do You Want To Manage The Giants?”. So it’s not just me. Fictional Character to manage? One of their suggestions was Elle Woods, and I think that’s just dandy. E ven at that, baseball in general is in trouble…..Currently over-regulated and over-sanitized with way too many “metrics” . Players are over-paid causing ticket prices to rise out of the range for a regular guy (such as myself) to go to game
Read more