Bieber Fever

Justin Bieber has been a huge star for a few years now, and it doesn't seem like he will be going away too soon. When he first came into the public spotlight he was a little kid with a very high pitched voice and a funny bowl cut type thing that made girls faint. As he got older and his voice changed, his personality seemed to have changed and his music type changed as well. He cut his hair, got tattoos, started doing punk stuff with his "posse", and doesn't quite sing about loving only one girl forever anymore.

I remember seeing a video a few months ago of Bieber and his crew walking through the kitchen of a night club (very intoxicated) and Bieber urinates in the mop bucket in the kitchen. Next, Justin or one of his friends says something along the lines of, "You ought to feel lucky that I just did that in your mop bucket". This boldness and very self centered ego is bringing a considerable amount of bad attention lately.

This past spring, Justin made a comment while visiting the Anne Frank house that brought in some serious outrage. He said that he would have hoped Anne Frank would have been a fan of his. I am not really sure how I feel about this comment, but I really don't think it deserved the outrage it received. There are too many unknowns in the situation and out of context, we don't know exactly what he meant by it. Additionally, we have to remember that he is in general very self centered and has a large ego, so it is understandable that he would want to tie in this historical figure with his fame. However, I don't think it was a malevolent comment. Perhaps he should have held his tongue or phrased it better, but I don't think it deserved the attention it got. I DEFINITELY think that people need to focus a little less on silly celebrities like this clown and focus on important things in the world. It is fine to listen to celebrity's music, watch their movies, etc... But don't spend too much time blogging about what Katy Perry had for dinner last tuesday, because it really doesn't matter.

Well, going against what I just said, what on earth is with these pants?

Johnson & Johnson

The recent lawsuit involving Johnson & Johnson, a major pharmaceutical company, is truly disgraceful. It is sad to hear that a company who's products are marketed to promote health and wellness to people would market antipsychotic and anti-seizure drugs to people who they are not meant for despite major health risks. I understand that the company wants to sell more products and make more money, but of course this is not the way to go about doing that. Putting buyers at risk to increase revenues, especially children and the elderly, is one of the worst things a company can do in my opinion.

Now, Johnson &Johnson payed 2.2 Billion dollars in fines for this. This seems like it is a huge amount of money that would actually set the company back for their terrible actions. However, it is almost nothing to them. In 2012, Johnson & Johnson's revenue was about $67 billion. I don't think the company should be forced to shut down or anything, they are still a (semi) reputable company that sells good products that people use every day. But, the penalty definitely should be big enough for them to have to pay the price for what they did. People cannot be manipulated in unsafe ways like this, especially when it comes to medicine.

New Tobacco Laws in NYC

In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for roughly 440,000 deaths per year. Additionally, about 8.6 million people in the United States suffer from some sort of tobacco-caused illness. Clearly, tobacco products, cigarettes especially, are very unhealthy. In fact, about $96 billion dollars are spent each year on public and private healthcare for smoking related issues. And although tobacco products bring in immense amounts of tax revenue, this is money that should not, and would not be spent on healthcare if it were not for the mass use of these tobacco products.

Despite the major issues that tobacco causes, I do not think it is the right move by the Mayor of New York City to enforce this law to raise the purchasing age to 21. Just as when Mayor Bloomberg proposed the ban on large soft drinks, it simply is not the right approach. For example, if someone wants 64 ounces of soda, but the 64 ounce containers are not allowed, they can simply buy two or three smaller bottles, and they have what they want. In the case of the tobacco age increase, someone who is underage can simply leave the city limits to buy, or, as it is very easy to do in the city, ask someone older to buy them. It is a futile attempt to reduce the problem.

 Although I think the law is wrong, it means well. In my opinion however, there is a much better approach to fixing the issues with tobacco death and illness in this country. If more effective programs can be started to educate children on the dangers of tobacco use before they are tempted to experiment, the illness and death statistics will decrease because use will decrease. I don't believe that the government implementing laws on personal choices like this is the best way to govern a people. Educating the people and helping them make the better decisions on their own will be much better in the long run. Instead of young rebellious teens being upset that they can't buy cigs anymore, in a few years we could have a group of teens who know the harmful effects of tobacco and avoid it because they want to be healthy.