Mar
2009
It seems that New Jersey has decided its residents aren’t old enough to make decisions about personal grooming on their own.
I admit I first heard about this while watching “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live this past weekend, but my jaw dropped as I discovered it was a real story. It seems that two women complained to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs after they were injured by the Brazilian wax (example images of naked women at link) treatments they had received. One of the two women had sued the salon involved, but the state still investigated the complaints. They then decided that this was a process that should possibly be banned all together. The decision will be made by the Board of Cosmetology of April 14th at a meeting.
According to Philly.com, it seems that under current New Jersey laws it only allows for the waxing of face, neck, arms, legs and abdomen, but it does not spell out that the waxing of genital areas is explicitly banned. As this has gained some press coverage, some salons have ceased offering them, but the majority have not.
Philly.com spoke with Linda Orsuto, a salon owner in Cherry Hill, NJ who said that women would “go ballistic” if this passes. She also said they would resort to waxing themselves, visiting unlicensed salons or even traveling to other states for the service.
So, essentially, it took exactly two people complaining to possibly get an entire service ended in a state? This is another example of “the nanny state” going to an extreme. I have no clue how many people get this procedure done, but I would imagine in the state of New Jersey alone the number must be in the tens of thousands, but because exactly two people complained, a Brazilian waxing underground movement may be set up. Will this be like prohibition with waxing speakeasys being set up in back alleys?
Not only will they be passing a ban that makes absolutely no sense, they will be harming the revenue streams of salons in an already down economy. As Ms. Orsuto said in the interview, people will find alternatives and legit salons in New Jersey will lose income and nothing will be truly gained by this move. The only thing that will have been accomplished is salon owners may have to cut staff as there will be less work for them to do.
I am sorry two women got injured, but shall we look at all the other ways people are injured or even killed each day? Shall we start banning everything in the world that someone at sometime has been injured doing? How about we ban sports? I mean, people get injured in sports every day, but yet no one bans those, but apparently if two people complain about a service in a salon, you can just get that completely banned. Well, I’ve received some pretty bad haircuts in my day at salons, shall we ban those?
Yes, people should not be injured, but two isolated cases of waxings gone bad does not a state-wide terror make. This is something that maybe should be monitored, make sure people have the proper certificates, but just banning in totality is heavy-handed and wrong.


The economy is hitting every one hard, and police budgets are not immune either.
Possibly one of the greatest heroes in American history has passed away.
Who knew Massachusetts was turning in to “the fun state”?
You know, I’m not naive, but talk of the 2012 election tonight even surprised me.
It’s finally here: election day.
On July 20th, 1989, the very first thing I did when I got up, I went to register to vote.
Even though I have been in business for over 22 years now, I will never claim to understand all the trappings of high finance. What I will say is that all of these people involved with some of the stupid mistakes made on behalf of companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG could do with going back to their most basic business classes.
In a move that is sure to leave me scratching my head for days,
Hopefully this will lead to legitimate sign-ups, and hopefully it will also lead to people actually going to the polls come election day, but it still makes me a bit nervous to see it done in this fashion. Going to the gamers is a great idea, but why not set it up around the release of a major game?
It seems in Sweden you aren’t allowed to dislike any one for any reason, and if you do, someone will cry to the government about it.
When are people in the public eye going to learn? If you are a well-known person, someone in power, someone famous, there are always going to be those that enjoy watching your fall from grace. True, in 

