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Sunbed industry could be toast thanks to "Tan Mom"

By Dinah Wisenberg Brin | Entrepreneur – 18 hours ago

The U.S. indoor tanning industry, already chapped over a 10 percent tax imposed by the federal health-reform law, now faces renewed calls for tighter regulation amid publicity surrounding New Jersey's so-called tanning mom.

The case of tanning customer Patricia Krentcil of Nutley, N.J., a leather-toned woman charged with taking her 5-year-old daughter inside a tanning bed, might even lift the efforts of a Canadian lawmaker to seek a ban on indoor tanning for children and youths.
Krentcil, now the subject of late-night comedy sketches (that's Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig in photo above), a parody action figure and a reported ban from local salons, has denied the accusation and pleaded not guilty to child endangerment.

While the story may be fitting given that May has been dubbed National Melanoma/Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention month, it must be wince-inducing in an industry already on the defensive over the health and safety of its services. The industry includes franchises such as Hollywood Tans, Executive Tans, Palm Beach Tan and numerous others.

The case also might do little to help tanning salons garner support for a repeal of the U.S. tanning tax.

As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes (and reminded via Twitter about "Melanoma Monday" this week), indoor tanning has been linked with skin and eye cancers.

The tanning-mom story has given health advocates a new opportunity to discourage indoor tanning – especially for young people -- and push for youth bans.

In New Jersey's state capital, lawmakers and health advocates this week tried to rouse support for a stalled bill to ban minors from using tanning salons, according to news reports. The state currently requires those aged 14 to 17 to obtain parental approval to use a salon, and prohibits indoor tanning for those younger than 14.

Among those quoted by the Star-Ledger was Alyson Dougherty, who used tanning salons regularly as a teen and was diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma at 21.

Chicago would ban tanning-salon use for those younger than 18 under a proposed ordinance introduced Wednesday, a local ABC affiliate reports.

Meanwhile, The Canadian Press reports that MP James Bezan wants to ban tanning beds and booths for Canadians younger than 18 years. Bezan says he and his wife, a melanoma survivor, used tanning beds in their youth, and that he is disturbed by the numbers of young people being diagnosed with the disease.

Smart Tan, which describes itself as an education association for the professional indoor tanning community, sent Executive Director Joseph Levy to New York last week for a Today Show appearance in the wake of the Krentcil story. On its website, Smart Tan detailed the story behind the appearance, including its plan "to compare sunbeds with natural sunlight, point out how sunlight is a key element to life on this planet, illustrate that our equipment is just like what dermatologists use but not as intense, show how exposure times are based on formulations from FDA and administered after a careful screening from a certified technician."

The industry trade group Indoor Tanning Association was fighting ban proposals even before the Krentcil story. In March, the group released a statement saying that "the decision regarding whether or not a teen is allowed to suntan is a decision for parents, not government."

The group said, "Right now in the state of New Jersey, a teenage girl can secure an abortion without her parent's consent but if [new ban] legislation passes, cannot get a suntan with her parent's consent. Sixteen- or 17-year-olds can drive cars, get married, own guns, hunt, and secure birth control and abortion services yet if these laws pass, they would not be allowed to suntan, even if their parents approved."

The ITA said proponents of ban laws "always exaggerate the risks of exposure to ultraviolet light in order to get the attention of the public, the media and the government."

Readers, what side do you fall on - should bans against youth tanning be imposed, or does the tanning industry have a point?

We all have them. They're what we do for fun long after they've been dismissed as schlock by mainstream consumers and academics. Here's a list of mine:

Sports books and rock biographies. The former is a big reason I'm into professional sports, the latter why I can write so ably about music despite not knowing anything about musical technicalities.

80's pop culture. Some of those bands made some great music - The Police, The Cars, and rap hit it big. The action movies are the best around between Schwarzenegger and Stallone.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Animated movies. Especially the ones from the 90's, most of them are well-made in absolutely every way.

Awhile ago, I began a thread to discuss the idea of an Emergent Islam, a re-envisioning and reinterpretation of Islam within the frame of a new paradigm of more social, environmental, and justice-centered consciousness. I mentioned that my questioning had been inspired by a similar interpretation of Christianity that I had run into over the last several years.

To be a bit more elaborate, this version of Christianity - which is called Emergent Christianity or Red Letter Christianity - is rejected pretty violently in a lot of traditional Christian circles because it obliterates the current form of Christianity as a religion of personal salvation. Among some of the more unusual tenants of Red Letter Christianity are:

- The idea that when Jesus talks of the Kingdom of God, he's not referring to a physical place where everyone's souls are transported when they die, but to a hypothetical place in which the rule of God is the only governance. A utopia, in other words, which is without any form of caste or rulership whatsoever, and where the people live in neighborly harmony with one another.

- The idea of Jesus coming not as a personal savior, but as a revolutionary leader who managed to disrupt the caste-based Roman way of life without actually breaking any laws.

- The idea of "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others" being more important than any of the other laws in the Bible.

- The idea of wholehearted, absolute inclusion to anyone who wants to be within the hypothetical Kingdom of God. Christianity as an inclusivist faith rather than an exclusivist band of people who will be given eternal bliss after death because God likes them more than anyone.

It's no wonder traditional Christians hate Red Letter Christians. Red Letter Christianity pretty much wipes out a number of the tenants that were introduced about the time of Constantine's conquests. Chief among them is the idea that one has to accept Jesus Christ as their personal, divine savior in order to be a Christian, or even believe in God at all. History is even supportive of this idea - we all know Jesus was a devoted Jew who never called anyone a Christian. And the earliest Christians didn't think of themselves as Christians, either - they thought of themselves as ordinary Jews, living in small enclaves which quietly defied the caste system and traditional Roman lifestyle.

The beliefs of the three Abrahamic religions are all very closely intertwined. So, my question is, is this form of Christianity would emerge as the dominant form of Christianity and be accepted, what would it mean for Islam and its teachings?

A point I had to bring up in a recent thread got me thinking. There is a certain faction of more conservative Muslims on Islamica now who thump the Quran and say that Islam has to be brought to the light of every nation, so that the people of all of those nations may become Muslims themselves or, failing that, are at least living under Islamic law.

The problem I have with this is that it would require a great amount of change to the parent societies in order to come about, because it seems the very people doing the most to stress this idea are also Arab supremists. They believe Islam was revealed not to an Arab, but TO BE Arab, and there's a huge difference. It means an Islamic world would be a much more Arab world, since they believe Allah sanctioned Arab culture, at least to a point.

These same people ae also more apt than others to complain about the west's influence of the Arab world, and are keen to shout about globalization and western standards. The implication is clear: Everything Arab is perfect and holy; everything not Arab is against everything Muhammad taught. It's an exclusionary vision of society at the very best, and at the worst, it will create yet another society of the oppressed and oppressors because it relies on the idea that one culture is superior to another.

Here's my question: If Islam is to become the most dominant world religion, then to what extent can it do that without wiping out other parent cultures and other religions?

I read this article, and I was wondering what others think:

http://www.patheos.c...sary-more-real/

It alludes to an idea that I mentioned in a thread I began, about religion being material.