Urgent need for health care professionals

Between now and three years from now, the city must invest (and support regional and state investment) in health care professionals to meet the needs of 78 million baby boomers who will turn 65 between 2011 and 2030.

I elaborated about this and a new federal report on my other blog.

Buy Local awareness is needed

I entered a local bookstore today and asked if they stocked a new nonfiction essay book I'd taken out from the library and enjoyed so much I wanted to add to my own library.

The bookstore clerk typed in the title and author and informed me the store did not have any copies but she could order me one. I told her I'd think about it.

Amazon.com can sell me the same book at a 32% discount off the local bookstore's list price. If I buy two more books with a similar online discount, I'd be eligible for free shipping.

Bottom line: With the financially tight economy we're in, and observant that independent bookstores are trying to make ends meet as much as me, do I buy three books at the bookstore and theoretically pump money into the community or do I buy the books online and save $12? Why bicker over $12?

The notion of shopping locally does not require 100% of one's disposable income to be spent on local procurement options. All that's required, if anything, is a mindset. How one uses that mind is up to each person.

Perhaps Newburyport should organize a Buy Local Day to build awareness.

On chain stores

Local blogger Tom Salemi wrote about chain stores 25 times over the past seven months. (And I only refer to those times he labeled his post "chain store.") Click here to read them in reverse chronological order.

Salemi cites the rise of chain stores in Portsmouth as a success story and one that Newburyport should emulate. On the flip side, he doesn't want Newburyport to follow the way of a Newington, Kittery, or Danvers.

I couldn't agree more.

But there's an angle Salemi is missing in his 25 posts, and that's something written in this January 2008 article in the liberal Reason Magazine about the clash between independent retailers and big box retailers.

Take independent retailer Newbury Comics, for instance, which 20 years ago stocked about 12,000 CDs and 13,000 cassettes at its flagship Newbury Street location in Boston's Back Bay when behemoth big box retailer Tower Records opened down the block with 50,000 CDs and 60,000 cassettes.

The market believed that Newbury Comics would fold under pressure from Tower, Virgin, HMV, Strawberries, Coconuts, Recordtown, Sam Goody, etc.

Fast forward to today, and only Newbury Comics remains.

While big-box retailers have enormous competitive advantages—sui generis leverage with distributors and manufacturers, unparalleled capital resources, immense political influence—they also face a distinct disadvantage in adjusting themselves to local preferences.

Or, look at Starbucks which opened in Newburyport about 10 years ago amid pressure that the downtown area couldn't handle another coffeehouse, let alone a chain!

But within a 5-minute walk from Starbucks today, you can buy coffee at Greta's Great Grains, Pralines Bake Shop, Abraham's Bagels, Souffle's, Caffe di Sienna, Plum Island Coffee Roasters, and Dunkin Donuts (inside Richdale's, which has its own as well) and I'm not including coffee that can be had at traditional restaurants like Fowle's, Angie's, Stella's, the Rockfish, and the Grog.

Sounds to me that Starbucks is not posing any more competition than what already exists.

I'm all for buying local, but what happens when a product is not available?

Look at office supplies, for instance.

Zip code 01950 has no store devoted to office supplies. The nearest location to buy a dry erase whiteboard, envelope moistener sticks, and a legal-sized notepad in a single purchase is Staples across the state line in Seabrook. Even Salemi's downtown Portsmouth has an independent office supply store.

Continuing this line of thought to its logical conclusion, I'd like to see an office supply store downtown. I don't care if it's a chain or not, but I can guess which would come first if presented the opportunity. I know... how about one is incorporated into the mixed residential and retail development slated for the so-called Waterside West?

Bartlet's gold

Faced with an uncertain economy, a local man searches for buried treasure today at Bartlet Mall.


I don't know what else to say on this subject.