Many years ago, I read a short story whose premise was that Los Angeles was physically infecting additional territories, as though it were a virus. Heroic measures were taken to contain it, but in the last paragraph, a couple in the Midwest (possibly Iowa) succumb and start wearing sunglasses.

I have been searching for the story for many years, but with no success. I’m sure it was published well before 1970 (probably in the ’50s), and I think I read it in an anthology.

If you know this story, I’d be grateful for the details. Thanks!

Amazon is serious about not collecting sales tax for online purchases; as expected, they terminated the affiliate agreements for California affiliates effective today, now that California has asked them to collect tax (I guess, technically speaking, they’d be collecting use tax rather than sales tax — there’s no difference in rates).

I’ve removed the general Amazon link on my site; it’s too much trouble to edit out all of the other links I have scattered throughout the site.

Over the course of four years, I earned nearly $11 in referral fees, so I can’t say I’m terribly upset about this development. I do think that sales tax needs to be simplified and made consistent between online and brick-and-mortar retailers; online retailers should, at the very least, collect and remit the state sales tax for every state (dealing with the complexities of local sales taxes is a problem — even a five-digit ZIP code isn’t sufficient to properly compute the tax in many areas).