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Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by noteworthy at 10:29 am EST, Jan 22, 2006 |
Sure, we'll all live longer, but how will this affect the future of flirting? These days, Americans flirt feebly, liquor-soaked and anxious. But for lo, these many years we at least have had cigarettes, instruments of seduction. "Girl comes up and she says, 'Can I bum a smoke?' and it was obviously a pretext," says Jason. The girl talked to him awhile after that, one of those classic Washington dialogues about law school.
Hrm... Not sexy: those people outside office buildings.
You might also wish to check this out: Efforts to make us more like the rest of the world in that regard strike a blow at the very essence of Spanishness: should our schedules change, we'll be much more like France or Switzerland - and definitely more boring. A totalitarian state is one that sticks its nose where it doesn't belong and attempts to intervene in every aspect of its citizens' private lives, and many governments today, whether left, right or center, have developed this practice of behaving like busybodies. The old notion that only dictatorships can be totalitarian seems terribly naïve nowadays. And that is the worst thing about this antismoking law and others of the same ilk: they unfortunately prove that totalitarianism is no longer incompatible with the democratic systems that once guaranteed our freedoms.
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RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by Laughing Boy at 12:03 pm EST, Jan 23, 2006 |
What, then, if smoking disappears from the District's bars next January?
Then I can only hope similar legislation finds its way to Atlanta! Sorry smokers... when I go to a bar, I go to DRINK – not to smoke… not to have my eyes burning from irritation of half a room of cigs going nonstop... and not to walk out having myself reek of smoke for days. (Don't worry - I won't play the "2'nd hand smoke causes cancer!" card - that’s unproven by most studies.) So while I might sympathize with the possible detrimental effects a bar ban on smoking could have on your sex life, I don’t think that argument will play well into the hands of lawmakers. :) I can only advise you single folks to brush up on your pickup lines. -LB |
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RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by unmanaged at 4:00 pm EST, Jan 23, 2006 |
Laughing Boy wrote: What, then, if smoking disappears from the District's bars next January?
Then I can only hope similar legislation finds its way to Atlanta! Sorry smokers... when I go to a bar, I go to DRINK – not to smoke… not to have my eyes burning from irritation of half a room of cigs going nonstop... and not to walk out having myself reek of smoke for days. (Don't worry - I won't play the "2'nd hand smoke causes cancer!" card - that’s unproven by most studies.) So while I might sympathize with the possible detrimental effects a bar ban on smoking could have on your sex life, I don’t think that argument will play well into the hands of lawmakers. :) I can only advise you single folks to brush up on your pickup lines. -LB
Well what gets me is that most of you think that all smokers are bad and have a carton a day habit. Some of us smokers do enjoy a pipe or a cig. every once and a while but that is we enjoy it. Btw, ditch the pickup lines and just be yourself, and you might get some.... |
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RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by Laughing Boy at 8:43 pm EST, Jan 23, 2006 |
unmanaged wrote: Well what gets me is that most of you think that all smokers are bad and have a carton a day habit. Some of us smokers do enjoy a pipe or a cig. every once and a while but that is we enjoy it.
No... we don't think you're bad (well, I don't). I grew up in a 6 person household, where 4 of the people in my family were heavy smokers (pack+ a day). Amazingly I never took so much as a drag off of a cig - I always viewed it as a stupid, grotesque addiction that I wanted nothing to do with. Growing up all around it, it was annoying then, its equally annoying now - possibly more so since I don't deal with it day in and day out (my wife quit years ago thank god). For most of us non-smokers, smoking is a bizarre habit that we don't grasp or comprehend. Most people say they took up smoking because they felt it would improve their social acceptance. I.E. caving to peer pressure. Anything done out of peer pressure is bad; ill advised, done for all the wrong reasons. I believe in people being free to do whatever they enjoy, so long as it doesn't impinge on another’s freedom. I should have the freedom to walk into a bar, enjoy a beer and not leave the place with my body and clothes reeking of smoke. Most of you don’t seem to have a problem with taking it outside. But some of you seem to think it’s your god given right to fill any enclosed public space that may or may NOT have adequate ventilation with fallout from your addiction. That’s the issue, and it’s NOT your right - no more so than it’s your right to blare your stereo at ear-splitting volume any time of the night you choose. Smokers have been up till now riding along for free because non-smokers just politely tolerated it. Finally someone had the balls to stand up and say “take it outside”. And they (we) are right. Btw, ditch the pickup lines and just be yourself, and you might get some....
Amen to that. Words of wisdom kids. -LB |
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RE: Got a Light? A Ritual Gone in a Puff of Smoke
by noteworthy at 7:52 am EST, Jan 27, 2006 |
Laughing Boy wrote:
(Don't worry - I won't play the "2'nd hand smoke causes cancer!" card - that’s unproven by most studies.)
The debate continues. Take note: California Puts Passive Smoke on Toxic List California became the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant on Thursday. In making the decision, by a unanimous vote, the California Air Resources Board relied on a September report that found a sharply increased risk of breast cancer in young women exposed to secondhand smoke. The report by scientists at the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment drew on more than 1,000 other studies of the effects of passive smoke. It blamed secondhand smoke for 4,000 deaths each year in California from lung cancer or heart disease. The most significant new finding is that young women exposed to secondhand smoke increased their risk of developing breast cancer by 68 percent to 120 percent. That conclusion conflicts with a 2004 report by the U.S. surgeon general. Sanford Barsky, a researcher writing on behalf of the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company, told the board in previous testimony that the state report "either ignores mentioning or does not give the appropriate weight" to studies refuting a link between secondhand smoke and breast cancer. California scientists say their research is more current than the surgeon general's report. An R. J. Reynolds spokesman said that regardless of the dangers from passive smoke indoors, no research supports regulators' decision to declare it an air pollutant.
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