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Another Perspective
Smoker’s Pride
A parable.
“Not too well, actually,” said my friend Colin when I asked him how he was doing.
That surprised me, coming from him. Colin’s an oncologist with a pretty successful practice, and he learned long ago to steer conversations away from any path that might work its way around to the comparing of symptoms and dispensing free medical advice. He was having a Greek salad while I enjoyed a steak. I’d started to suspect something was on his mind when he failed to make any cholesterol jokes.
“This guy came in for tests a couple weeks ago,” Colin said, “and I gave him the whole battery. Turned out he’s got lung cancer. Pretty far advanced. Not a death sentence necessarily, but serious.
“But it was how he reacted to the news that threw me for a loop.”
“Well, denial’s the first stage, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, I see that all the time. But this one took me by surprise. The guy says, ‘No. I refuse to accept this diagnosis.’
“So I went into my speech. ‘You need to take some time,’ I told him. ‘Talk to your family. I expect you’ll want a second opinion, and I can recommend some names if you’d like me to. But the tests don’t lie. You’ve got a fighting chance, thanks to new therapies, but you’re in for a rough time. First thing you’ll have to do is stop smoking.’
“And he says, ‘I knew you’d say that, and that’s the main thing I won’t accept. I tried to stop smoking for years, felt guilty about it, beat myself up over it. But recently I’ve come to accept the fact that I was born to be a smoker. I read that geneticists have identified a DNA marker for people who can’t stop smoking. I’m confident I’m one of those people. I’m a smoker, that’s what I was meant to be, and I take pride in it. I demand respect for my lifestyle.
“‘I’m a Christian. If God created me to be a smoker, I don’t believe there’s any point trying to hide in a closet and pretend to be what I’m not. And since God is love, I can’t believe He’d punish me with a deadly disease just for a little thing like a cigarette. My God wouldn’t do that. So maybe I have cancer, but I refuse to accept your judgmentalism about my smoking.’”
“Wow,” I said to Colin. “That’s a new one.”
“That’s just the beginning. The other day I got a letter from his lawyer. They’re suing me for violating his civil rights. They said I caused him profound mental suffering through imposing my personal beliefs on him and trying to make him change his essential lifestyle. They’re accusing me of ‘fumophobia.’”
“Fumophobia?”
“They’re arguing it’s a hate crime.”
I said something about finding this hard to believe.
“I don’t know,” Colin said. “When you think about it, what right do I have to force my beliefs down his throat?”
About the Author
Lars Walker is a librarian and Norwegian translator, and the author of several published fantasy novels, the latest of which is an e-book called Troll Valley, available for Kindle or Nook.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (59) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Lars Walker
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Frank Drackman| 4.19.12 @ 8:31AM
I'd Stick to the Norwegian Translating Lars...
What form of lung cancer ISN'T a death sentence?
The "Treatable" Kind Joe Paterno had?
or the kind that non smoker Andy Kauffman died from?
Or Superman's wife.
And I love how the Obits will say someone died from "Non Smoking Related Lung Cancer" as if God's gonna care.
In fact, "Small Cell Lung Cancer" is probably Romney's best bet in the fall...
Frank
Chalkdust| 4.19.12 @ 8:32AM
This is a joke.....right? A guy who lets one nitwit shake the foundation of his confidence in his lifes work is not worthy of a single word, let alone a
-a-a whole gaggle of words. But I would be worried about your choosen field Mr. Walker.
Old Soldier| 4.19.12 @ 9:15AM
It must be sarcasm, no lawyer would take the case because no jury would ever give him a dime.
TrueBlue | 4.19.12 @ 1:43PM
McDonalds, hot coffee, lap, winning lawsuit... you sure about that?
Frank Drackman| 4.19.12 @ 8:35AM
Oh sorry,
a Librarian AND a Norwegian Translator...
and whats with that Dewey Decimal System?
Dude loses to that A-Hole Truman but gets to tell us where "My Friend Flucka" goes?
And whats with those big Wooden Sticks in the Newspapers? Is there really that big a problem with people stealing USA Today???
And was there ever a creepier vision than some old dude reading "Boy's Life"??
Frank
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe| 4.22.12 @ 9:03PM
Two Observations:
Norwegians are 'coming out of the woodwork' to voice 'new group think' talking points - to plot a course.
There's no other place 'on earth' where intelligent persons gather for thought now (it used to be at the pub in England) than at this 'smoker's pride article' (meant to 'draw all the proud' in) at The American 'Spectator' (perhaps more adequately deemed, gentlemen 'ON the field of thought' rather than continuing to sit placidly on the sidelines - as mere 'Viewers'.
The former -was anticipated. The latter - pleases this heart to 'no end', should you all 'get together' and LEAD this apparently 'Leaderless' (read: voiceless) globe in 2012.
Thorpie
cheering all those of clear conscience, on
P.Smith| 4.19.12 @ 9:03AM
Eventually I think I'll take up smoking. Most smokers I see seem to enjoy their addiction more so than most addictions. Plus no matter what you say smoking looks cool. I figure if I take up smoking in my sixties or seventies, it will take forty to fifty years to kill me, so I'll be ok.
Paul McGrath| 4.19.12 @ 12:10PM
I'm going to do the same thing. In a very small way, it's like saying F*** YOU to our government caregivers.
c. j. acworth| 4.19.12 @ 9:15AM
I've often thought about taking up the pipe, especially as I've gotten a bit older. My dad smoked an occasional cigar; sorry, they stink. Cigaretts are to "common". But a pipe conveys a certain air of, I don't know, sobriety? Gravitas? Whatever. Maybe they just make you look smarter than you are.
Frank Drackman| 4.19.12 @ 9:31AM
You know who smoked a Pipe??
That creepy Scoutmaster who insisted on watching us shower at Summer Camp...
Sigmund Freud, Saul Alinsky, and if he hadn't been executed, Ted Bundy probably would have.
Saying Cigar's stink is like saying Beer Sucks cause Milwaukee's Beast tastes like piss.
Ya gotta spend money for a good cigar, Heck, some of the ones I smoke cost 2, 3 dollars..
Frank "Still Smokin" Drackman
Moe Blotz| 4.19.12 @ 12:35PM
To really show off, do you light them up with Monopoly 100 dollar bills?
DRA2010| 4.22.12 @ 11:47PM
$3? Good? You are kidding, aren't you?
Ten years ago, when I was still smoking Nicaraguan Churchills, they were just middling good @ $5 each (when buying by the box). Gifts from friends were $10 apiece - I hate to think what they cost now that the US$ is almost worthless!
Robert Pinkerton| 4.19.12 @ 10:20AM
Mr. Ackworth, if you do take up the pipe, understand that it is not the cost of the pipe that determines the smoke, but rather how the pipe was initially seasoned. If you initially season a hand-cut straight-grain masterpiece with perfumed cabbage from a drugstore or cheap-cigarette outlet, you are going to ruin $85.00+. But if you buy a modest little practical smokin' iron, say $20.00, and season ("break it in") with something superlative (say, McClelland's "Bombay Court" -- anything which has no artificial aromatic ingredient [ugh!] nor artificial non-tobacco flavor [feh!]), you will have laid the foundation for years of smoking pleasure.
diogenes| 4.20.12 @ 9:17AM
Stick with cigarettes.
Ulysses S. Brant and Sigmund Freud smoke cigars and both dided of throat cancer.
Pipe-smoking leads to more burn-holes in clothing. It is not "safer" than smoking cigarettes, and it is harder to do when driving or trying to work.
Ellen| 4.19.12 @ 9:32AM
Umm, people. This is satire.
Claypoole| 4.19.12 @ 9:43AM
A little heresy: Smoking does not cause lung cancer. Cancer is a genetic disease; those who have or have had cancer are born with something they should not have, or born without something they should have. I have known too many heavy smokers who lived well into their seventies, eighties, and even nineties, puffing all the way.
I once read an article on cancer that included an interview with a physician who was a cancer researcher. His opinion was that many people had had cancer and not known it, because their immune systems recognized and destroyed the malignancy before it had a chance to grow large enough to produce symptoms.
There is also a problem for women regarding the estrogen receptors found on the surfaces of some cancers. This may help to explain why women who have never smoked are diagnosed with cancer.
We just don't know much about cancer, despite all the research. Pray God sends us a cure.
etta| 4.19.12 @ 11:40AM
carcinogins cause cancer, tobacco smoke is a carcinogin. Genetics contribute to susceptibility and resistance, but don't delude yourself into thinking that the smoke does not cause cancer.
emilio lizardo, PhD| 4.19.12 @ 12:32PM
Not heresy, just misinformation and BS. At least 90% of lung ca is caused by smoking, and the non-smoking adenocarcinomas are associated with mutations in the EGFR and ALK genes, and have nothing to do with estrogen/progesterone receptors.Having said that, only 20% of smokers get lung ca, but they all get something: vascular disease, heart disease, COPD. As far as the smokers who live into their 70's and beyond? People survive plane crashes too.
harleyrider1978| 4.20.12 @ 8:51AM
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS"
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
http://cot.food.gov.
uk/pdfs/cotstatement
tobacco0409
"5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease."
In other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
harleyrider1978| 4.20.12 @ 8:58AM
Journal of Theoretics Vol.1-4
Oct/Nov 1999 Editorial
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Smoking Does Not
Cause Lung Cancer
(According to WHO/CDC Data)*
By: James P. Siepmann, MD
Would you believe that the real number is < 10% (see Appendix A)? Yes, a US white male (USWM) cigarette smoker has an 8% lifetime chance of dying from lung cancer but the USWM nonsmoker also has a 1% chance of dying from lung cancer (see Appendix A). In fact, the data used is biased in the way that it was collected and the actual risk for a smoker is probably less. I personally would not smoke cigarettes and take that risk, nor recommend cigarette smoking to others, but the numbers were less than I had been led to believe. I only did the data on white males because they account for the largest number of lung cancers in the US, but a similar analysis can be done for other groups using the CDC data.
You don't see this type of information being reported, and we hear things like, "if you smoke you will die", but when we actually look at the data, lung cancer accounts for only 2% of the annual deaths worldwide and only 3% in the US.**
When we look at the data over a longer period, such as 50 years as we did here, the lifetime relative risk is only 8 (see Appendix A). That means that even using the biased data that is out there, a USWM smoker has only an 8x more risk of dying from lung cancer than a nonsmoker. It surprised me too because I had always heard numbers like 20-40 times more risk. Statistics that are understandable and make sense to the general public, what a concept!
The process of developing cancer is complex and multifactorial. It involves genetics, the immune system, cellular irritation, DNA alteration, dose and duration of exposure, and much more. Some of the known risk factors include genetics4,5,6, asbestos exposure7, sex8, HIV status9, vitamin deficiency10, diet11,12,13, pollution14 , shipbuilding15 and even just plain old being lazy.16 When some of these factors are combined they can have a synergistic effect17, but none of these risk factors are directly and independently responsible for "causing" lung cancer!
http://d1002391.mydomainwebhos.....1/e1-4.htm
diogenes| 4.20.12 @ 9:32AM
Like others, I have known people to live quite long lives as heavy smokers.
Here is a small observation. My mother was a nurse, never smoked one cigarette, seldom drank and then only a small quantity, follwed a rigorous diet, and exercised religiously. She was thrifty, and she was interested in being a "good person", and everyone talked about how "sweet" she was.
Her sister was a hell raising 2-pack a day smoker and 4- cocktail- a -day drinker, and not at all interested in being "good". She was also a spendthrift and had an evil temperament and low moral standards.
My aunt lived to be 83, and died of lung cancer. My mother lived to be 88 and died of liver cancer.
I can assure you that my aunt had a lot more fun.
One confounding factor is that other lifestyle choices also affect cancer and mortality rates . Smokers are personalities who may engage in a lot of risky behavior, and are posasibly less likely to worry about a "proper" diet and exercise.
LiveFreeOrDie| 4.19.12 @ 2:29PM
We know smoking causes cancer. Could it be the multitude of known carcinogens that are used to process the tobacco or the tobacco itself? I've yet to find any conclusive study that proves tobacco, by itself, causes cancer. Same with cannabis.
Dave Williams| 4.19.12 @ 3:54PM
No, god is NOT going to "send us a cure," and it won't come from PRAYING!!!! Nobody is LISTENING!!!! Cures will be found by SCIENTISTS who know and understand PHYSICAL REALITY!!!!
You christers really take the cake sometimes....
harleyrider1978| 4.20.12 @ 1:12PM
As of late all we get is JUNK SCIENTISTS telling us manmade climate science is real and then we have the second hand smoke junk science to boot with it!
Then we find the following is a fact!
Not 1 Death or Sickness Etiologically Assigned to Tobacco. All the diseases attributed to smoking are also present in non smokers. It means, in other words, that they are multifactorial, that is, the result of the interaction of tens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of factors, either known or suspected contributors - of which smoking can be one.
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe| 4.22.12 @ 9:08PM
Thanks, Harley. Well said.
from a little Sis' from the Spirit of '76
Melvin| 4.19.12 @ 10:23AM
Well it is about damn time that smokers started fighting back and throwing the same bad medicine back at those who force them to change their lifestyle.
Every day we are bombarded with those who just can't seem to leave other people the well enough alone.
"You need to wear your seat belt." "Why? Because you might get hurt, so, I'm ordering you to put it on. It's in your best interest." "How do you know what is in my best interest?"
Busy bodies love statistics, and studies. We get beat up with these studies ans statistics every single day. The busy bodies carry this stuff around like it was their holy bible.
Now in New York City,"New York law would identify buildings with smokers."
this is from The Raw Story. Now that Republican Mayor Micheal Bloomberg has crushed the Salt rebellion, he as ordered his fellow busy bodies to identify smokers and what buildings they live in.
Wouldn't this act be easier if Mayor Bloomberg just ordered smokers to wear a armband with a burning cigarette, and the name Raucher. Raucher is the name for Smoker in German.
Then the Fumophobics could persecute and jeer at the Rauchers like the Nazis did to the Jews.
Last Summer I was in a grocery store parking lot. It was hot and humid, and as I was walking back to where my motor vehicle was parked I noticed there was a couple with children and the woman was changing one of the kids diapers. It was number #2 because the kid did a real bang up job that day, even from where I was standing.
They must have been Fumophobics because they had these stickers all over their vehicle that they were environmentalists, and one that stuck out was, "No Smoking Zone."
I backed out and just as I was pulling forward, I noticed a quick flick of the woman's wrist as she chucked the foul offal from her spawn under their car.
The driver of their vehicle was looking into the rear view mirror and noticed that I saw the woman dispose of the diaper. Words were exchanged and the woman flipped me the bird.
Now this is the same type of busy body that would preach to smokers how evil cigarettes smell, but has no problem throwing a diaper full of shit from their kid, onto the hot Summer pavement in a grocery store parking lot.
And of course the Trolls, will be here today, extolling the eeeevvvvilllls of the demon weed, "Tobacco."
Isn't a bit odd, that the same fumophobics that fight to the death to stamp out cigarette use, seem to not really have all that much of a problemo with Marijuana or Crack Smoke.
Is New York City, Republican Mayor Bloomberg identifying which buildings contain Marijuana and Crack users?
If the same vitriol that was put into persecuting the, "Racuhers," was directed at Crack and Marijuana users, controlled substance abuse could dramatically go down.
But we all know that isn't going to happen is it?
Maybe Smokers could get the fumophobics off their backs by letting them know, that Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and every Liberals hero Che Guevara were prolific users of, Tobacco.
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe| 4.22.12 @ 8:06PM
Melvin - Wow. Great Post. I like your conscience, kiddo.
(con-science, meaning that 'regardless the bent of of this article', you clearly state that 1+1 remains '2'.) Your words were well said and a joy to read.
True Science - which is 'observation' - not intellectualism or propaganda - is 'observable' and able to be 'repeated'.
Now, on several fronts - it's clear that Science needs to be 're-taught' to masses of 'purported scientists' - from NASA goofs to the linguists who 'train us what to say'. (Amazing charlatans, indeed - one most likely spawned the nappy thrower.)
So, high fives for your lucid comments. Methinks you'd provide a 'breath of fresh air' regardless of where on earth you'd choose to 'light up'. For, your words turn 'their' arguments back on 'them'.
(regardless of whom 'they' are at a given moment - for, 'they' like to morph) rather than having 'us' (those being of sound mind and stout heart even after indoctrination) find ourselves wearing 'em, 'the coarse and thoroughly soaked woolen blankets of thought' they enjoy tossing over the unsuspecting.
Enjoy a good inhale (NOT 'drag') for me on this 22nd of April - the anniversary of Lenin's birth - a day chosen to be 'Earth Day' for more than obvious reasons; and I promise to keep a look out for any wretched wench tossing disposables onto the formerly clear path ahead.
It's both sad and amazing that in 2012 and beyond - 'lighting a candle' may be all we will be told that we're able to do - but, at the very least - know I'll 'light up' and enjoy a rollie with this 'little light of mine' as smoking has become (perhaps, always has been) ? - a 'signpost' of freedom.
Ever thought of becoming a 'real' Leader and tromping out onto the World Stage with The Truth - rather than just typing ?
((I've often mused that yet another 'useful idiot tool' began with 'talk radio' which morphed into 'blogging' so that 'we' could 'vent' rather than STAND and thus make our point in the Arena of Life.))
Regardless - we need more of your ilk. So,
'Good on YA, Melvin.' Keep typing, regardless - for rather than spewing indoctrination of either side - you dare to 'think' for yourself and provide a good meal for others.
Cynthia Lauren
Your Fellow American of Outback pride
PS - It's the 23rd out here on the Coastal Outback, and I can assure all that the day indeed looks lovely from this vantage point, for there 'is life' even after that silly maniac's birthday...and thus, we ENJOY Life while his wretched soul writhes in hell.
Peppermint Tea| 4.19.12 @ 11:35AM
I thought AS readers were smarter than this: the article was NOT about smoking, it was about DENIAL. The same denial we exhibit when we think the President doesn't mean to hurt the nation by
Nixing the oil pipeline.
Throwing gasoline on race fires.
Stabbing Israel in the back.
Selling guns to Mexican drug cartel.
Threatening the Supreme Court.
Encouraging OWS and other unrest.
Putting us $5 trillion more in debt in 3 years.
Undermining the Soc Sec. fund.
Taking over Medical care.
Wasting billions in fake energy investments.
We are in DENIAL that he is anti-American, anti Freedom, anti-Peace, anti-Republic, anti-EVERYTHING THAT IS GOOD AND JUST IN THE WORLD.
Occam's Tool| 4.19.12 @ 11:47AM
Lawyers will sue over anything, and courts will accept most any lawsuit. This one is NOT the most ridiculous one I have ever seen personally.
Robert Pinkerton| 4.19.12 @ 12:49PM
"Wouldn't this act be easier if Mayor Bloomberg just ordered smokers to wear a armband with a burning cigarette, and the name Raucher. Raucher is the name for Smoker in German.
Then the Fumophobics could persecute and jeer at the Rauchers like the Nazis did to the Jews."
You are onto something I have been saying for years. What the Establishment is doing to us smokers is closely comparable to the Hitler government's infamous Nurenberg laws, in that the object of the exercise is to drive smokers and smoking out of public life an the Nazis' objective was to drive Jewish folk out of public life in Germany.
Make no mistake: The smoke Nazis shall come after the cannabis smokers once they have ravished their fill from us; it is the process of smoking per se that aggravates them.
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe| 4.22.12 @ 8:19PM
WHAT?!??
TWO 'MEN' WITH CLEAR, CONCISE THOUGHT?!!! Okay, okay. Now that we've achieved a 'Truthful' consensus with Melvin and Robert - I move that they are elected as President and Vice (oophs) President of the United States.
With the 3 of us (for, I'll be the big mouthed cheer-leader/fan of you two) the world will indeed be a 'nicer place'.
KEEP WRITING MEL AND ROBERT! ...now, where's that pouch of tobacco...gotta light up in honor of this TRUTH...
C.L. Thorpe
mejamom| 4.19.12 @ 12:57PM
Cigarettes as a cause of cancer has been debated for years and will continue until there is real proof. And even then there are those folks who won't believe fish need to live in water because it doesn't fit their world view. Cigarettes may not cause cancer but they cause other health related disorders. Otherwise all of the folks who quit (myself) wouldn't notice the benefits: No more shortage of breath and chronic cough, less viral infections. And it's hard to quit for most people. It must be addictive. Not health related but smoke stinks up clothes, hair, upholstery and leaves residue on walls. How can breathing any burning material directly into one's lungs be a good thing?
Because it's legal and no one's making you, you can smoke if you want. I never berate my friends and relatives who do. However, they all practice good manners and smoke well away from those who don't.
I'm not sure what this article was supposed to point out. I want my doctor to suggest ways to stay healthy. If I don't like what he says, I can go somewhere else or just continue to do what I want.
POST American| 4.19.12 @ 1:22PM
----NO examination of the smoking
phenomenon is even worth the space
without shining keen light on the role
of the capstone ops of Tavistock and
Eduard Bernays.
---Likewise cultural degeneration
and 'POP' culture from
dope to porn to wrap ----to abortion
and 'YOUTH--IN ---Asia'.
DO CHECK OUT the latest
article from Eustace Mullens
'WHO CONTROLS the MEDIA'
now online.
Even we were surprised to see,
in black and white, that Nelson
Rockefeller was behind such
'right ops' as the 'John Birch Society'.
"Understand, everything, absolutely
everything in culture is engineered,
promoted, and authorized ---from the top.
---EVERYTHING."
-Infomed online
In this, the NOW UNDENIABLE 11th hour
of the CFR---RED China handover, takedown,
occupation, TREASON and FINAL EUGENICS
OP ------------TAKE HEED.
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe| 4.22.12 @ 8:24PM
You know...POST, from what you've just written - you'd almost be a fairly descent guy, too - if you didn't 'mind' females so darned much.
(from your Joan of Arc, comments - please understand)
...I'd even happily 'fetch' your coffee for you, dear.
Thorpie
loving LIFE and loving her 'femaleness', too.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.19.12 @ 1:31PM
My mom, who graduated from high school in 1925, was, to a large degree, a "liberated" woman of her day. For her, freedom meant voting and smoking cigarettes and wearing her hair short.
She smoked until she got a lung cancer, which eventually killed her. Her concession to the antismoking campaign was to switch from Camels (which were unfiltered back then) to filtered Tareytons. When she was in the hospital in her last days, she would poke her head out from under the oxygen tent over her on her bed to light up a Tareyton. When I told her she was going to light herself up if she did that one time too many, she said, "If I can't smoke, then I'd just as soon die." She was one tough bird. Not long afterward, she died, having lived a life of 72 years, which evidently was enough to satisfy her, living as much as she could the kind of life she wanted to live.
Gary| 4.19.12 @ 1:33PM
I have never smoked, don't like it, but don't like the self righteous, smug, superior, and intolerant attitude anti smoking advocates reek of. It's gone too far with mass public bans, apartment bans, and auto bans. Enough is enough. As to life choices, many choose dangerous hobbies and jobs but do so because it is who they are. My wife loved horses and was killed two hears ago in a freak accident with a horse. Am I hurt, angry, lost? You bet, but I know it is what she loved. It was who she was, the person I loved so deeply and was married to for 41 good years. She also rode motor bikes. Should I have discouraged her? From a selfish point of view maybe so, but my joy was seeing her happy and being the girl I married, a unique, special person. As much as I hurt I do not regret letting her being who she was.
wolflen| 4.19.12 @ 2:27PM
remember: the federal income tax was just going to be a "tempory tax"
resturants at first: well you can still smoke..but you have to sit in the "smoking section"
later: sorry no smoking inside..but you can smoke outside..
later still: sorry there is no smoking withing 25 feet of ANY door-window-or access walkway to any structure withing the city limits (say it aint so santa monica CA)including beaches, parks or any outdoor public place..shopping malls etc..
now: no smoking in "attached housing" rental or condos..measures are being studied on the legalities of banning smoking in "private" homes..
oh they will never be able to do that..(see (tempory tax) above
first they came for the smokers...have you heard this one before..?
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.19.12 @ 3:07PM
I smoke a pipe twelve to sixteen hours a day. I use Dr. Grabow filter pipes...and Sir Walter Raleigh AROMATIC blend tobacco.
I will quit smoking that combo when I die or when they stop making my chosen brand....or outlaw same.
A few of my remaining pleasures is a great smoke, Heh, and a sip of Scots whiskey....and a cup of Folger's coffee.
None of us is going to live forever here.
If lung cancer is the result...no chemo...no hospital bullshit. Just give me a pain pill.
Ken
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.19.12 @ 3:18PM
Sorry, folks.
I had to pause to load and light my pipe. (smile)
Ya'll know that for millions of years our ancestors inhaled LOTS of smoke from their heating and cooking fires.
Just a thought.
Richard Baker| 4.19.12 @ 4:25PM
It's always amazing that the "tolerant" lefties have such an animus towards smoking but marijuana is said to be relatively harmless. The anti-smoking Nazis just can't stand that those of us who do enjoy ourselves. A pipe smoker, here.
Richard Baker| 4.19.12 @ 4:25PM
It's always amazing that the "tolerant" lefties have such an animus towards smoking but marijuana is said to be relatively harmless. The anti-smoking Nazis just can't stand that those of us who do enjoy ourselves. A pipe smoker, here.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.19.12 @ 6:23PM
More than that, lefties are touting a recent "scientific" finding that marijuana smoke is actually GOOD for you because pot smokers smoke pot a lot less than cigarette smokers smoke cigarettes, and because you inhale marijuana smoke deeply into your lungs, you are exercising your lungs. So I guess that offsets the second-hand smoke thingie that they talk about so much.
Bob S| 4.19.12 @ 4:54PM
Need more proof that progressives are destroying society? Doctors used to be nervous about giving medication or performing surgery for fear of malpractice lawsuit, but to be scared of giving away medical advice for fear of "hate crime" accusations? It's pure insanity.
In this context, Obamacare makes sense. You don't need to live a long time, you don't need good health care. You just need for no one to make you feel bad and for no one to tell you what you don't want to hear. They're not "death panels", they're assisted suicide for those who have had enough of life.
Mike Hawk| 4.19.12 @ 4:56PM
Most of the cigarette smokers I know are Liberals even far leftys. (otherwise the potheads are tend to be leftists or Paulbots) I know they have to support children's health care somehow. Conservatives like a good cigar if they do smoke anything. If a Liberal asks if I mind if they smoke I usually say: " NO, do you mind if I fart." Then that's when they get offended. :-)
cicero| 4.19.12 @ 5:12PM
This sounds like another one of those "law suits" that have been propagaged by the insurance carriers, and their front men who go around the country to drum up antipathy to people injured by others' negligence. Remember the guy who sued because he became gay from riding a bicycle? Pure fiction. The MacD's coffee story happens to be true. What they don't tell you is that the woman was only asking for the $750.00 to pay for her medical. When the insurance carrier told her to go fly a kite, she did. The jury awarded her one year's worth of the profit from the sale of coffee at Mc D's. All the talk about the med mal nuisance suits? In Michigan we passed tort reform 20 years ago - and guess what? Our docs pay the second highest malpractice insurance premiums in the country. There is certainly a problem, but it is not silly law suits.
somnolence| 4.19.12 @ 6:08PM
I'm not a smoker as I quit cold turkey back in March of 1993. I really don't blame the gentleman for saying that he won't quit, considering his position in how far advanced the cancer is. When Bogart was diagnosed with terminal cancer he continued to smoke, and Robert Ruark, who was both a heavy smoker and chronic alcoholic upped his consumption of both liquor and cigarettes when told he didn't have long to live. Only God and yourself really know the spirit in your heart. Actually, I've never bought all the baloney about inhalation of second-hand smoke causing cancer or emphysema, or COPD, as exhaust fumes are all around us.
sirbourbon| 4.19.12 @ 11:38PM
"Rockefeller was behind such
'right ops' as the 'John Birch Society'." ---Poster that goes by the moniker of " Post American"
Eustace Mullins tried to peddle books that Robert Welch, the founder The John Birch Society, felt were lacking in research. In addition Welch didn't like Mullins' anti- Jewish views. Mullins got angry at Welch and throughout his life took his hatred of Welch out on the JBS by peddling ridiculous theories as the above quote by "Post American."
One of the most ludicrous and assinine statements coming from Mullins is that Welch's JBS was a creation of the heir of the standard Oil fortune. The whole theory of the Rockefeller connection is stupid since Gary Allen, a writer for an affiliate JBS publication, wrote a book he titled The Rockefeller Files. The book was not at all a book the Rockefellers would appreciate! Check it out on Amazon.
David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission in the 19 teen seventies. Rockefeller got the idea to finance the trilats from a book written by Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski titled Between Two Ages. Zbig said kind things about marxism and promoted a concept of moving to a globalist world economy by incremental steps tied to trade agreeements. The JBS used that book to show evidence that CFR people in Carter's administration were promoting a dissolution of the independence of the US Constitution via these Rockefeller created organizations ostensibly created to promote free trade.
The JBS was the early critic of the Trilat Commission. The JBS gave the issue of Trilateralism such energy that Ronald Reagan made it part of his campaign. Reagan incorporated into his campaign speechs that no Trilateralists would be part of his administration!
Nelson Rockefeller gave a speech at the GOP 1964 convention condemning The JBS. Rockefeller knew that many of the Republican delegates supporting Barry Goldwater present at the convention were members of The John Birch Society.
More exposes by The JBS of the Rockefellers:
Nelson's brother David was a board member of the CFR. and no other organization exposed this more than the JBS. Phyllis Schafley did as well but it was former FBI agent Dan Smoot who wrote a book The Invisible Government, and the JBS that distributed this book on the Council on Foreign Relations' strangle hold on our government that gave the Rockefellers heart burn!
Lots of Americans today know that the move to socialism is the result of the influence exerted by the CFR and the Trilats that have moved their people into the highest levels of government that is mostrly to blame for that!
Is the CFR influential? Listen to what Hillary Clinton says about the CFR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
That the John Birch Society was first in America as an organization to begin exposing this shadow government makes these allegations look silly.
Check out their website:http://www.jbs.org/
harleyrider1978| 4.20.12 @ 1:15PM
Rockefeller also created the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Foundation, and the American Lung Association in this eugenics framework)
Antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid history. The three antismoking crusades of the last century have been eugenics-driven. In eugenics, health is erroneously reduced to an entirely biological phenomenon and where a self-installed elite attempt to engineer/breed a “better” human herd. In addition to a genetic aspect, eugenics views tobacco and alcohol as racial poisons needing to be eradicated (negative eugenics). Antismoking was rife in early-1900s USA. Smoking and tobacco sales were banned in quite a number of American states.
http://www.americanheritage.com/artic....
Dillow (1981) notes that the bulk of antismoking claims were fraudulent and inflammatory. Dillow fails to note that the antismoking crusade of the early-1900s USA was eugenics-driven: Eugenics was mainstream in the USA at this time. At the turn of the last century, eugenics was mainstream in the USA, the UK, some European countries, and a number of Scandinavian countries. The USA appears to be the most prominent. The mega-wealthy in the USA (e.g., Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Kellogg) were supporters and funders of eugenics (and antismoking, anti-alcohol) – and still are. Rockefeller and Ford were also prominent supporters of Nazi eugenics. (Rockefeller also created the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Foundation, and the American Lung Association in this eugenics framework). Rockefeller and Ford had trade agreements with the Nazis through the 1930s
...
A Grin without a Cat| 4.20.12 @ 12:50AM
So far, every single poster on this thread seems to have missed the point of Mr. Walker's article. It has nothing to do with tobacco, or denial, or JBS. This is a parable. A few hints:
'fumophobia'
'hate crime'
'imposing personal beliefs'
'trying to make him change... essential lifestyle'
What does this language remind you of?
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.20.12 @ 12:26PM
I give up.
harleyrider1978| 4.20.12 @ 1:14PM
Why! Never ever give into prohibition.......
sirbourbon| 4.21.12 @ 11:58AM
Smoking doesn't cause cancer anymore than the Cancer Society cures it.
They say that the devil is a control freak. He has many adherents in this world that lust in telling people how to live their lives: big brother warnbs you not to drive a car without clicking on a seat belt; you bertter not smoke in private buildings (restaurants,bars, hospitals, banks, etc.), you can't do this and that. But if these control freaks could get the power to yank your kidneys and liver out of you they'd do it before you had the chance to tell the stupid DMV clerk that you'd prefer to take them to heaven with you!
sirbourbon| 4.22.12 @ 1:07AM
I'm not unaware of that, G WA C, but when posters stray off into another topic and state things that are totally wrong I am not such a stickler for staying on topic despite those few complaints that might emerge like your little tiff.
If all it takes is a few keystrokes to challenge why not take advantage, even if it is off topic.
I am not a smoker but I have placed a cig in my mouth and hung out in smoke filled bars despite the headaches that smoke filled rooms brought on.
Cigarette smoke darkens lungs and penetrates clothing. Hanging a smokey suit to air out in the night air is a simpler cure than to pass a law banning smoking in private bars. People do have a right to stink up their clothes, hair and bodies and blaken their lungs. But people also have a right not to have laws that permit a private organization to pass a law that forces people to drink floridated water. Treating water to kill bacteria is one thing but treating people with floride is a whole lot different. Bacteria, some research indicates, still thrives with floride treated teeth. The side effects of too much floride in the body some studies allege is behind the rise of heart disease. The allegations stretch out to other ailments tying them to excess floride in the body.
The Heart Fund would never in a hundred years consider floride as a killer but blame they go bonkers over a silly cigarette. They claim, allege that cigarette smoke causes cancer and heart disease. The big news media peddles these allegations and theories as a way to condition us into accepting the word of some of the biggest money grubbing organizations on the planet as the ultimate authority! Bull! Those non profits with their top heavy administrations are nothing but propaganda mouth pieces for big government.
Cynthia Lauren Thorpe| 4.22.12 @ 9:20PM
Yeah. You're right, 'Grin'.
Yet - everyone 'does' get it. The verbiage is so obvious that it doesn't need be said.
The Norseman is merely opening up another silly rabbit hole to entice us into - but, it's being used here to encourage and ignore the obvious. I think that's great use of words.
We've just 'looked at' the rabbit hole and commented. No one seems to be diving down it.
Thorpie
DanMc| 4.20.12 @ 5:22PM
My God, the comments on the article are cringe worthy. Sweet f**k!
Well put, Mr. Walker.
sirbourbon| 4.22.12 @ 12:38AM
and your post is inarticulate to say the least.
FeFe| 4.24.12 @ 5:32PM
You forgot to add FGM as a "coming field."
piper| 4.25.12 @ 9:18AM
Cigarettes are awfully over-manufactured and full of chemical additives, the flavour is not enjoyable in the slightest and constant inhalation for many years cannot be good for the lungs. I am 20 years old and thoroughly enjoy pipe smoking. The tobacco is unadulterated for the most part, and you do not inhale. The taste is absolutely amazing and I have received many compliments on the smell. This is one pleasure I do not wish to give up, if you have not tried a pipe before, do yourself a favour and give it a go. One pipe a day after work is my way of ending the day.