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Beating a dead horse: It’s what the news media does. Why? Because so many millions of humans are in denial, and the only way to wake them up is to hammer home the obvious, ad infinitum.
That’s why the constant drumbeat of articles on global warming continues. Because, though it’s difficult to precisely quantify, and experts can disagree about its scope, reach, and the how much time we have to mitigate it, it’s real. Yes, denial-heads, it’s real.
What else is real? The fact that smoking is bad for you and secondhand smoke is bad for others around you. And yet the “debate” persists. The “debate” goes on because drug addicts (a.k.a. smokers) and purported “libertarians” (a.k.a. right-wingers who want to pretend they’re not the right-wing tools they are) keep bitching about it.
The latest round of silliness comes from smokers who are pissed off at the Pirates for banning smoking at PNC Park. Nitwits. Numbskulls. Denial-heads. The letter-to-the-editor war in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a fine example of the ignorance which persists when it comes to smoking. I hate to be so high and mighty; I prefer just to be high. But although I ain’t no rocket scientist, even I get that breathing carcinogens is bad for you … even if they’re being provided by your inconsiderate friend who smokes around you.
But judging from the P-G mailbag, I guess some people haven’t figured that out yet.
When a supporter of the policy objected to cigarettes as health risks at the ballpark, another letter-writer griped that such a complaint forgot about such risks as “buttery, salty popcorn and fatty hot dogs. Maybe these health risks can be banned as well in a few years. And beer. He forgot beer.”
The difference between banning fatty food and smoke, my clever friend, is that if I eat a fatty hot dog and my arteries harden and I die, you don’t suffer. But if I smoke a cigarette and it helps your lungs deteriorate, we both suffer. I don’t have the right to make you pay for my idiocy.
Here’s another P-G correspondent: “One of my early memories of Forbes Field was the smell of tobacco smoke, which created an atmosphere that will always remind me and give me that ballpark feeling. … I can’t stand when I am around people who smoke, but what is wrong with going out to the ramp and catching a puff between innings? God forbid, what will they do when Jim Leyland comes to town?”
First of all, I like Jim Leyland. But I don’t want to breathe his poison gas. I know, call me crazy. And I’m sorry, but the rest of us shouldn’t have to allow our health to suffer, just because you’re nostalgic for the good old days when carcinogens and men with hats filled the stadiums … and when people willingly sucked crap into their lungs to assist their friends, the drug addicts.
What’s wrong with going down to the ramp? I‘m on the freaking ramp. And so are others who, oddly enough, choose to breathe air. It’s a nutty, kooky kinda concept, but you’ll have to bear with us eccentrics, who constitute the great majority of the population.
Another non-smoker griped to the P-G that although smokers at bars and restaurants can walk outside and have a cigarette before returning, “PNC Park, and Three Rivers Stadium before it, never allowed re-entry as long as I’ve been attending Pirates games.”
Sorry, pal. You can’t smoke on an airplane, and they don’t allow re-entry either. You just have to deal with it.
But the ones who really crack me up are the average Joe smoker who complain, “By Gawd, I ain’t ever gonna go to PNC Park again.”
Say it ain’t so, Joe! Don’t you get it? We don’t care! We’re glad you’re not coming. The Pirates will still have excellent attendance. If they can draw a crowd with the putrid teams of recent years, they can take the hit of a few yellow-toothed, cancer-breathing yinzers staying home.
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2007.
I work for mayview state hospital where there is a no smoking policy in effect, almost. while the policy reads no smoking allowed unless away from entrances to the building there is a double standard going on. They have two smoking rooms right in the middle of a hallway that staff must pass through to get to their assigned units. Patients are taken there several times a day to smoke. Although they have large air filters in each room the halls smell throughout the day and night hours after the last smoke is given. This goes beyond second hand smoke it stinks. for obviuous reasons I will not post my name for fear of higher ups coming down on me. ty a registered nurse
Dear pappap999 – the Allegheny County smokefree ordinance requires Mayview State Hospital to prohbit smoking inside their facility and within 15 feet of any entrance. The temporary injunction issued on 12/22/06 only affects restaurants and bars. See Sections 880-2A(1)(j)and 880-2A(9) of the ordinance: http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/council/Ordinances/smokingban.pdf
Please contact me with any questions.
Greg Hartley – SmokeFree Pennsylvania
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state
Smoke free laws are this.
Smokers have rights but it seems especially in Ohio and other smoke free states they don’t care.
But, us as smokers can take revenge!
By helping to promote smoking ant-social and rebellious image. Great masses of future smokers can be born..to lead and to overthrough you motheruckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yea
You could pay me enoguh money to walk into your crappy PNC park…Pittsburg Not Cool.
I was there last week and all I seen was a Gay pride parade.
Pittsburgs has some cool stuff but otherwise you suck my elongaged floppy memeber.