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Waiter Rant: The Privacy of Smoke |
| Posted by: cl00bie on 03/24/2010 03:39 AM (Read: ) |
It turns out that one of my favorite writers is a cigar smoker. He is the host of an extremely funny and poignant blog named most appropriately, "Waiter Rant". In a classic missive, he describes dealing with assorted people while smoking his cigar.
It's a crisp winter's night and I'm strolling though Union Square in Lower Manhattan. I'm supposed to be meeting a friend for dinner but when she texts to say she's running late I suddenly discover I've got forty-five minutes to kill. So I duck into a cigar shop, select a Punch Maduro Rothschild from the humidor, snip off the end and walk back into the park. Finding a quiet corner I get the stogie going with a wooden match and settle back to enjoy my favorite pastime - people watching. Unfortunately, people are also watching me.
"That's disgusting," a smartly dressed young woman says as she walks past me.
"I beg your pardon?" I reply.
"You look obnoxious smoking that cigar," she says.
I look at the woman balefully. She's your prototypical New York babe - cute, dressed in black from head to toe, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee with an iPod plugged into her head.
"I may look obnoxious, dear,” I reply. “But you sound obnoxious."
"What did you say?: the woman says, popping her headphones out of her ears. I repeat myself.
"What the..." she stammers.
"Have a nice night, Miss."
Steve deals with this one in his inimitable style. He's a lot of fun to read and he's on my regular read list.
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Filed in :: Smoker's Rights
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Catholic Priest Fights for Smokers' Rights |
| Posted by: cl00bie on 12/20/2007 03:35 AM (Read: ) |
(Via Deacon Greg, via the Anchoress)
A Catholic priest in New York City is fighting for smoker's rights. The Priest is Rev. H. Setter, who serves All Saints Catholic Church held a rally to promote smokers' rights in the city.
Dozens of cigar smokers showed up despite the weather to voice their support for smokers' rights as the city considers a ban on smoking in places such as restaurants and bars.
Setter, who realizes some may see him as an unlikely advocate for such a cause, is against banning smoking for two reasons.
"No. 1, tobacco products in the United States are legal, and business owners should have the right to make decisions about whether they're smoke-free or smoker-friendly" without government regulation, Setter said as cigar smoke filled the bar.
This country was founded on freedom. This includes personal property rights. People have the freedom to work there or not, assuming any risk for doing so. Customers have the freedom to patronize the establishment or not. People choose hazardous professions and activities every day. Two that come to mind are people who work in nuclear facilities, and those who sky-dive.
Anchoress sums it up thusly:
I'm a non-smoker, but I understand what it is to relax over a drink with a cigarette, and I think a fella ought to be able to go smoke a cigar with like-minded fellas if that’s what they want, without local, state or federal governments chasing them down.
The scolds of the world want to take away everything fun - cartoons that go boom, playgrounds with see-saws, hot fudge sundaes and a smoke. All in the name of helping you to "live longer." I'm surprised no one has decided that homeowners should not be able to own propane tanks and barbecues... or kitchen stoves... because someone might get hurt.
Life is too short, even if you live to be a hundred, and I’m not sure I want to live to 100. 80 would be great. 75 would be fine, too…but a little freedom to relax and unwind has to be part of the bargain.
Amen.
What always amazes me about the smoke-nazis is the claim that bars and restaurants ought to be smoke free because a majority of people want it that way. What I never see is one of these nannies opening up a smoke-free bar or restaurant (which as owners, they'd be allowed to restrict smoking in their own establishment). One would think that all of the people who hate smoking would flock to these places and they would have so much business they would not know what to do with it.
Why don't we see all of those smoke free restaurants? The claim is that there is a ton of money to be made.
The fact is, nannies aren't interested in risk. That's why they're nannies. Nannies prefer to control other people and tell other people what to do. In large numbers, nannies are simply bullies.
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Filed in :: Smoker's Rights
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I Wouldn't Support Huckabee So Fast... |
| Posted by: cl00bie on 11/01/2007 01:08 AM (Read: ) |
LC Jackboot from the Cigar Intelligence Agency thinks Mike Huckabee deserves another look...
His general characterization as a long-shot was based on his previous fund-raising ability, but the value voters are key to correcting that. In spite of a relatively small poll, it shows great potential for him. Other sources are beginning to chatter about Huckabee as an undercard for Rudy, but that won’t satisfy the wing of the party that’s had it with RINOs. We’re smart enough to see that as a "tossing us a bone" from the RNC, and it won’t work in the general elections.
I think we all need to give Mike Huckabee another look, a real HARD look.
Far be it from me to contradict an agent from the CIA, it seems that unless he's changed his position recently, Mr. Huckabee supports a national smoking ban.
As much as I like Huckabee for many reasons, as long as there's another viable alternative, I can't support a big-government nanny-stater for President.
And I don't think LC Jackboot ought to either. |
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Filed in :: Smoker's Rights
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A Smoker's Lament |
| Posted by: cl00bie on 08/23/2007 10:54 PM (Read: ) |
By: Rick Moran
I can’t stand the sight of spinach.
All my life, I’ve wanted to be like Popeye and eat my spinach. But the sight, smell, texture, and consistency of Spinach makes me want to puke.
If I walk into a house where cabbage is being cooked, I feel physically ill at the smell.
The thought of eating oysters makes me gag.
I am sure that I’m not alone in any of those powerful dislikes. And if I sought out my fellow spinach haters, cabbage bashers, and oyster despisers and we all got together and decided to tax those of you who love and cherish those foods, there would be a hue and cry throughout the land guaranteed to effect a swift repeal of any such tax.
Why then, do many of you wish to pick on smokers and take my property – my hard earned money – in the form of a monstrously discriminatory tax simply because there are more of you than there are of us?
Granted, smoking is extremely hazardous to the user and not so good if you’re standing next to someone puffing away. Banning smoking indoors everywhere is something we smokers must come to accept – although I would love to see the law altered so that entrepreneurs could open “smokers only” bars and restaurants. Everyone from the owner down through the employees and customers would have to either be a smoker or sign a waiver to the effect that they don’t mind the smoke.
I can even see the efficacy of banning smoking at the ballpark or other places where large numbers of people are in close proximity to each other.
These are accommodations I am willing to make. What I am not willing to do any longer is sit still while the rest of you bully me around and take my money for exorbitant taxes while sanctimoniously weeping about it being for “the kids” or “for health care.”
I could give a good goddamn what it’s for. As long as smoking is legal, you have absolutely no right to target me and my property for excessive, ruinous taxes whose expressed purpose is to force me to change a behavior you find objectionable.
If smoking is such a health hazard, so much a threat to children, you have only one option; ban it entirely.
I don’t want to hear about Prohibition and the problems enforcing the Volstead Act. Smoking is portrayed by government and activists as evil – thus making those of us who choose to smoke an easy target for what under any other circumstances would be considered theft at the hands of government and a bunch of health Nazis. If you want to save me from what you see as my own folly, keep kids from starting smoking, cut health costs associated with smokers that is putting such a drain on resources, then for God’s sake have the balls to ban cigarettes!
Instead, you enjoy the exercise of power too much over your fellow citizens – and the use of funds associated with your ill gotten gains – to stop now. Government is on a rampage not against tobacco but against its users. And that is unconscionable in a free society.
The state of Illinois will most likely add nearly a dollar to the cigarette tax in a few days. The extra 20 bucks a week Zsu Zsu and I will have to pay to indulge our habit and pleasure is nothing compared the affront to our rights as citizens to be secure in our property from unreasonable taxes. Targeting a minority for such treatment would not be tolerated if we were talking about religion, race, sex, or sexual preference. But since smoking is frowned upon by society, that disapprobation is transferred to the smoker and any indignity becomes possible, even desired.
I enjoy smoking cigarettes. It makes no difference to me whether you accept that or not. There are things about you, I’m sure, that I couldn’t understand or stomach. Perhaps you’re an oyster eater or cabbage lover. So be it. You have no fear of having an excessive amount of your property taken from you in taxes just because you enjoy those slimy mollusks. Perhaps if I started a campaign to demonize oysters and tax the processing, selling, and eating of them beyond all reason and fairness, you might get an idea of how I feel.
I’m not asking for the elimination of cigarette taxes nor even a reduction. I am asking for a moratorium. Either that or a ban on the growing, selling, and consumption of tobacco. It is time to stop treating smokers so unfairly.
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Filed in :: Smoker's Rights
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