From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Hey, Mind If I Butt In?
My partner, Michael, used to smoke two packs a day. Even worse, he also used to smoke the cigarettes that came in those packs. My mom smoked, too, and I sometimes wonder if she wasn't squeezing a King-size Kent between her lips as she was squeezing me out into the arms of our family doctor, who was also a smoker (Camels, if I had to guess). So I've been around smokers a good chunk of my life.
Smoking, of course, involves sucking addictive, unconscionably-toxic yet completely-legal chemicals into your body, where they do to your cardiovascular and respiratory system what Fox News does to your brain. Cigarettes lay down so much tar that some people's lungs qualify as a federally-approved infrastructure project. The robots at Fukushima will trundle around a Level-7 radioactive site, but they draw the line at entering a smoker's windpipe. At least the tobacco companies were thoughtful enough to add formaldehyde to the mix, though, so their customers can get an early start on the embalming process. Message: We care!
I don’t know if the FDA's new gross-'em-out warning labels, featuring images ranging from a corpse on a slab to a side-by-side good lung/bad lung comparison, will help reduce the 440,000+ smoking-related deaths per year or not. But they'll no doubt provide a bit of shock value when they start showing up on packages starting next year.
In an odd twist, illustrator Tim Jacobus of the Goosebumps series thinks kids may actually find the new labels more cool than scary. So I thought of a few warnings that might help take the hip factor out of lighting up:
WARNING: Your parents think it's really cool that you're smoking and they can't wait to light up with you and your friends behind the garage---they'll even bring their Pat Boone cassettes!
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WARNING: Cigarettes are made with Grandma's heel scrapings.
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WARNING: Smoking makes you feel like doing chores around the house.
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WARNING: Smoking will get you booted from both Team Edward and Team Jacob.
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WARNING: Cigarettes may contain vegetables.
What can I say? I'm here to help.
So, anyway. After decades of robotically lighting up whenever the nicotine demon tapped him on the shoulder, Michael joined the ranks of the non-smoking three years ago as of last week. He won’t tell you he "quit," though. Instead of thinking, "I can never have another cigarette again," he takes it one day at a time---more like, "I don’t need another cigarette yet." In fact, he still keeps an unopened pack of Basic Menthol Lights (a fine Phillip Morris weapon of mass destruction) in the freezer. Just knowing it's there helps keep the withdrawal alarm bells from going off. Oh, and he also doesn't wheeze when he gets to the top of the stairs anymore, but he does walk four miles a day without breaking a sweat. Saving $5k a year is nice, too.
In a fortuitous bit of timing, last week also marked the two-year anniversary of the first Daily Kos GUS diaries:
GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please---join us!
Anyone who breaks the smoking addiction, or simply makes the effort to, especially during the stressful times in which we live, deserves a medal: the Meritorious Order of the Pink Lung. Saaaaaaalute!
P.S. Y'know what other addictive American product should come with lots of extremely graphic warning disclaimers before they're marketed to us? Wars. Any ideas, FDA?
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, June 23, 2011
Note: Hello, customer service? I'd like to exchange my current planet for a new one, please. It broke. Yes, I'll hold………
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Iowa straw poll: 61
Days `til Taste of Chicago in Grant Park: 1
Number of 12-ounce beers you'd have to drink to get the alcohol contained in one 23-ounce can of "Blast" malt beverage: 4.7
(Source: Parade)
Per-gallon price of gas in Venezuela: 12 cents
Number of Venezuelan drivers who have ever had their license suspended: 1 (for speeding in a bus with too many passengers. And also driving without a rear wheel.)
(Source: The Week)
Number of single-use plastic bags Americans go through per year: 100 billion
Pieces of plastic floating around for each square mile of ocean: 46,000
(Source: Reuseit.com)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
On June 8, John Ashcroft was driven to the old Nixon defense---stonewalling. He not only refused to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with Justice Department memos justifying torture, he refused to explain why he refused. The Washington Post then helpfully posted the memo on its website so we could all enjoy reading how our "Justice Department" explains why the president is above the law and above the Constitution, and does not need to observe any treaties.
Also, we learned it is not torture unless it is "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impaired bodily function or even death."
Water torture (that's the one they politely refer to as "stressful conditions") was a particular favorite of the Gestapo against the French Resistance in World War II. Anal rape and shoving broken light bulbs up the rear end don't count at all.
I'm so glad George W. Bush has restored honor and integrity to the White House. And I appreciate all his defenders in the media more than I can say. They are truly distinguishing themselves as patriots in this hour of need.
---June, 2004
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Puppy Pic of the Day: ALERT! Tomorrow is Take Your Dog to Work Day. Keep Fido on a short leash, bulldozer drivers!
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CHEERS to being contrarian. According to the dead-tree and talking-head media, I'm supposed to be BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED AND POUTY-FACED this morning because of President Obama's announcement last night that America is going to be in a state of pointless, goal-shifty, deficit-exploding war for a minimum of 13 straight years (2001-2014) against an enemy that, along with cockroaches, will be the last surviving organisms on earth. So I've decided to disappoint them all by pointing out what thrilled me about his speech last night: his tie was very classy. Billy: 1 Mainstream media: 0
P.S. Did you see this touching moment between President Obama and John Boehner? Maybe there's hope for our nation, after all.
COUNTRY CLUB CHEERS to Jon/John Huntzzzzzzz….man. Oh, I hate to criticize the latest Republican to announce his candidacy so soon, so I'll let cellar-dweller Rick Santorum do it for me. (Who knew Little Ricky had a funny bone?) It was not a good debut for Hottentottenman: his staff spelled his name wrong ("John") on press passes, his campaign phone number was listed as (123) 456-7890, a Circle Line ferry boat and a bad camera angle blotted the Statue of Liberty out of his photo-ready backdrop, and he said some dumb stuff, like:
"But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is, `Who will be the better president, not who's the better American.'"
Um, have you listened to your party's base lately, sir? They've made a cottage industry out of acting superior on the True Patriot Scale. But, to his credit, Hussenpfefferman also said this:
"We will not be the first American generation that lets down the next generation."
That's actually true, and I appreciate his acknowledgement that the Dick Cheney generation crossed that finish line years ago. We wish Mr. Hfuhruhurrman all the best as he enters the campaign, and we look forward to wishing him all the best when he leaves it.
CHEERS to 1-900-CLARENCETHOMAS. Twenty-two years ago today, the Supreme Court refused to shut down the dial-a-porn industry. Strange coincidence: the justices in the majority all had one ear bigger than the other.
P.S. Happy birthday, Clarence Thomas---#63! Today you'll find a little something, er, special on top of your Coke can, sir. We all chipped in.
CHEERS to the Kum By Yah State. Despite whining and complaining like a fucking gigantic baby, Maine's Republican Tea Party governor, boxed in by a veto-proof majority, was forced to sign our new two-year state budget. It was previously passed---unanimously---by the Appropriations Committee, and approved by large bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. The Portland Press Herald's editorial board elaborates on what went down:
"Democrats strongly opposed the governor's original budget, but we worked vigorously with Republicans to find a compromise we could support," said [Democrat] House Minority Leader Emily Cain. … The governor's complaints aside, the state of Maine has done something here that few states have been able to do---that certainly the United States Congress has been unable to do.
Legislators representing the two major political parties, driven by conflicting ideologies and disparate philosophies of government---and accountable to voters of wildly differing priorities and mindsets---took on the formidable challenge of moving government in a new direction while preserving commitments to compassion and generosity of spirit that most Mainers believe are fundamental underpinnings of the state's identity and sense of responsibility to all of its citizens.
It's not a permission slip to drop our guard---we're still ruled by vulture GOP legislators who, among other things, accuse Democrats of stealing elections by busing in illegal voters, and a governor who tells minorities to "kiss my butt." But Maine is far from reaching the skullduggery of Wisconsin or Florida or Ohio or New Jersey or Michigan, where chaos reigns. We live to fight another day.
CHEERS to Things That Go Clackety-Clack for $200, Alex. On June 23, 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his "Type-writer," the first to have the famous QWERTY sequence on its upper keys. Today bloggers who can't think of anything for their subject line typically go south for the edgier and more mysterious "asdf." And the day someone decides to drop down to "zxcv"? Anarchy, I tell you.
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Five years ago in C&J: June 23, 2006
JEERS to living in poverty for another year. Message from Senate Republicans to poor people: "SCREW YOU! Hahahahaha!!!" A minimum-wage hike proposal submitted by (no surprise) our team died in the Senate yesterday. A gaggle of Republican jerks (Trent Lott, Ted Stevens, John Cornyn, etc.) think tax cuts for the rich are more important than helping the poor keep the lights on and some cat food in their stomachs. It's good to be the kings.
CHEERS to Senator Chuck Hagel. We try to recognize Republicans who do or say sensible things, and this statement from the Senate floor yesterday afternoon certainly counts:
"The American people want to see serious debate about serious issues from serious leaders. They deserve more than a political debate. This debate should transcend cynical attempts to turn public frustration with the war in Iraq into an electoral advantage. It should be taken more seriously than to simply retreat into focus-group tested buzz words and phrases like "cut and run," catchy political slogans that debase the seriousness of war. War's not a partisan issue, Mr. President. It should not be held hostage to political agendas."
Wow. Unfortunately, the chance that the knuckledragger wing of the Republican Party will listen to him is about the same as Dallas winning the NBA finals. [6/23/11 Update: Five years later, Dallas wins the NBA finals. Well, okay…this is awkward.]
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And just one more…
AWWW… to diocesan downsizing. Poor, poor Bishop Richard Malone. He's the big Catholic poobah here in Maine, and this morning he's feeling, well, more pauperish, now that he's been forced to move out of his million-dollar disco palace mansion on Portland's prissy, posh, prim and proper Western Promenade:
Malone has lived there by himself since he became bishop in 2004. … Portland's assessing records describe the building, built in 1900 near the intersection of Western Promenade and Pine Street, as a 16-room mansion with six bedrooms, four full bathrooms, one half-bath and a separate three-car garage.
You might think he's moving to a $600,000 virtual tar shack in---[Turns up nose and snorts]---Falmouth because he wants to raise money for the poor, homeless and downtrodden among his flock. That would, after all, be the Christian thing to do if you indeed wanted to pass, camel-like, through the proverbial eye of the needle. Sadly, that is not the case. Truth is, Malone is doing such a shitty job holding his flock together via radical right-wing orthodoxy (he spent a boatload of money on the repeal of gay marriage here in 2009---ah, priorities) that his diocese is hemorrhaging both money and members. At this rate, he'll be in a one-room efficiency by the middle of the decade. But I'm not totally heartless. In fact, I'm getting poor Bishop Malone a special housewarming gift: the world's smallest violin.
It's Thursday. Yes, I know---I am indeed a towering fountain of knowledge this morning. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Cheers and Jeers has a way of resonating with people who belong here. People who come here never want to leave. We call that BiPM fever."
---Jocelyn Buckner
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