From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
How to Save $4,000 A Year In Two Steps
- Become a two-pack-a-day smoker
- Stop being a two-pack-a-day smoker
Notice I didn’t say "easy" steps. Number 2 is a bitch.
I'm 44 and I've been around smokers most of my life. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that my mom was puffin' on a butt (King-size Kents were her brand) when she popped me out, because smoking was still tres chic in 1964. When we traveled we sat in the "smoking section" on---this sounds so bizarre today---airplanes. I hung around smokers in college. If the gay bars I frequented when I came out of the closet in '92 had been located off the U.S. coast, the clouds of smoke their patrons produced would've triggered fog horns. And my partner of sixteen years? Smoker.
It's hard to watch the automatic, mechanical actions of someone with an addiction to nicotine (and benzene and goats' balls and dryer lint and whatever the hell else Phillip Morris puts in their death sticks). Wake up---light up. Get in the car---light up. Get on the computer---light up. Go to the bathroom---light up. Finish a meal---light up. Five minutes before arriving at work---light up. Take a work break---light up. Go to lunch---light up. Leave work---light up. There are almost too many triggers to count, but they're as predictable as the sunrise. And it's difficult to watch someone be so subservient to a cylinder filled with junk that was calibrated by corporate scientists (a pox on them) to be perfectly addictive, and marketed by shameless Madison Avenue executives (a pox on them, too) to be perfectly appealing.
But today's a proud day for Michael, and I honestly don’t know how he did it. One year ago today, on June 15, 2008, he stopped smoking. Cold turkey. In addition to the health benefits (which he definitely notices); in addition to not having a house or a car or clothing or hair or pets that reek of smoke; in addition to not having to clean a yellow film of nicotine off of furniture and walls; in addition to all that and more, we noticed an immediate improvement financially. It was shocking---roughly $4,000 over the course of the year. I admit it's no billion-dollar AIG bonus, but it ain't chump change, either.
I have no idea to what extent turning over the regulation of tobacco to the FDA will help current smokers stop or prevent non-smokers (especially teens) from starting. I hope the move exceeds even the most optimistic expectations. At the same time, I'll never forget that multiple generations of our elected leaders fiddled for decades while Big Tobacco ran amok. All hail the power of the almighty campaign contribution.
Does Michael still feel the urge to light up? Oh, big time. He gets through those moments with a few tricks. The first two are physical: three exaggerated deep breaths to lower the feeling of stress and popping a couple sour berry Ice Breakers to reduce the cravings. The third is psychological and similar to what many people do when they quit drinking: instead of thinking, "I can never have another cigarette ever for the rest of my life," he takes it one day at a time: "I won’t have a cigarette today."
As it turns out, June 15th appears to be a good day to quit. I noticed yesterday that a group of Kossacks have deemed today as the start of the Quit Smoking Challenge. To those planning to take part, I wish you success. Anyone who breaks the smoking addiction---or simply makes a serious attempt to---deserves a medal. If it were up to me, I'd call it the Meritorious Order of the Pink Lung.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, June 15, 2009
Note: Remember when conservatives shrieked about how Married With Children (on Fox, no less) would destroy the moral fabric of American society? Today they watch reruns of the show while bouncing their grandkids on their knee and wondering why no one's making wholesome TV shows like that anymore.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the next conservative teabagging parties: 19
Days `til the Cottonwood Festival in Hastings, Nebraska: 4
U.S. counties since 2000 whose population became more non-white than white: 56
Percent of U.S. residents who are a member of a minority: 34%
(Source: Politico via The Week)
Percent of Americans who said "I don’t know" when asked in 2001 who the leading voice of the Democratic party was: 61%
Percent garnered by top vote-getter Dick Gephardt: 9% (Tom Daschle got 7%, Al Gore got 6%.)
(Source: USA Today poll via Hardball)
Percent chance of catching a "yellow lobster": 1-in-30 million
(Source: Arnolds Lobster and Clam Bar via the Boston Globe)
NBA Finals: Lakers 99 Magic 86 (Lakers win the championship 4 games to 1)
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And now..."Pimping Pittsburgh!"
Brought to you by the Netroots Nation Convention August 13-16:
July, 2008: Pittsburgh is announced as the site for the 2009 Netroots Nation Convention. January, 2009: the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl. June, 2009: the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup.
Mere coincidence? I think not.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Oh, sure...blame the dog. Thanks a lot, Dr. Thundershorts"
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JEERS (for the bad guys) and CHEERS (for the good guys) to the shit hitting Iran. The aftermath of Friday's elections (well, more like "elections") was placid and uneventful...if by placid and uneventful you mean riddled with fraud, police crackdowns, media manipulation, demonstrations, protest resignations, chaos, burning tires, journalist expulsions, and...um...of course free ice cream and cake. And although the "elections" were apparently used as a convenient way to keep the hard-liners in power, the progressives are mad as hell (though not without compassion) and they're sizing up whether or not they should take it anymore. And we thought Florida 2000 was a mess.
CHEERS to Andrew Sullivan. If you were looking for Iran coverage on your teevee over the weekend, you were hard-pressed to find it. (But thank god the Sarah Palin-David Letterman brouhaha was covered from every angle!) As expected, the blogs were busy picking up the slack, and for our money no one is typing his fingertips raw better or faster than Sullivan at The Daily Dish. Great work. And this just in: Caffeine Sources Mysteriously Disappear From Ten-mile Radius Around D.C.-area Blogger's House. Odd.
JEERS to snow in June. On Friday the broadcasting of analog signals officially ended, and over the weekend the FCC says it received over 317,000 calls from people who couldn’t pick up a thing on their TV. They were just phoning to say thanks.
CHEERS to simple solutions to big problems. This is pretty cool: Secretary of Whirlygigs and Test Tubes Steven Chu says we could help mitigate global warming a bit (and every bit helps) by going Glidden:
He said that global warming could be slowed by a low-tech idea that has nothing to do with coal plants or solar panels: white roofs. Making roofs white "changes the reflectivity . . . of the Earth, so the sunlight comes in, it's reflected back into space," Chu said. "This is something very simple that we can do immediately," he said later.
A spokesman for Aryan Nation said, "We are, like, totally on board."
JEERS to dread spread. The World Health Organization says the H1N1 flu has finally been designated an official pandemic. And in other news, the National Film Critics Association says Australia has finally been designated an official panned epic.
CHEERS to helping old ladies cross the street (whether they want to or not). Ninety three years ago, in 1916, Congress approved an official charter for the Boy Scouts of America. Michael and I are both Eagle Scouts (and gay ones at that, which really pisses off the right-wingers who run the organization at the national level). In honor of today's anniversary we booted our computers by rubbing two sticks together. The fire insurance should cover most of the damage.
JEERS to compassionate conservatism in action. As Digby points out, the noble opposition is such a pleasant bunch:
Remember all of those who were lecturing after the assassination that the pro-choice people shouldn't "politicize" this? Well, the grieving time is over:
How Tiller's Death and Office Closing can Help Propel Pro-Life Movement, Derail Sotomayor and Overturn Roe. Four Key Senators will be Targeted to Vote Against Sotomayor; Catholic Bishops will Play a Role to Defeat Sotomayor
Press conference 1 PM, Thursday, to announce details how Pro-life groups can derail Sotomayor, and root out hypocrisy in pro-life ranks.
Also: Emergency Pro-life leadership training to be held in DC, June 12-14, with Randall Terry, Dr. Alan Keyes, Norma McCorvey, and Fr. Norman Weslin.
We hear there will also be a bonus session: Storm Watch: How to Tell Which Hurricanes Are Caused By Abortionists, Gays, Feminists and Pagans. (Hint: the abortionists' CAT-5s look like...well...take a wild guess.)
CHEERS to innovation. On this date in 1844, Charles Goodyear got a patent for better rubber. He followed it up a few months later with the less-successful steel-belted condom.
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Five years ago in C&J: June 15, 2004
CHEERS to Empire of the Blogs. Time Magazine devotes 5 glowing pages to what they call, "...a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence." It's worth reading. But why the Kos snub? Tsk.
JEERS to American credibility. Truthout.com posts this photo, with caption: "Oma Abdullah and son Mustapha, holding a photo of his father who died in Abu Ghraib prison." Shall we put our fist through a wall in unison, dear reader, or would you like to do it in private?
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And just one more...
CHEERS to more Moore. The guy who made documentaries hip and edgy (not to mention wildly profitable) is returning to a cineplex near you in October, but not with the movie he originally had in mind:
Moore was planning an encore of sorts, going after George W. Bush again with a film that, he said a year ago, would focus on "all the other things they got away with over the past eight years while we were all distracted with the war."
But circumstances soon delivered Moore a more current villain: the financial industry. Moore says it wasn't hard to change gears. "When we started out to make this film, I didn't have an end point," he says. "It was: If we're open-minded we'll run across things we otherwise wouldn't have seen." Then, as he puts it, "KA-BOOM!" The fraud was exposed, and bailout fever began.
You can watch the teaser trailer here while we start the countdown clock: 109 days. Coincidentally, that's the number of cents left in my 401k.
Oh, and one more thing: Susan Boyle who??? Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"I think it is very likely that Leonardo da Vinci conceived a naked Bill in Portland Maine."
---Carlo Pedretti, director, Armand Hammer Center for Leonardo Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles
Discovery News
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