[lockjaw02]

Again, all I see, even with your new info, is heresay, conjecture, and opinion. I didn't really expect you to testify with anything more because this isn't a court and you're not sworn in.

I do think you are mistaken when you say "anti-smoking ban" people are "supporting" them. All that I see is supported here is an observation that the timing of this development getting so much airtime after their waiver approval when the fights and rhetoric over waivers are escalating and the crumbling of the support for the smoking ban appears to be so much more than coincidental.

I'd hope you are aware that anti-smoking is a multi-billion dollar industry. Not to discount your concerns, because they are very real considering the small size of the whole Drum and Bugle community, but even if what you say is true, this whole Brigadiers issue is still small potatoes benefitting relatively few with an equally relative small amount of money compared to the relatively few self-righteous anti-smokers and their fatted lawyers making an obscenely comfy living by taking our money from us to pay for spreading more lies and half-truths to perpetuate the myth that they have to take more money from us to "protect" us from ourselves and others (most notably "the children") from us is heinous. Your own words against the Brigadiers can aptly be applied to the paid professional anti-smoking community at large, "Some of the human costs - and the arrogant indifference thereto - has been beyond disgustingly shameful" and is NOT indicative of reasonable tobacco control advocates.

[songspirit]

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

-- Martin Luther King Jr.

You won't get very far diminishing people by speaking of the "small" size of a community, nor by characterizing the events and my experiences dismissively as "conjecture, hearsay and opinion". Just a suggestion.

And there are far more arguments of substance - and a lack of similarly substantive arguments from the other side - on the link to rec.arts.marching.drumcorps I provided.

Have a nice day.