[JZoback]

bump

[Skywalk]

Actually, smokers should not be allowed to smoke in the office. And yes, my dainty organs are offended by the smell, especially when I'm sober and not in a club/bar.

I also detest coming home with smoke on my clothes, especially if I have not lit up at all.

I don't agree with the anti-smoking Nazis, but smokers really do waste a lot of time on their smoke breaks, and there's a reason that they were moved outside. By the way, they look like heroin junkies in a shooting gallery when they stand outside huddled together in front of office buildings.

[yoe]

Thank you Peggy Noonen!

[tm22721]

Their sense of life is essentially conservative: They know it is short

yeah and how will sucking smoke make it any longer ??

BUMP

[Tokhtamish]

Or maybe banning smokers makes them feel safe, like they'll never die.

Once again, Peggy nails it. Something I notice about godless people is an utter terror of old age and death. Recall, indeed, that baby boomers in youth never had any respect for age. They frankly despised it. Look at Hugh Hefner, 75 going on 25. So they shudder at anything that reminds them of mortality. Death has become what they won't talk about in front of children (Remember that great scene in Terms of Endearment where Debra Winger's character is disgusted with the New York sophisticates who freely discuss their affairs and abortions over lunch but are shocked into silence when she mentions her cancer ?).

To be a Christian is to understand that there is an eternal and death is nothing to live in terror of.

Earlier this week, I saw an obit in the NYT that mentioned a woman's lifelong heavy smoking in the first sentence. Because of it her life was cut short by emphysema at the tender age of 84.

[GeekDejure]

Three cheers for the brilliance of Peggy Noonen . . .

Pall Mall . . . Pall Mall . . . Pall Mall !!!

[RWG]

They accept death and illness as part of the equation...which also includes my picking up part of the tab for their health care costs one way or another. But maybe that isn't true anymore, wasn't that what the big tobacco settlement was all about, yeah, that's it.

[RJCogburn]

the last public place you can go to be a dropout, a nonconformist, refusenik, a time waster, a bohemian, a hider from reality, a bum, a rebel, a bore, a heathen. The last public place in which you can really wallow in your own and others' human messiness. The last place where you can still take part in that great American tradition, leaving the teeming marching soldiers of capitalism outside to go inside, quit the race

She is speaking of the Senate, right?

[texson66]

As Steve Martin used to say:

1st person: "Do you mind if I smoke?"

2nd person: "No, do you mind if I fart?"

[chilepepper]

Those (e.g. - the government and the left) have a hidden agenda in their attacks on smokers. It is an exercise in control, a way to get the sheep used to the removal of freedom without a bleat.

Smoking, like everything, is fine in moderation. I smoke cigars, outside in deference to my children, and do most of my heavy thinking while sipping chivas and smoking a contraband cuban bolivar belicoso...

[gunnyg]

Gunny G, On Smokers!!!

Gunny G, On Smokers!!!
by Dick G
Dick G (Login Dick Gaines)I do Not smoke--never have.
But the present US Government vendetta against smokers (not smoking) is one of the crummiest, most arrogant, most revealing examples ever of government abuse of power, using taxation to punish a segment of "the people"--and, strangely, sanctioned by the people, whom it chooses to war against!!!

-Just Plain Dick!

[bvw]

Actually there is a smoking zone in Bloomberg New York. You can smoke on any one way sidewalk.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[betty boop]

Modern liberals are not culturally inclined toward courtesy. They are inclined toward knowing what's good for you and passing ordinances to make sure you get the picture. The first Thank You For Not Smoking sign I ever saw was in 1976, on the desk of Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis. I thought: I have seen the future, and it is puritanical.

Puritanical!!! I do believe Peggy Noonan's take on this is truly apt. Massachusetts may be one of the most "progressive" states in the Union. But my guess is it's definitely THE most puritanical. The roots of that run very deep in our flinty soil....

Puritans not only tell you how you ought to live, but they try to make it prohibitively costly for you to choose to live in any other way. Case in point: A pack of cigarettes in Massachusetts these days costs nearly $6 -- because of the ever-escalating state excise tax ....

[That Subliminal Kid]

Smokers are filthy beasts who deserve to be ostracized and cast out.

[Anoy11_]

What's worse in your opinion. The smell that eminates from some fat slob eat a gyro in the confined office space or smoke? Seriously people that eat smelly food should be forced to eat their smelly food outside.

[Marysecretary]

I had to laugh at some of this because two women in our building are always huddled in the cold outdoors when I come in at 9:00 a.m.

On the other hand, I've lost a mother, two young nephews to cancer--all heavy smokers--and now my sister has lung cancer in both lobes. I hate smoking. I hate seeing young kids start because I know what can happen to them later on in life. But, we live in America and people should be free to kill themselves if they choose to. I've never smoked and we don't allow it in our house, but who am I to say that others can't do it if they want to? Just don't do it around me and we're okay. I can't take the smoke because of allergies.

[SheLion]

OH YES! I received this twice in email this morning. It's time for lunch. I will be back!

[manfromlamancha]

The Left attack our cultural and economic institutions; tobacco is an easy target.

[robertpaulsen]

Keep in mind that it's these same Kalifornians that passed Proposition 215 in 1996 that said it's OK for sick people to smoke marijuana wherever and whenever they want.