On Peter Jennings, specifically, and smoking, generally
R. I. P. Peter Jennings.
He was a great journalist and will be missed.
I can't seem to get used to the idea that he's not around, that I'm not going to see his face again on TV or hear his voice. He was my Walter Cronkite (since I'm too young to remember Cronkite); it's been Peter Jennings who was the face and voice telling me the news all my life and now he's gone. It's the end of an era. I wasn't too affected by Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather leaving; I have no real memories of them other than knowing their names, but Peter Jennings is different. If I could be said to have a favorite anchor (given the infrequency of my actually watching TV), he was it. And I mourn his loss.
Here a great journalist and anchorman is dead at a young age because of smoking. At least he actually was the smoker.
The main reason I hate smoking so much and why I really tend to get angry at smokers whom I know personally is that smoking doesn't just kill the smoker. If it was only harming yourself, I'd be more ok with it; it's your body, if you feel like killing it, go right ahead. What I can't stand is that it seems like more than half the time it's second-hand smoke that kills. It's not the smoker who gets lung cancer and dies; it's the smoker's family, the people around them. It's like a more indirect form of negligent (or not to negligent) homicide, practically-- or manslaughter since there's no intent to harm-- and that I just can't stand.
Personal freedom is all well and good but as far as smoking goes, it isn't just a personal freedom thing. It's a general public health thing; you don't go around spreading a cloud of proven carcinogens like that- or at least you shouldn't.
Sick people who go around passing out dirty needles to infect people with HIV or if someone decides to conduct mass warfare by spreading the virus to a disease like smallpox that, because it was eradicated, nobody has a resistance to- people will all see that it's wrong. That's hardly in question.
Why is it that smokers don't get the same condemnation? I'm not saying smoking should be entirely criminalized; I just think it should have some sort of higher penalty or something to it. Raise the cost of cigarettes even more and put the extra proceeds into more cancer research or something. I know cigarettes are expensive (the other thing about smoking- it's a damn expensive killing habit to have) but frankly, I think they should be more expensive. Make the cost so exorbitant that it gives smokers even another incentive to quit since it often times seems as if people feel it most when you hit them in the pocketbook and not in the 'you're killing yourself and your family slowly' guilt-tripping (that seems remarkably ineffective somehow).
I'm reminded (I've got a strange mind...) of what is probably (oddly) one of my favorite scenes and moments in 'Mrs. Doubtfire' that is, still, one of my favorite old feel-good comedies and is one of the reasons I love Robin Williams. In the very beginning, when he quits his job because the character he voices smokes and he didn't feel it was appropriate for a cartoon character who's speaking to children and is, truthfully enough, something of an example for kids to be smoking and leaves, saying, 'a man has got to do what man has got to do' in a Gandhi impersonation. I love that moment.
Obviously, these are my personal views and public policy toward policy isn't going to be changed nor is the sin tax (amusing term, incidentally) going to be raised on cigarettes because I want it to be-- but I will say, here and now, that it's one thing I really feel strongly about and I will, (this has never yet been tested) end any sort of potentially serious relationship (even for friendship and nothing beyond) over it. Besides the fact that I just can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke, I've heard of too many cases of second hand smoke killing to tolerate it with anything approaching grace or indulgence in anyone whom I am going to be spending any amount of extended time with. Maybe this makes me narrow-minded and too rigid to live in today's sort of world. So be it.
He was a great journalist and will be missed.
I can't seem to get used to the idea that he's not around, that I'm not going to see his face again on TV or hear his voice. He was my Walter Cronkite (since I'm too young to remember Cronkite); it's been Peter Jennings who was the face and voice telling me the news all my life and now he's gone. It's the end of an era. I wasn't too affected by Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather leaving; I have no real memories of them other than knowing their names, but Peter Jennings is different. If I could be said to have a favorite anchor (given the infrequency of my actually watching TV), he was it. And I mourn his loss.
Here a great journalist and anchorman is dead at a young age because of smoking. At least he actually was the smoker.
The main reason I hate smoking so much and why I really tend to get angry at smokers whom I know personally is that smoking doesn't just kill the smoker. If it was only harming yourself, I'd be more ok with it; it's your body, if you feel like killing it, go right ahead. What I can't stand is that it seems like more than half the time it's second-hand smoke that kills. It's not the smoker who gets lung cancer and dies; it's the smoker's family, the people around them. It's like a more indirect form of negligent (or not to negligent) homicide, practically-- or manslaughter since there's no intent to harm-- and that I just can't stand.
Personal freedom is all well and good but as far as smoking goes, it isn't just a personal freedom thing. It's a general public health thing; you don't go around spreading a cloud of proven carcinogens like that- or at least you shouldn't.
Sick people who go around passing out dirty needles to infect people with HIV or if someone decides to conduct mass warfare by spreading the virus to a disease like smallpox that, because it was eradicated, nobody has a resistance to- people will all see that it's wrong. That's hardly in question.
Why is it that smokers don't get the same condemnation? I'm not saying smoking should be entirely criminalized; I just think it should have some sort of higher penalty or something to it. Raise the cost of cigarettes even more and put the extra proceeds into more cancer research or something. I know cigarettes are expensive (the other thing about smoking- it's a damn expensive killing habit to have) but frankly, I think they should be more expensive. Make the cost so exorbitant that it gives smokers even another incentive to quit since it often times seems as if people feel it most when you hit them in the pocketbook and not in the 'you're killing yourself and your family slowly' guilt-tripping (that seems remarkably ineffective somehow).
I'm reminded (I've got a strange mind...) of what is probably (oddly) one of my favorite scenes and moments in 'Mrs. Doubtfire' that is, still, one of my favorite old feel-good comedies and is one of the reasons I love Robin Williams. In the very beginning, when he quits his job because the character he voices smokes and he didn't feel it was appropriate for a cartoon character who's speaking to children and is, truthfully enough, something of an example for kids to be smoking and leaves, saying, 'a man has got to do what man has got to do' in a Gandhi impersonation. I love that moment.
Obviously, these are my personal views and public policy toward policy isn't going to be changed nor is the sin tax (amusing term, incidentally) going to be raised on cigarettes because I want it to be-- but I will say, here and now, that it's one thing I really feel strongly about and I will, (this has never yet been tested) end any sort of potentially serious relationship (even for friendship and nothing beyond) over it. Besides the fact that I just can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke, I've heard of too many cases of second hand smoke killing to tolerate it with anything approaching grace or indulgence in anyone whom I am going to be spending any amount of extended time with. Maybe this makes me narrow-minded and too rigid to live in today's sort of world. So be it.