Stand FAST: Fight Anti-Smoker Tyranny

A few months back, I told readers of this blog that I’d begin making regular posts and adding a few new features to make the blog a little more interesting. I had intended to do just that. But, I got sidetracked.

At the time, I was doing a little research into the antics of the anti-smoker fanatics and their efforts to ban smoking across Canada. What I found was a well organized, well financed worldwide attempt to eradicate smoking by eliminating smokers.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s an open, well orchestrated war on smokers which relies on misinformation, corrupt science and deceptive statistics to deceive the uninformed, smokers and non-smokers alike; a propaganda campaign worthy of the Der Furher himself.

In a process they openly refer to as de-normalization, anti-smoker organizations irresponsibly promote fear, hatred and intolerance and advocate discrimination against smokers. Many recent initiatives go far beyond any credible claims of protecting anyone’s “right” to clean air or the alleged hazards of secondhand smoke.

Included in these: efforts designed to deny a smoker’s right to hold a job; proposals to deny smokers a right to rental accommodation; initiatives to declare smoking parents child abusers and deny smokers the right to adopt or foster children; efforts to deny smokers appropriate medical treatment; smoking bans that deny business owners of private property rights

These are morally reprehensible acts, not to be tolerated by any “free” society.

Defenders of a free society should strive for compromise achieved through reasoned debate, not the imposition of the “will” of the majority; especially when that will has been suborned by tainted science, dishonest statistics and outright lies. True democracy defends the rights of the minority; it doesn’t deny or trash them “in the public good”.

And, the non-smokers in the house shouldn’t get too complacent or convince themselves that it’s not their fight. It’s no longer about smoking or secondhand smoke. Those who condone, and in a growing number of cases support, the initiatives of tobacco prohibitionists; who condone or support discrimination against smokers in housing, employment and medical treatment should be very cautious.

Anti-smoker, anti-fat, anti-abortion, anti-alcohol; all these obsessions challenge personal liberty and individual rights. Those who support the repression of free choice may wish to re-evaluate their position when it’s their turn to be pilloried for making a particular lifestyle choice.

If anti-smoker fanatics are allowed to continue and intensify their attacks on smokers, there is no telling who the next target will be.

I’ve hated bullies since I was a kid. And, the anti-smoker Nazis are just another incarnation of the bullies we all knew growing up.

I can’t fight back the way I could as a younger man. But, I have a reasonable command of the English language and a computer. Maybe, in some small way, I can help get the truth out.

Like the Nazis in the thirties, no one took the anti-smoker brigade seriously. No one believed their propaganda efforts could fool an entire civilized society. But, they have and, at this point, it will be an uphill battle. I may not make much of a difference, but then, it won’t be the first time I’ve found myself pissing into the wind.

Unfortunately, considerable research and reading is required, which means I won’t be able to continue the fun part of blogging, at least for the time being.

But, for anybody out there still interested in reading what I have to say, drop by my new blog: Stand FAST

No stinkers allowed

In my last post, I mentioned the odour activists in the US who seemed hell bent on banning everything that smelled, from Chanel No. 5 to Old Spice. But it’s not just in the US that the fanatical fragrance foes are intent on saving the populace from exposure to the deadly toxins in scented body deodorant.

The odour activists have been active in Canada for a number of years, some say as far back as 1991. For example, it was reported in 2000, that a Toronto resident had filed suit against a neighbor for invading her air space with cooking smells from his bar-b-que. At the same time, on Prince Edward Island, a joint union-employer recommendation was made to ban perfumes and aftershaves from government offices. And, Queensway-Carleton Hospital in Ottawa embarked on a "No Scents Is Good Sense" campaign.

But the real hotbed of the anti-fragrance fanatics has been identified as Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2000, it was reported in the national press in both the US and Canada, that Halifax was in the grip of anti-odour hysteria.

The local newspaper, the Chronicle-Herald, prohibited its employees from using perfume, aftershave, scented deodorant, shampoo, or even strong-smelling mouthwash on the job. Many of the city's public institutions, and private businesses, demanded that workers be "scent-free." The city’s hospitals began instituting bans, leading people to believe it was a serious health hazard.

As one of the fragrance fanatics told the Toronto Globe and Mail, "The main point we've been making is that it's a health issue, not a matter of likes and dislikes." Uh-huh. The health issue she was talking about was Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a generic condition that has not been proven to even exist.

Although some studies have shown that high concentrations of some perfumes can cause annoyance to allergy and asthma sufferers, there is no evidence that perfumes pose any real threat to the general public.

Karen Robinson, an anti-scent campaigner, during the height of the Halifax hysteria, claimed: ''Aromatic chemicals are poisoning people and the planet as much as tobacco or pesticides,''

Other people have likened exposure to fragrances to the alleged health hazards of exposure to secondhand smoke. Many of the chemicals found in second-hand smoke, are the same chemicals that are found in perfume products, they claim. That’s likely true, since there are literally thousands of chemicals in each, it shouldn’t be surprising that both products share many in common.

However, there is no legitimate scientific evidence that either exposure to secondhand smoke or Giorgio represents a serious health hazard to otherwise healthy human beings.

Said one Haligonian, “I don't think in the beginning people realized quite how invasive this might become". Uh-huh. The same thing could also be said about secondhand smoke.

Banning body odour

While doing some research for my other blog, Stand FAST, I came across an item on the Forces International website about stinkers and smellers. Uh-huh. I said stinkers and smellers.

Apparently, the Murfreesboro (Tennessee) City Council adopted a good hygiene policy back in 2003, to the effect that: "No employee shall have an odor generally offensive to others when reporting to work. An offensive body odor may result from a lack of good hygiene, from an excessive application of a fragrant aftershave or cologne or from other causes."

That’s right folks. Up here in the Great White North, Ontario’s Liberal government passed the Smoke Free Ontario Act to control the alleged health hazards of exposure to secondhand smoke. Down in Tennessee, they’ve passed a fragrance free Murfreesboro law to protect society from the hazards of exposure to Chanel # 5, Irish Spring and Old Spice.

According to the anti-fragrance fanatics, fragrances contain neurotoxic, carcinogenic, endocrine-disrupting and other toxic chemicals. The toxic chemicals contained in fragrances can make anyone sick in large enough quantities. People with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) are especially susceptible to the dangers of this public health hazard and will virtually always get sick from even slight traces of these chemicals.

People don’t speak out about the dangers posed by inconsiderate stinkers for very good reason. Your fragrance may have already affected someone so much that she or he has trouble speaking, thinking, taking action or even remaining awake and conscious. Uh-huh. They could be knocked unconscious by a whiff of Bounce from your freshly washed shirt.

And, just what criteria will be used to identify and define offensive odours?

Well, according to City Councilman Toby Gilley, the standard would be the same one a U.S. Supreme Court justice used to identify pornography. "We'll know it when we see it," Gilley said. Or, in the case of the Murfreesboro anti-fragrance ordinance, "We'll know it when we smell it."

Now, I don’t want to make fun of people with MCS, even if the National Institute of Environmental Health Science says the very existence of such an affliction is in dispute. But, I do think that banning people who wear perfume, cologne, scented hair spray and the like from public places is going a little too far.

Besides, I don’t think it’s all that funny.

There are people out there who don’t like the smell of burning tobacco. So, they turned secondhand smoke into a health hazard and banned smoking in all public places, bars, restaurants, etc. Anti-smoker fanatics, through distorted science and suspect statistics, managed to turn smokers into social misfits.

The odour activists want to eliminate harmful smells.

I know what you’re thinking. You’ve made up your mind that this is a joke. And, you’re wrong. “So what?” You say. That kind of nonsense won’t work in Canada.

Wrong again. More in my next post.

To be continued

I’m still here, just busy elsewhere

For anyone who thinks I haven’t made a post in the last month because I was too drunk to find the damn keyboard, you’re wrong. I’ve been busy doing a little research into the anti-smoker brigade and smoking bans around the world.

Not a shred of evidence that secondhand smoke is likely to kill anyone. They’re running a con game to justify bans, punitive taxation and other discriminatory practices directed at smokers. And, some polls place the number of people who believe the lies and distortions of science as high as 80%. And, worse, even smokers are beginning to believe their bullshit and bafflegab.

Check out my other blog to find the truth about the alleged hazards of secondhand smoke. Stand FAST

I’ll return to making regular posts to this blog, probably twice a week, in about a week. I’ll also be updating the music files within the next week or so. For now, here’s a little bit of lunacy from merry old England.

Bureaucracy run amok

Eighty-two year old Jean Raine and a friend were driven to the mall in Kendal, Cumbria (England boys and girls, England) by a neighbour. Miss Raine, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, has a valid disabled parking permit. She had her neighbour park in a handicapped parking spot and placed her permit in the front windshield.

Feeling unwell, she told her friends to go about their shopping and stayed in the car to rest, and, promptly fell asleep.

A parking warden (Parking Control Officer) noted Miss Raine asleep in the car. He also noted that her permit was upside down. So, he issued a ticket with a fine of 35 pound sterling ($ 68.00 Canadian). He didn’t bother to wake Miss Raine, simply placing the parking ticket on the windshield.

Miss Raine and the driver of the car appealed the ticket.

A council spokesman said: “If anyone feels they have reason to challenge a penalty charge notice (ticket) then they can appeal to the council in the first instance, followed by an appeal to an independent tribunal if they choose.

"Guidance notes (instructions) issued with the badge and parking disc (permit) clearly state that it should be clearly and correctly displayed at all times."

So, we have a valid parking permit placed in full view with an elderly woman asleep in the vehicle. And, we have an overzealous parking control officer so anxious to make his quota that he’s willing to give the old girl an $68.00 ticket because the damn permit was upside down. And, even worse, we have a pompous bureaucrat defending the injustice and refusing to deposit the ticket where it belonged – in the nearest garbage can.

What are they smoking?

I’ve written a few posts over the last month about the extremes to which some parents and school officials will go to “protect the children”. Often such incidents provide a laugh or two, like the school in Britain that covered the faces of children with smiley faces in their on-line newsletter. The objective, apparently, was to protect the children from on-line predators. The easier way, of course, was not to publish the photos in the first place.

But an article published in the Washington Post earlier this month contained no element of humour at all. Post reporter Brigid Schulte described an incident in which a male student slapped a female classmate on the butt during recess. He was promptly hauled before the principal who, just as promptly, called the police.

The title on the incident report prepared by school officials said, “Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive”. Uh-huh. Guilty of sexual harassment. And the incident report will stay on his record for his remaining school days and maybe beyond.

The Potomac View Elementary School student was a six year old first grader. The school officials were, allegedly, adults.

Although it’s unlikely the six year old was capable of forming any criminal intent, he has been branded as a sex offender by these highly trained child care professionals. Calling 911, school officials claimed later, was simply the result of a “misunderstanding”. Uh-huh.

Schulte, in the same article, reports on a case that occurred in Texas a year or so ago. Apparently, a school official in Texas accused a 4-year-old of sexual harassment after the boy was observed pressing his face into the breasts of a teacher's aide when he hugged her before boarding the school bus.

One must assume the teacher’s aide was bending down to hug him back if his face was pressing into her breasts; four year olds aren’t usually all that tall. Fortunately, the school official who observed the incident took positive action and had the little pervert suspended.

Isolated incidents? Overly zealous school officials? Not according to Schulte. She believes the real culprit is the ever increasing number of “zero tolerance” policies cropping up across the country.

She notes in her article that, last year in the state of Maryland alone, 16 kindergartners and three preschoolers were suspended for sexual harassment. Nineteen kids aged six and under branded as sexual offenders before they graduated from first grade.

School officials (what ever in hell they are) and teachers are supposed to be trained to deal with children. Even without training, the application of a little old-fashioned common sense should have resolved any difficulties that might have arisen.

Zero tolerance policies in schools are one thing, but suspending four year olds for sexual harassment is lunacy.

Will that be cash or credit card?

It should come as no surprise that the American armed forces are stretched pretty thin as a result of the Iraq war. That’s simply one of the drawbacks to having a volunteer army.

So the army provides enlistment bonuses to encourage young men and women to sign up, knowing they might wind up in combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq. In some cases the enlistment bonus might be as high as $30,000; an incentive for putting their ass on the line in the service of their country.

But what happens when a serviceman doesn’t fulfill his commitment and winds up being discharged early? Well, they have to pay back a part of their enlistment bonus. That’s fair, isn’t it?

Or is it?

The U.S. military has been, apparently, demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back all or part of their signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments. Soldiers who have been seriously wounded and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Jordan Fox, for example, was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and he lost all vision in his right eye. He was sent home, his injuries preventing him from completing the remaining three months of his commitment to the military. The Military demanded that he repay $3,000 of his enlistment bonus.

But, injuries sustained in combat aren’t the only reason for demanding repayment of enlistment bonuses.

Army Spc. Jason Hubbard became a casualty of the military’s sole survivor policy last October. Following the death of his younger brother late last year, Hubbard was sent home; the last of three brothers; the other two killed in Iraq. The Military thanked him for his service by cutting off his family's transitional health care benefits, stopping his G.I. educational subsidies and demanding that he repay $6,000 of his enlistment bonus.

There are efforts underway in the US Congress to remedy the situation. By most accounts, the treatment of wounded US veterans returning from combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq leaves a whole lot to be desired. They deserve a damn sight better.

And, just where is the Texas tyrant while all this is going on?

Anti-sealer activists jailed

You’ll read a lot of angry rhetoric about the boarding and seizure of the anti-sealer ship, Farley Mowat, just off the coast of Cape Breton Island. The ship was boarded, her crew arrested and the ship impounded by an elite RCMP marine team last Saturday.

Loyola Hearn, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, said he had to take action before someone was killed on the ice. Throughout the weekend, Hearn said he was taking steps to ensure the safety of seal hunters; claiming, at one point on March 30, the Mowat came within nine metres of a group of sealers, shattering floes as sealers scrambled to get back to their small boat.

Did the Minister have cause for concern? Damn straight he did!

Harvesting seals requires climbing from the relative safety of the vessel onto the treacherous ice floes in the Gulf. A ship the size of the Mowat getting within nine metres of a sealer is a very dangerous situation. But then, maybe the activist scum aboard the Mowat got a chuckle out of seeing men scrambling for their lives across the ice.

The activist vessel had been forced from the harbour in St. Pierre/Miquelon, French islands just off the South coast of Newfoundland, following comments made about four sealers who drowned a week or so earlier.

"We don't accept those kinds of people in St-Pierre," fisherman Carl Beaupertuis told the CBC. "We cut the rope and let the boat go. If they want to come back I tell you this time there's going to be some violence, 'cause we won't let him back in the harbour."

Four crewmen from the Acadian II, all from the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, drowned in the frigid waters off the Cape Breton coast when the sealer went down. Three of the bodies were recovered; the fourth was never found.

Paul Watson, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which operates the Mowat said, “The deaths of four Magdalen Islands sealers were a tragedy, but the slaughter of young seals was a greater tragedy. These men are sadistic baby killers."

While Watson’s crude and extremely offensive remarks may play well in the upper middle class suburbs up the line, maritimers, who know better, take a somewhat different view.

Fisheries Minister Hearn heaped justifiable scorn on Watson's group. "These are a bunch of money-sucking manipulators," he told a news conference in Ottawa. "Their sole aim is to try to suck as much money as possible out of the pockets of people who really don't know what's going on."

Letters in local newspapers echoed the Minister’s sentiments.

“Isn't it convenient that Watson badmouths this country from the comforts of NYC, while his minions do his dirty work on the front lines? The gall of this man, to imply that the boarding of this vessel is "an act of war" against the Netherlands, a country that was liberated by Canadian soldiers! If Watson's followers are convicted, what better place for them to be sentenced to community service than the Magdalen Islands, whose dead were besmirched by this **** attention-seeker.

“Why did we board these miscreants when they would have provided good target practice for our frigates and subs? If it's war, then let's do it right.”

The Minister was right. Canadians can hold their heads high. Watson’s insensitive remarks deserved a response. The Mowat’s crew ignoring Canadian law and endangering Canadian lives deserved a response.

The Minister, and the Mounties, responded admirably.

Mounties seize the Farley Mowat (Part 1)

Stunned and angry, crew member David Jonas of the Farley Mowat complained that some of his shipmates were placed under arrest, forced to lie down on the deck, escorted to the stern of the ship and kept under armed guard. “Canada,” he said, “did not have a right to board us and bring us to Sydney." Oh-no.

On March 30, some seal hunters called for assistance from the coast guard, complaining that the 54-metre Farley Mowat was getting too close to them on the ice floes north of Cape Breton. The captain of the Cathy Erlene, the sealing vessel which called for help, said, “The arrests were long overdue.”

Nova Scotia sealer, Shane Briand, said at one point the Mowat broke the ice up beneath a sealer as he stood on a floe. Briand said the much larger Mowat harassed his ship and crew until a coast guard icebreaker arrived and put itself between the two ships.

The Canadian Fisheries Department later said its 98-metre icebreaker Des Groseilliers responded to the scene and was "grazed" twice by the Farley Mowat. The crew aboard the Mowat admitted they were told not to approach the ice-covered area where seals were being harvested, but the crew refused to comply with the order.

Officers of the Farley Mowat, a 54-metre ship operated by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were charged with steering the Mowat to within 900 metres of the hunt. That's an offence under Canadian fisheries regulations unless you have an observer’s permit. The Farley Mowat didn’t. The charges were announced by federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn last week, but he gave no indication how the summons would be served.

The Sea Shepherd Society, under various names, has long used militant tactics to interfere with the seal hunt. The group claims to have sunk six whaling ships since 1979, in their efforts to “protect” whales and other marine wildlife, saying no one was hurt in those actions.

On Saturday, the RCMPs' elite marine team was called in by the Minister. The armed Mounties launched their speedy Zodiacs from two coast guard vessels, boarded the Mowat and arrested her 17 man crew. The ship was seized and taken to Sydney Harbour.

Crew member Merilee Nyland, one of six who spent the night in a Sydney jail cell after refusing to submit to immigration checks, said the arrest was traumatic. "I came around a corner and all of a sudden there were three men with guns in my face," said the 23-year-old from the US.”

Er, excuse me Miss Hyland, but “all of a sudden . . .?” What did they do, jump out from behind a bush? Were the two Coast Guard vessels from which the Mounties staged their attack operating under a “cloak of invisibility?”

Those “men with guns” were police officers. They enforce Canadian law. You and your colleagues entered Canadians waters, approached a restricted area and endangered the lives of Canadians engaged in a lawful activity. Then your Captain ignored a lawful command from the Canadian Coast Guard, forcing a collision with the Des Groseilliers and further endangering Canadian lives.

Meanwhile, from the relative comfort of a New York hotel room, the president of the society, environmental crusader Paul Watson, described the seizure and arrests as an "act of war." because the vessel is registered in the Netherlands.

There’s more to the story. We’ll look at some of it in my next post.

Not for sissies

Sometimes, I wonder just how I managed to survive my childhood with only the slight amount of brain damage I’ve actually suffered. And, sometimes, I wonder just how I managed to survive my childhood at all.

Back in the fifties, I actually rode my bike every day without a helmet, knee pads or elbow pads. And, as I recall, my Dad once drove my mother, me and my little brother, all the way over Gillis Mountain to spend a week camping at Gillis Lake, without seatbelts. OK, so maybe my brother Tom should have been in a car seat, but nobody can say for sure that’s when he sustained the head injury. Besides, they hadn’t been invented yet.

When I, or my four siblings, got underfoot, my parents would often say things like: “Why don’t you kids go out and play.” I’m sure that many of the same hazards that exist today existed back in the fifties. Maybe parents back then just weren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate the hazards to which they were exposing their children with that simple admonition.

Back then, no one would dare wear a helmet when playing hockey for fear of being laughed off the bog that served as our local hockey/skating rink. Besides, going through the ice was a far greater hazard than getting hit in the head with a puck. (The town council solved that problem; they just filled in the bog with slag from the coal mine, forcing the kids to play street hockey.)

What got me to thinking about this stuff was a brief piece in a blog called Nobody’s Business , written by Rogier van Bakel. It’s a good site and I drop by there on a fairly regular basis.

In his post, Rogier had written, “Kids. They're precious, aren't they? So why not protect the delicate little flowers with an adorable Thudguard helmet, to be worn around the clock?” Following the link provided, I wound up on the homepage of an outfit called Gizmodo: The Gadget Weblog

According to Gizmodo, “Babies and toddlers aren’t best known for their ability to stop and go on command. This results in them spending much of their time using their head as the brake for most of their unexpected manoeuvres.”

“Meet the Thudguard, a helmet specifically designed to make sure your little Einstein doesn’t damage their brain along the way to learning how to walk and run. It’s targeted at kids aged from 7 months to 2 years old. And yes, if you send your child to crèche (a day nursery) wearing one of these, it will be singled out and bullied.” Uh-huh.

I suspect the folks at Gizmodo were being just a little sarcastic. And, some of the comments to their post were just as sarcastic. Here’s a small sample.

• I thought it was some form of a Mickey Mouse cult, look at those ears, lol
• I need one of these for everyday living. You never know when you might get kicked in the head by a ninja, so this could come in handy. Give me 12 of them for family and friends. Christmas shopping finished early this year
• Falling down and hitting your head is a very valuable experience. It teaches you things like: get out of the way, don't hang on that, don't push people, and just because you can reach, doesn't mean you should pull it off the shelf.
• Looks like my drinking helmet. I am not allowed to leave the house on weekends without it.

I need comment no further. Besides, when the McGinty government gets word of this, they will likely pass a law mandating these safety hats for use in every home and playground in Ontario. The Thudguard “infant safety hat” is available (seriously) for only 20 pounds sterling (roughly $40.00 Canadian). Visit their site here: ThudGuard

Books & Project Gutenberg

I’ve always been an avid reader; going way back to the 1950’s when I was still a kid. My tastes back in those days leaned towards novels of adventure from authors such as Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Victor Hugo, etc.

I never read the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, although I was aware they were out there; they just never appealed to me. I preferred to spend my 79 cents on hard cover copies of books I found considerably more interesting. The H. Rider Haggard series with Alan Quartermain searching for King Solomon’s Mines, Edgar Rice Burroughs and his tales of lost worlds and Tarzan. James Fenimore Cooper was also one of my favourites with The Deerslayer and Last of the Mohicans.

I continue to read voraciously, although strangely enough, I’ve never had a library card.

I love to rummage around the book bins at flea markets, always on the lookout for a a good read. When I go to a shopping mall, my first stop is usually the discount bin of whatever bookstores might be there. There’s no telling what you might find and it’s an inexpensive way to buy books.

Books, if you haven’t noticed, are getting more and more expensive. One of the last Stephen King books I bought was a hard cover copy with a sticker price of $39.95. I didn’t pay that much of course; I found it in a discount bin for $6.95. I found this a little odd because the paperback version was still on the shelves and selling for $12.95.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve re-read a lot of those old “classics” from Burroughs, Twain, Poe, Austen, etc. I’ve also found copies of books I would not ordinarily spend money on; The Prince by Machiavelli, Songs of the Sourdough by Robert W. Service among others.

And, the reason I can afford to read many of these books on my pittance of a pension, is that they don’t cost me a dime.

If you look in the sidebar of this web log, you’ll find links to some of the best freeware in cyberspace. This post, however, is not about freeware; at least not in the normal sense. It’s about books; free books, available on-line; books on philosophy and politics, science fiction, adventure books, poetry and the literary classics.

Das Kapital by Karl Marx, The Illiad and The Odyssey from Homer, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and tens of thousands of others, are available free over the internet. There’s only one catch. The books you want must be in the public domain. But with the sheer numbers of books available, there’s sure to be hundred to your liking.

The books are available from Project Gutenberg, and you can download plain text copies of the books that can be opened in any word processor. There are no dues and no membership requirements although you may make donations. Their web site notes: “Project Gutenberg needs your pennies, nickels and dimes. An average of just one cent per eBook downloaded would make a huge difference.”

It’s a wonderful site for book lovers like myself.

Of course, I’ll still browse through the discard bins for the latest in both modern fiction and non-fiction. But if you like to read, you should check out this site.Go to: Project Gutenberg

Protecting the kids

Parents, more often than not, tend to be somewhat protective of their offspring. It’s instinctive.

While surfing the net a few days back, I came across an article which brought back an incident that happened while I was living on the east coast back in 1991-92. My 15 year old daughter was recounting the experience of her afternoon swimming at Georges River. After listening to her describe the “fun” of jumping off the Georges River Bridge into the water below, I began a lecture on the perils of such activity.

I had barely begun when the younger of my two brothers interrupted with, “Uh, just how old were you again, the first time you went off that bridge?” Sometimes uncles should be seen and not heard.

“That’s not the point,” I countered.

But, of course, that was the point. Sometimes parents, out of concern for the well being of their children, begin to see menace in every shadow; boogiemen lurking behind every bush. It’s instinctive.

And, some “public service” organizations and government bodies have latched onto this trait of parental concern and are using it to further their own ends. “We’ve got to put an end to this or that threat . . . for the good of the children.”

And parents, because protection of their offspring is instinctive, stand ready to shelter their young from dangers both real and imagined. The trick, I suspect, is in how we determine what constitutes a real threat and those alleged threats which are merely the result of an overactive imagination or personal bias.

The article which had me thinking about these mundane matters was a 2006 news brief from the Associated Press and concerned two volunteer cheerleading coaches who were dismissed because one of them pulled up her shirt and “exposed” about three inches of her belly to a group of seven and eight year olds in their charge at a youth football game.

Christine Smith, an assistant coach with the Frederick Youth Sports Association, and head coach Debbie Wheaton, had drawn an image of a smiley face on Smith's abdomen to cheer up their young female students. "Every time the girls weren't smiling, I showed them the smiley face. They thought it was hilarious," Smith said.

However, the president of the association, Kathy Carey, said three people complained about the incident and she agreed with them. "Pulling your shirt up is inappropriate and it's not what our organization is about. The community can understand we need to protect the kids and the integrity of the organization," Carey said.

"The community can understand we need to protect the kids . . . " Uh-huh.

But, from what were the children being protected? Was a little good-natured fun with their coaches really so injurious?

"I didn't feel it was inappropriate," Smith told the Frederick News-Post. "Those girls at that age level are put in extracurricular activities to have fun. The intention was meant to be funny; it was blown completely out of proportion."

Maybe we need to define the true nature of a threat before we go overboard protecting our children from it.

Crispy Frickin' Chicken

Help! Somebody wake me up and get me out of this nightmare. I’m seriously starting to believe that surfing the net can adversely affect a person’s (mental) health. Consider some of these news item lifted from across the web.

Mar 5, 2008 Bordeaux, France (Reuters)
Cemetery full, mayor tells locals not to die

The headline says it all, folks.

According to the article from Reuters, “The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.”

An ordinance posted in the council offices warns the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish," adding, “Offenders will be severely punished."

The 70 year old Mayor, Gerard Lalanne, claims he was forced to take drastic action, saying, "It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me." Planning on going somewhere soon, Mr. Mayor?

I wonder just what the ordinance means when they say, “Offenders will be severely punished." What additional punishment can you inflict on a dead man?

---

Mar 26, 2008 The Evening Standard (London)
Protecting the children

Hall Primary School in Clacton, Essex, decided to protect the children from pedophiles by covering their faces with “smiley faces” in the schools on-line newsletter.

Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at the University of Kent, said the school was being alarmist. "Every time a school takes silly measures, it says we see the world through the eyes of a pedophile. They think that any innocent picture of school children will somehow be subverted and manipulated.” Uh-huh.

The school has, apparently, taken down the controversial pictures from its website. A message on the website says: "Our newsletter section is undergoing maintenance. Back soon!" Uh-huh.

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Feb 28, 2008 AP Altoona, PA
Crispy Frickin' Chicken

The Associated Press article advises that, “A convenience store chain's billboard, advertising its fried chicken sandwich, is ruffling the feathers of some residents.” The sandwich, known as the “Crispy Frickin’ Chicken” sandwich had apparently upset some residents with its fowl language.

(By-law) enforcement officer Fran Calarco said "There was a lady who left an angry voice mail, and a man called and said he had small children and didn't think they should be exposed to that type of language. I told him I completely understood and agreed."

The convenience stores are owned by Sheetz Inc., based in Altoona and operating stores in Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. They took down the billboards a week later when the ad campaign was scheduled to end.

Maybe I should post an “Adult Content” warning on this site to keep the frickin’ assholes out?

The Moral Statistician

I was browsing through an old copy of “Popular Mechanics” I had stashed on the top shelf of my bedroom closet the other day. When I say old, I mean old; the pages yellowed and brittle. The date was November 1919 which was ironically, the year of my father’s birth and one of the reasons I have kept the magazine around so long.

The magazine contains a full page ad touting the advantages of quitting smoking and offering a smoking cessation program for less than $2.00 (plus postage). Apparently, the tobacco prohibitionists have been around for a long time.

Later, while surfing the net, I came across the following essay by Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) on a smoker’s choice web site. Mr. Clemens didn’t care much for the anti-smoker fanatics in his day either.

Both the graphics and the essay are in the public domain, so I reprint them here for your consideration and amusement.

The Moral Statistician
By Samuel Clemens
Originally published in Sketches, Old and New, 1893

I don't want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it.

I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you are always figuring out how many women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion of wearing expansive hoops, etc. etc. You never see more than one side of the question.

You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you can save money by denying yourself all those little vicious enjoyments for fifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put it to? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that money can be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life; therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment where is the use of accumulating cash?

It won't do for you to say that you can use it to better purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and in supporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people who have no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that you stint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble and hungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poor wretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you; and in church you are always down on your knees, with your ears buried in the cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never give the revenue officers a full statement of your income.

Now you know all these things yourself, don't you? Very well, then, what is the use of your stringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age? What is the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? In a word, why don't you go off somewhere and die, and not be always trying to seduce people into becoming as ornery and unlovable as you are yourselves, by your villainous "moral statistics"?

Now, I don't approve of dissipation, and I don't indulge in it either; but I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices. And so I don't want to hear from you any more. I think you are the very same man who read me a long lecture last week about the degrading vice of smoking cigars, and then came back, in my absence, with your reprehensible fire-proof gloves on, and carried off my beautiful parlor stove.

Springhill, Nova Scotia

I was playing some old records the other day, listening to some folk music from the late fifties and early sixties. One of the songs on the record was an ‘a cappella’ arrangement of “The Ballad of Springhill”. It’s one of the finest versions of the song I’ve ever heard; which is not really surprising. The song was both written and performed by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl.

Bono and U2 are among the many who recorded the song. They did a version as recently as 1987. OK. So it wasn’t all that recent.

Anyway, back in the winter of 58/59, I was going to SMH (Sydney Mines High School). I believe I was sitting through an early morning latin class when we heard the whistle from Princess Colliery signaling trouble in the pits. It was a long eerie blast, frightening actually, that sent shivers down your spine.

Most of the class, myself included, just looked around with raised eyebrows wondering just what the hell was going on. Some of the kids knew, either briefed by their parents or perhaps having listened to the radio that morning before coming to school. And, it didn’t take a lot of explanation for the rest of us to understand.

“They’ll be going to Springhill.”

When you live in a mining town, within a quarter mile of the pit head, you don’t need any more explanation. You just start wondering; how bad and how many?

The October 23, 1958 “bump” at Number 2 coal mine in Springhill was the worst in North American mining history. You’ll need a geologist to explain what a bump actually is or what causes them. But, you can imagine the death and destruction wreaked by a small underground earthquake, especially to miners labouring deep in the bowels of the earth. There were three distinct shock waves from the bump in Springhill, shaking the entire region.

Draegermen and teams of barefaced miners immediately began the rescue effort. Teams began to arrive from other coal mines on Cape Breton Island and Pictou County, to help with the rescue of trapped miners. The first of the rescue teams encountered survivors at about 13,000 feet down the slope, walking or limping toward the surface. Rescuers were forced to work down shafts either in a partial state of collapse or blocked completely by debris.

The last of the survivors were brought to the surface on Sunday, November 1, 1958. There would be no more in the days that followed. Bodies of the dead were placed in airtight aluminum coffins before being brought to the surface due to the advanced state of decomposition.

Of the 174 miners in Number 2 colliery at the time of the bump, 74 were killed. The remaining 100 were rescued, with some spending as many as eight days trapped underground.

We had just gotten our first television set and CBC affiliate CJCB-TV usually started broadcasting around one o’clock in the afternoon. However, when I got home for lunch that day, Dad was already glued to the black and white “portable” in the living room. If I recall right, some of the men he’d served with in the North Novies were working in the Cumberland mine.

The disaster became something of a milestone in television history as the first major international news event to appear in live television broadcasts. That kind of stuff is “old hat” these days, but in the fifties it was high drama.

A week or so later, when the last of the survivors were being brought to the surface, a reporter rushed to ask one of them “what he wanted most” after having been trapped underground for eight days. Without hesitation, and with the whole world watching, he replied "A cold 7-Up."

I remember the old man laughing and saying “That bugger just got himself a job for life.” I don’t know how long the job lasted, but the 7-Up company did hire the guy as a spokesman.

Following the disaster, the Springhill mines, once the town’s economic lifeblood, were closed, never to reopen.

The Ballad of Springhill
In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia
Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine
There's blood on the coal and the miners lie
In roads that never saw sun nor sky
Roads that never saw sun nor sky.
by Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl

Liverpool Lou (nacy)

The McDonald's Happy Meal could become a thing of the past in Liverpool, England. The city council is planning to outlaw the meals on the grounds that they are damaging the heath of children, particularly as they offer free toys in order to encourage parents to buy junk food for their children.

Council’s Childhood Obesity Scrutiny Group is proposing a by-law that would forbid the sale of fast food accompanied by toys. Councilors say the promotional items are used to boost sales through something they call "Pester Power" - children pestering parents for Happy Meal toys. Liverpool Council claims they are contributing to the epidemic of childhood obesity.

For the full story, see my other blog, Stand FAST

A (bigger) piece of the pie

The Gibson Guitar Company makes guitars; very good guitars. Activision makes computer games; very good computer games. So, why is Gibson suing Activision? What do they have in common? Well, that’s a long story; a very long, complicated story.

Guitar Hero is a computer software program that simulates playing guitar in a concert setting. It’s a very popular game and the people producing and selling it are making lots of money. The company currently, making all the money is Activision, who have made over a billion dollars since acquiring rights to the game.

Activision believed that Guitar Hero would give them an early leadership position in music-based gaming, which the company expects to be one of the fastest growing genres in the coming years. So, in 2006, they bought the company, Red Octane, which published Guitar Hero. They paid a miserly $100 million. Red Octane, prior to being bought out by Activision, signed a deal with Gibson Guitars to use designs of some of their guitars as controllers to be used with the game.

But, the game originated with Harmonix, a developer of music based games, who signed a deal with Red Octane to publish the game. The developer, Harmonix, recently launched a lawsuit against Activision who now owns Red Octane for failing to pay royalties under the terms of the Harmonix/Red Octane publishing agreement. But less than a week after launching the lawsuit, Harmonix withdrew it in favour of reaching an amicable agreement out of court.

But, a week later, Gibson Guitars sued Activision, the parent company of Red Octane, for patent infringement. The row started in January, when Gibson attorneys sent Activision a letter accusing it of violating a 1999 patent titled "System and Method for Generating and Controlling a Simulated Musical Concert Experience." A copy of the patent included in the lawsuit describes a device that lets a user "simulate participation in a concert by playing a musical instrument and wearing a head-mounted 3-D display that includes stereo speakers."

Activision disagrees with the applicability of the Gibson patent and wants a legal determination.

Gibson wants to sue Activision for patent infringement on an idea that they must have forgotten they owned, or they wouldn’t have signed the deal with Red Octane in the first place. It took Gibson three years to discover that a company with which they were partners (Red Octane) was breaching one of their patents (Gibson’s). So now they’re suing the parent company (Activision), who didn’t actually buy the company (Red octane) until after they had signed the deal with Gibson. Follow me?

The question that has to be asked is whether or not this is an actual patented invention, or an inappropriate attempt to patent an idea. In Europe, patents are not permitted on software applications. These are protected under copyright laws. In the US, the patent office has been accepting software patents for many years, but there has been no judicial ruling as yet and the legality of such patents is in question.

Songs, books and computer code can be copyrighted; but just how do you go about patenting an idea or a theory without specific music, words or code.

For example, could I patent an idea for a song about a man who catches his girlfriend cheating with another man, shooting the pair of them and then being sent to the gallows for murder. Could I then sue anybody who actually wrote such a song for patent infringement, even though I had never written a single word or note of music? But, that appears to be what Gibson is doing.

It’s hard to believe that Gibson actually wrote computer code or developed gaming hardware in 1999, six years before signing their deal with Red Octane. We’ll have to wait and see just what’s happened in this case.

Guitar Hero sold 14 million copies in North America alone in 2007, earning over a billion dollars in the process. Not hard to understand what this fight’s all about.

No skates - no hockey

It was in the fall of 1958 that my name appeared in the sports section of the Cape Breton Post. I’d gone three for five with three RBI’s against a team from Glace Bay in the Babe Ruth League semi-finals. Our manager, Joe Scott, who worked at the government store, was an hour late for the game. Must have been payday. And, he forgot to have someone bring the gear and the team from the Bay was insisting that the umpire award the game to them by default. They refused to let us use pretend balls or bats.

Roddy Tobin saved our ass. He ran home and came back with enough equipment to let us start the game. I played the first three innings with Roddy’s left-handed catchers mitt (I was right-handed) and a 40 pound catcher’s mask last used by Roddy’s grandfather sometime in the 1800’s.

We taped the bat handle up real good so the umpire couldn’t see the cracks and some old guy (he must have been at least thirty) in the stands went to the co-op and bought us a brand new Rawlings baseball.

We lost. That was the last year I’d play any organized baseball. In ’59, I joined the Bras D’Or West End Arrows in the men’s softball league.

No. No. I’m taking about baseball here, dumb-ass.

In hockey, you score goals, get assists, bruised shins, black eyes and learn to swear. Besides, I never played hockey because I never learned to skate. Yes, the bog which served as the local hockey rink was right at my back door, but we couldn’t afford new CCM’s and I had no older brother to pass his down to me. Neither did my younger brother, Tom. Well, of course he had an older brother; what he didn’t have was an older brother with a pair of skates to pass down.

I almost had a pair of skates once. My buddy’s older sister, Dorothy, gave me a pair of CCM’s that actually fit pretty good. (My God. I just had a belated revelation. Her feet must have been big; perhaps even in direct proportion to her bra size. Strange; I never paid any attention to the size of her feet back then.)

Anyway, she was kind enough to offer her old skates. She had no younger sisters to pass them on to; her sisters Ethel and Mary both being older. They were white figure skates with a furry fringe on the top of the boot. Embarrassing!

So, I scuffed the leather up, applied several layers of boot black and used an old straight razor of the old mans to shave the furry white stuff off. But I was always too embarrassed to wear them to the bog until after dark. By then, everyone had gone home, so I never did learn to skate.

But, there were times when I was just as happy that I hadn’t learned to skate. For example, the winter of ’58-’59, the year we almost lost the Crow.

A bunch of the guys were playing hockey on that part of the bog just behind Mikey LeBlancs. Jimmy “Crow” Walsh had just broken up a play and the guys had turned to skate back in the other direction. Somebody turned around to wait for a pass from the Crow . . . but he was nowhere in sight. While everyone was focused on the bull rushes thinking he might have taken a header, Crow’s head bobbed up out of the ice, er . . . water, with Crow stammering, “Ge . . . ge . . . get me outta here, it’s fu . . . fu . . . freezing.

Did I mention that Crow stuttered.

To be sure, it was not a funny state of affairs. But, yes, some of us began to laugh before we realized the gravity of the situation. “Heh-heh. What the fu . . . Oh, shit.”

Some of the older guys had already started a line to form a human chain, but someone (I think it might have been Ricky Vickers) remembered the ladder behind LeBlanc’s barn and raced to get it. He damn near took a tumble himself when, skating like a madman, he ran out of ice. But, they had the ladder on the ice, and Crow out of the water, in a matter of minutes.

Just as well too; we needed him at third base in the summer of ’59.

Kids fight & so do grown-ups

Fighting back

Fighting comes quite naturally to kids, although fighting well may take a little instruction.

My “old man” did a little boxing while serving with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. He was normally an easy going type of guy, who could usually see the humour in situations that really weren’t all that funny.

Like the night I went with a couple of friends to a dance at the Odd Fellows Hall. Before heading out, we’d pooled our financial resources to invest in a bottle of port wine, 999 or some such, from the local bootleggers. Inexperienced drinkers, we consumed the contents of our acqiusition down by the towm dump. Quickly. I was still drunk when I got home.

With Dad sitting beside the front door, the mission was to get past him without staggering or giving him any indication that I’d been drinking. I was smiling as I walked into the kitchen, having said hello to my parents; pleased that I had made my way through the living room without giving them any hint that I was slightly inebriated.

That’s when I ran into the rinky-dink little refridgerator that had replaced our rinky-dink little ice box, and went ass over tea-kettle. I expected a somewhat more violent reaction than the suppressed giggles coming from the front room.

I should note that my father was not normally a violent person. Ma was the one who usually got upset when one or another of us came home with a black eye or a split lip. Dad was usually unperturbed by such things, as long as you were still mobile. That is to say, if you walked through the door under your own steam rather than having someone carry you in on a stretcher, he figured everything was alright.

He didn’t seem to care who had won or lost. He wanted to know if you were hurt (bloody noses, black eyes and bruises didn’t count), if you had stood your ground and whether or not you got a few licks in. Unfortunately, standing your ground often led to black eyes, bloody noses and a considerable amount of bruising.

My old man saw no percentage in talking to a bully’s parents and maybe getting into an altercation of his own. So he chose to handle matters more indirectly.

Like the time I came home with a black eye, a dented nose and no bruised knuckles. The old man came home from his job at the Naval Base, a few days later, with two pairs of boxing gloves. Not those compact little eight ounce jobs used by Marciano and Joe Louis. No. No. These were the big 16 ounce “training” models. Extra padding so you didn’t get hurt. Yeah. Like you could use a mattress to cushion the fall from a ten storey building.

But I learned to box a little, although it was a matter of survival just surviving the boxing lessons.

You’ve got to learn to defend yourself. Thump. Keep your hands up and your elbows tight to the chest. Thump. Da, I’m getting a headache. Thump. It’s for your own good. Thump. Thump. Hey Da, how about we skip the boxing lesson to-day and I go take on the grade seven class from the catholic school. Thump.

All kinds of bullies

The school yard isn’t the only place you’ll find bullies. Bullying is a fact of life; and you’ll have to be prepared to fight back. One of the new bullies on the block is the non-smokers rights groups and the tobacco prohibitionists. These clowns have declared open season on smokers.

They are not content, nor will they ever be, with simple public smoking bans. Recently, they have advocated firing smokers from their jobs, denying smokers rental accomodation, declaring smoking parents “child abusers”, and a host of other initiatives designed to force smokers to butt out and kiss their collective ass.

Learning to box won’t help you.

The way to fight back is to arm yourself with information. Challenge the bullies to prove their outrageous claims about secondhand smoke with honest scientific evidence. Don’t ignore the discrimination and intolerance directed at smokers. You might be the next target on the bullies list.

Check out my new blog: Fight Anti Smoker Tyranny

Childhood hero

I think the first time I ever heard the name Mickey Mantle was while sitting on a pop crate in the back of Frankie Legatto’s convenience store/ ice cream parlour. That was back when Frankie still used his back room as a storage area. Later on in the fifties, he would clear out his storage area and put in a juke box to give the older kids a place to hang out and listen to rock’n’roll. But you still had to sit on pop crates.

Frankie was a friend of the old man’s; one of the “originals” who served in the North Novies with Dad during WW2. I was sitting with Francis, Frankie’s oldest son, and Bobby Gordon listening to the Yankees and Dodgers duke it out in that annual ritual known as the World Series.

We didn’t get to actually see a game back then; TV was still a few years off, at least in our neck of the woods. Of course, you could pick up some of the highlights on the (really) big screen at the Saturday morning matinee at the Odeon . . . if you paid attention during the newsreels.

I was still a kid and Francis and Bobby were both older than I was, maybe twelve or thirteen.. But I often got to hang out with them, maybe because I was big for my age, or, maybe because, even as a kid I was a decent little ball player. I was usually one of the first to be picked in local pick-up games in the schoolyard behind the catholic middle school (St. Joseph’s), often ahead of some of the older guys.

I really didn’t know much about “major league” baseball back then; I could name more players on the Glasgow Celtic football club than I could on the New York Yankees. But, the name itself fired my imagination, and Mickey Mantle became one of my first childhood heroes.

The Yankees won the series that year, 1953 if my fast failing memory serves me right; a year or so before we moved from Guy St. to Bog Row. Mantle would go on to pick up seven World Series rings in his eighteen year career, all played with the Yankees.

In 1956, Mantle won the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year. These days, sportswriters and baseball pundits might refer to it as his “career year.” It was the year he won baseball’s “Triple Crown”, leading the majors with a .353 batting average, 52 homeruns and 130 runs-batted-in, on the way to his first of three MVP awards.

In 1961, Mantle became the highest-paid active player of his time by signing a $75,000 contract with the Yankees. Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg and Ted Williams, who had just retired, had been paid over $100,000 in a season, and Babe Ruth had a peak salary of $80,000. That salary pales in comparison to the multi-million dollar contracts awarded to many of to-days overpaid, under-productive ball players.

One of the most fascinating things about Mantle was that he played his entire career in pain.

Following an injury during a high school football game, Mantle's leg became infected with osteomyelitis, a crippling disease that would have been incurable just a few years earlier. Fortunately, Mantle was able to be treated with a newly available wonder drug, called penicillin, saving his leg from amputation. He suffered from the effects of the disease for the rest of his life, and, according to some, it probably led to many other injuries that hampered his accomplishments.

In 1974, as soon as he was eligible, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; his uniform number “7” was retired by the Yankees. In 1999, "The Sporting News" placed Mantle at 17th on its list of "The 100 Greatest Baseball Players."

His stats might have suffered as a result of his injuries; but, I don’t believe they hampered his accomplishments. And, the only drug he abused was beer. No steroids, folks.

I came back

I’m still here
I suspect no one out there in cyber space has noticed, but I’ve been away for a while. Last month I broke a promise to myself and accepted a position on the Board of Directors at the co-op in which I live.

The last bunch apparently thought they were running a Sunday morning social club instead of a 21 million dollar corporation with a 2.5 million dollar annual budget. Anyway, it will be my responsibility, as Chairman of the Board, to help stop the financial bleeding and put things back on track. Hopefully, after a flurry of activity over the past month, I’ll be able to get back to writing my web log.

It’s my choice
I’m not much of a joiner, on the web or off, but I recently joined an on-line club called MyChoice. It points out that smoking, no matter how despicable you may find the habit, is a matter of choice. The anti-smoker crowd is whipping the public into a frenzy which is reaching near hysterical proportions. People are now permitted to discriminate against smokers in a way that would not be tolerated against any other minority. And, to do it, they are using bullshit, bafflegab and outright lies.

Enough already. It’s time to fight back

WHO study withheld
This article is based on a story printed in the London Telegraph, and other newspapers including the Ottawa Citizen, back in 1998. So why are anti-smoking groups and politicians permitted to claim that a link exists between lung cancer and secondhand smoke? The evidence points in the other direction. And why does the national press, in both Canada and the US, allow the deception to continue? What, or who, are they afraid of?

The World Health Organization apparently tried to withhold from publication a study which showed that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could even have a protective effect. The British press announced that the largest statistical study on Environmental Tobacco Smoke and lung cancer ever conducted did not generate the expected results. It was buried by WHO until a request for the study was made by the British press under freedom of information legislation.

The WHO was forced to make the report public, although some of their personnel at the time were denying the very existence of the study. The WHO study was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in l998.

The WHO and its supporters continue to insist that statistically insignificant relative risk factors were significant.

A complaint was filed with the U.K. Press Complaints Commission against the Telegraph (London), who broke the story, alleging it had misrepresented the results of the WHO study. The Telegraph stuck by its story and by October l998 the Commission found for the Telegraph and rejected the complaint vindicating the newspaper.

For a synopsis of this disturbing episode in the history of the WHO, and more information on the study, visit davehitt.com

Convert those old LPs to MP3

If you’ve visited this site before, you’ll know I’m a big fan of free, open source software. Free software doesn’t just mean free of cost (like the “free beer” available when I go to visit my kids). It’s free. Use it, copy it and pass it around to your friends with few if any restrictions. And, you can do it legally.

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds including MP3 files. Open source simply means that if you have computer programmaning skills, you can get the source code, study it and modify it to your liking. Audacity is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows and GNU/Linux as well as other operating systems.

Just what can you do with Audacity?

Well you can record live audio from web casts and your favourite internet radio stations. If you can play it through your computer sound card, you can record it with audacity. Or, you can convert those old albums and tapes to MP3s (or OGG files). And once you’ve recorded the music, you can edit the sound to your liking. With a little bit of tinkering, I’ve even been able to re-channel my old mono albums to simulate stereo.

You can cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together or change the speed or pitch of a recording. There’s an undo feature that allows you to undo any mistakes you might make. And go back an unlimited number of steps to make corrections.

The application interface is intuitive, and for the easy stuff, most people would be able to use it straight out of the box. If it came in a box. For some of the more advanced features there’s a slight learning curve, but there is excellent documentation available.

Audacity is being developed by a group of volunteers and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

You can read all about the many features provided by the application and download a copy by simply clicking the link below.

Download Audacity

Burn the fields (Part 2)

If you believe the latest results from the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey (CTUMS), slightly fewer than 5 million people, representing 19% of the population aged 15 years and older, are smokers. There is no indication if those figures are based on the legal sale of tobacco products or if black market sales would raise those figures significantly. I suspet, however, that smokers buying on the black market have not been included.

The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care claims provincial tobacco taxes produced $1.452 billion in the 2004-2005 fiscal year. In the next fiscal year, 2005-2006, following yet another increase in sin taxes, provincial tax revenues dropped from $1.452 billion to $1.379 billion, a decline of 73 million dollars. Over the same period, combined federal and provincial tax revenue on tobacco dropped from $7.605 billion to $7.086, a drop of 517 million dollars.

However, says Dr. Atul Kapor, president of Physicians for a Smoke Free Canada, “There is a growing gap between the amount of cigarettes that Canadians say they are smoking and the tobacco tax revenues collected by federal and provincial governments.”

A report from Imperial Tobacco in October 2006 suggests that a quarter of the cigarettes consumed in Quebec and Ontario, are supplied by the black market. Reporters from the Toronto Star confirmed this estimate by using undercover shoppers to demonstrate just how easy it is to get cheap cigarettes in Toronto. Some sources suggest the sale of contraband cigarettes might be as high as 40%. Is anyone surprised?

The RCMP website says: “The sale of illegal tobacco products often benefits criminal organizations. The profits are used to: finance drug trafficking in Canada; purchase illegal weapons; and fund other illicit activities.

They also point out that, “These activities affect the safety and security of our communities and our children. Buying and selling illegal tobacco has other negative consequences for Canadian society, including, eroding respect for the law and federal and provincial governments losing millions in tax revenue.”

According to the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, "Taxation of tobacco is an effective policy for preventing and reducing cigarette consumption. However, the widespread availability of contraband cigarettes can undermine the effectiveness of this policy, negate the intended health benefits of tobacco taxation and reduce taxation revenues."

The simple truth is that confiscatory taxes and biased regulation do undermine public respect for the law.

Prohibition did not work in the States because a large segment of the population refused to accept the premise that “Big Brother” knew what was best for them. Prohibition, and the law of unintended consequences, contributed significantly to a surge in criminal activity, including smuggling and the illegal manufacture and distribution of alcohol. Those laws were repealed.

Taxation, as a tool for enforcing public policy, can have only a limited effect. There is a point where people will rebel and strike back. They will do so by ignoring attempts to control their behaviour through confiscatory taxes and draconian regulations on a product that is still perfectly legal.

A “smoke free Canada” is a pipe dream. Not everyone will simply quit smoking because of usurious levels of taxation. Many will simply turn to the underground economy with a shrug of the shoulders and a quiet: “Screw’em.” The danger is that this largely justified cheating may well spread to other areas of public morality.

Quote of the Day
Thank heaven, I have given up smoking . . . again! God! I feel fit. Homicidal, but fit. A different man. Irritable, moody, depressed, rude, nervy, perhaps; but the lungs are fine. ~A.P. Herbert

Burn the tobacco fields?

They claim it’s because they want to protect us, and those around us, from ourselves. Smoking kills, they tell us while they keep raking in the cash; billions of dollars a year in taxes. And, they continue to allow the harvesting of tobacco as well as the manufacture and distribution of tobacco products.

They’ve outlawed smoking in public places, restaurants, bars and private clubs of all manner and description. They’ve banned the advertising of tobacco products in newspapers, magazine and all forms of electronic media. But, they won’t outlaw smoking. They recognize the socio-economic impact of an outright ban. There’s too much money to be made; by growers, by the tobacco industry, by the government.

Physicians for a Smoke Free Canada point out that the big three manufacturers in Canada earn over a billion dollars a year. But the combined tobacco tax revenue for the federal and provincial governments exceeds 7 billion. It’s government which has the most to lose by an outright ban.

They won’t pick a fight with the farmers who earn their livelihood from growing the alleged killer weed. The consumer is an easier target. They’re afraid to do battle with the big corporations who manufacture, package and distribute the deadly toxins. The consumer is without the resources to fight back.

They can’t provide alternatives to the jobs that would be lost. And, they can’t replace the tax revenue generated by the growing, manufacture and sale of tobacco products, especially cigarettes. And, they won’t, ever, convince everyone to quit smoking.

So they take a little money from their sin taxes and hand it over to the anti-smoking lobby to make life miserable for smokers. They pass draconian laws to control when and where people can use what is still a perfectly legal product. They turn honest, hard-working men and women into social pariahs and criminals, just because they choose to smoke.

They proudly proclaim their commitment to the health and safety of the nation. And, all the while, they keep filling government coffers with billions of dollars in taxes.

The anti-smoking fanatics tell them, “The most effective tobacco reduction tool is decreasing the affordability of tobacco through tax policy.” And they, the government, listen; ignoring other available tools to reduce smoking.

Of the over 7 billion dollars collected in taxes on tobacco, governments spend roughly 90 million on other measures to control the addiction; less than 2% of revenue from taxation. Tax revenue, it appears, is their first priority.

I don’t pay their sin taxes. I get my cigarettes from sources currently outside the reach of the government. Yes, it’s illegal. And, no, I don’t feel one bit guilty.

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Word of the day
Hypocrite (hyp·o·crite) Noun
a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he or she does not hold in order to conceal his or her real feelings or motives

Digital Restrictions Management

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the catch-all phrase for the encryption that restricts your right to play/use the music and movies which you fork out your hard earned dollars to buy.

It was the encryption tool the music industry claimed was needed to fight piracy. According to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), CD sales have been plummeting. They blamed P2P networks and piracy for their problems. So they used DRM technology to circumvent the fair use provisions of copyright laws and tried to tell the consumer where and how they would be allowed to play their music.

The concept of fair use gives the consumer the right, among other things, to copy for personal use, musical works they buy. DRM interferes with those rights.

For example, music downloaded from I-tunes can only be played on an I-pod. RealAudio can be played only on MP3 players; you aren’t permitted to copy the songs to CD to use on your home or car stereo. Sony uses proprietary OpenMG DRM technology. Music downloaded from this store is only playable on computers running Windows and Sony hardware. Few of these technologies are interchangeable.

But consumers are fighting back, and the major record labels and the RIAA are beginning to see the folly of their ways. Amazon.com and the major record companies are now selling DRM free MP3’s online.

But, their insistence that piracy is the biggest contributing factor to declining CD sales shows they are not prepared to address the many real problems inherent in the product they sell. And, according to some reports the enemy is the record companies themselves, who have been slow in responding to changing consumer demand.

For example, I own several hundred LPs and cassette tapes. I can use my computer and a free software program like Audacity to record that music in MP3 format (or OGG, WMA, etc.). I can even digitally enhance my old mono records to simulate stereo. Why would I want to spend my entertainment dollars on high priced CDs, when I already have thousands of songs and musical selections in my record and tape collection?

I haven’t listened to a radio broadcast since the last big blackout in southern Ontario when I dug out an old crystal radio set to keep up with the news and listen to a few tunes. The reason is simple: I got tired of commercial radio with their limited play lists and constant repetition. And, with few exceptions, the music they play does not suit my musical tastes. Nor do I like the idea of radio stations or big record companies telling me what I should be listening to or buying. So, I listen to internet radio.

There are several sites on the web that allow new singers and songwriters to showcase their talent. I get to hear some great songs by some very talented musicians. I’d rather listen to a good song by an unknown artist than some of the garbage cluttering the air waves just because it was recorded by a “star”. And, because I’m not listening to the radio or CMT hype, I don’t buy the CDs.

Another reason for declining sales of CDs is that there is a limited number of entertainment dollars to be spent by the average consumer. For the price of two CDs a month, with the limited entertainment value they provide, I can pay for a broadband internet connection that provides a much bigger bang for my entertainment buck.

Also contributing to declining CD sales is the growth of “indie” labels that distribute their music over the internet, often for free. They’re not likely to get a lot of air play at any rate, because most radio stations cater to the big record companies and the big names they’re pushing. And, unless they’ve got a major hit, they’re not likely to make any money by signing with a major record label. It’s the record companies that rake in the profits from CD sales, not the artists. They make their money on the road.

The simple truth is that the big record labels have not adapted to the changing demands of the consumer. Maybe they should concentrate on providing a better quality product at a price the consumer is willing to pay, instead of whining and crying about piracy and suing everyone in sight.

The word "rights" in DRM is misleading. The proper term is “Digital Restrictions Management.” And, it’s one of the causes of declining music sales, not the solution.

It's about the oil . . dammit!

According to a January 3, 2008 article in the on-line edition of the Economist, oil is becoming more and more expensive, but not because the world is running out of oil reserves.

I suspect that most Canadians (or Americans) will not be surprised by this earth shattering little piece of news. Anyone who drives an automobile has likely noticed the impact on their wallet, or at least the contents thereof, every time they tell some gas jockey to “fill’er up”. I don’t believe the rumours that some people are taking out second mortgages on their homes or forcing their wives to stand on street corners just to keep their SUVs on the road. But, the cost of gasoline is definitely going up.

A layman like myself might be misled into believing it was the old economic theory of supply and demand that caused the price of oil to jump to $100.00 per barrel; a five-fold increase since 2002. As the economies of India and China grow and become more heavily industrialized, they place a greater demand on available supplies of the black gold. Not so says the Economist. Increased demand is only a small contributing factor.

Another underlying factor, apparently, is that back in the 1980’s and 1990’s, when the price of oil was very low, the big oil firms stopped investment in research, development and exploration, laying off people and shutting down operations to increase short term profit. And, now that they need increased production capacity they simply don’t have the staff and equipment they need to get the job done.

The Economist notes that “political tension” in the Middle East also creates uncertainty in the market causing oil prices to rise dramatically. Maybe they could talk their buddy, George Bush, into not bombing the shit out of everybody over there. Is it merely a coincidence that the skyrocketing price of oil coincided with Bush’s “pre-emptive strike” against Iraq? That the cost continues to rise while he rattles the saber at Iran?

No, the biggest impediment to stable oil prices, says the Economist, is political. Governments in almost all oil-rich countries, from Ecuador to Kazakhstan, “often deter private investment or exclude it altogether.” According to the Economist, “The world's oil supply would increase markedly if Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell had freer access to (the oil supplies of) Russia, Venezuela and Iran.” Of course, that would also deplete the worlds oil reserves that much quicker.

Note that they didn’t mention Iraq, with the second largest conventional oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia. Or even Saudi Arabia. Is it that both these countries are now firmly under control of the United States? But, they did mention Iran, the next target of America’s military juggernaut, if George Bush has his way; and the location of the third largest reserves of oil in the world.

But, if the Yanks want to secure the world’s oil reserves for American industry, why should we care? Canada is self-sufficient.

We should care because the article in the Economist also points out that the Alberta tar sands hold almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia. And, the tar sands are not included in the known reserves of conventional oil because of the high cost of extracting it. Otherwise, Canada would be ranked number two in the world instead of Iraq.

But, at $100.00 a barrel, the cost of extracting crude from the tar sands is no longer seen as an economic deterrence to exploitation of that resource. That’s a scary thought. Really. If the Yanks decide to invade Alberta, where will all the Newfies and Cape Bretoners find work?

Maybe Canadians should not leave the longest undefended border in the world undefended; at least as long as Mr. Bush is in charge.