Writ of Habeous Canus Crapitus

[acroyear]

Anybody who doesn't think that legislation alone can clean up a city should read Robert Fripp's Diary for the last three days. Seems his experiences of Paris so far this week have been one pile of Dog Doo (literally) in the streets after another. He doesn't even need to begin to make any comments on the stereotype of how bad the people smell; their shoes alone seem to meet that one without argument.

Bowever, he does comment on how, within a WEEK of passing legislation, New York City's dog poo problem seemed almost permanently solved. The EPA at the local level certainly is effective, no?

Shame the EPA at the national level right now doesn't give a shit about anything, much less shit itself.

He also notes: "Paris is a city where people meet to consensually blow smoke over each other." (note: though I'm a non-smoker, and appreciate the concern for non-smoking sections, a concept that's unheard of on the EU continent, I do not support the absolute bans in NYC, California, or locally in Montgomery County, MD).

Comments

[syntonic-comma.livejournal.com]

I do not support the absolute bans [on smoking] in NYC, California, or locally in Montgomery County, MD.

I am completely against smoking, as I can't see that it has any benefits for society. All uses of tobacco are carcinogenic. Some means of consumption also harm non-users. (Children don't get any say about being raised in the homes of smokers.) Treating the resulting diseases consumes tremendous medical resources. Smokers miss work more often, and smoking drivers have more accidents. The land involved could be used to grow food instead of poison. And how can anyone take the war on "drugs" seriously when tobacco isn't even considered?

Yes, tobacco is big business. But that doesn't make it right, or good. (It does give it political clout.) The farmers should be given new markets, the fields should be replanted, the factories should be retooled, and the marketers can always find something else to push --maybe something that makes life better, instead of just enriching big corporations.

Do you know where I get exposed to the most tobacco smoke these days? At Renaissance Faires. Smoky restaurants do not get my return business. (There's one where I won't even pick up take-out.)

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

as someone with more libertarian positions, philosophically speaking (and not what the libertarian party has coerced them to mean), i disagree, and expect we'll have to agree to disagree.

as a first off, my view of how smoking is contributing to the destruction of the neighborhood pub, including one of my fav hangouts (a fav among many in our morris team).

as far as "public health" and the effects of smoking on non-smokers, i agree that limits should be made, non-smoking areas be the priority, perhaps the absolute, in restaurants. however, the "bar" half is a different issue entirely.

i agree that smoking is harmful, and a definite risk for those who do. however, people should be free to do what they will, provided it doesn't harm others. thus, i'm more against the use of public funds for direct treatment.

the use of public funds for more significant long-term research on treatments and cures is different, because the results of such research are often also transferable to dealing with the results of extreme polution, particularly in 3rd world countries that don't have the equivelant of an EPA (even as much as ours is currently hindered by an uncaring administration, the goal of it remains alive in some; the current state is no different from the early reagan epa, and what his people did to it eventually got corrected by clinton).

as for "makes life better"? like what? for many who smoke, it IS one of those things that makes life better, at least in the short term. it really is pleasurable to some (in spite of the skepticism one might view of their advertising). is it your right to decide what someone else can or can't do to make their life better?

as for farmers using their land for other things, well, I covered that already. Given how much food is grown per acre (or really, per square mile given the nature of the megafarms involved now), there simply isn't enough demand for every farmer and every acre of ariable to actually grow a food-crop. Many farmers are being paid not to grow ("subsidies") simply because if everybody grew food, nobody would make any money from it at all and the whole system would collapse, leading to massive starvation.

we can't sell any more excess food to other countries because those countries simply can't afford to pay us for the shipping, much less the food itself. shipping is the one reason why buying "in bulk" isn't all that much cheaper in the long run (and why in a micro level, the online pet stores of the dot-com era all collapsed utterly).

the closest alternative would be an increase in corn growing to make corn-based oil as an alternative fuelsource, but not in THIS administration's lifetime.

as for smoking at faire? yeah, i do see it as a growing problem, in that a few can (and do) ignore the effects on others. some faires already have a no smoking in the seats policy, but that's cause their "seats" are hay-bales. however, any attempt to enforce a no-smoking policy on site probably would piss too many people off; the festival remains a business first, and as the results of montgomery county show, the lost business from telling 20-25% of the population that they can't smoke simply is not made up for by the 2-5% of the non-smoking population who might frequent a business they don't already because of smokers. financially, it simply makes no sense to do it.