Jim,

Bravo! Well said.


>SNIP
>>
>>In the intervening years, I became a sometime smoker myself, though I was hypersensitive to others' comfort during my habit. Since I've been on both sides, I can understand why most smokers don't realize how offensive their habit can be. The fact that your olfactories are desensitized, and you have a severe addiction add up to blinded devotion to the tobacco-leaf. Good luck to those of you who want to quit. I've been cold-turkey for 7 years, and I STILL wake up in cold-sweats if I happen to light up in a dream.
>
>This is an interesting sub-topic, this offensiveness of the habit.
>
>You don't have to look closely in older films, documentary or news or entertainment, to see that smoking was once rampant. I think to the point, back then, that the non-smoker was the social oddball!
>See all the cigarette/cigar/pipe smoke in films of congressional committee meeting and even in the Senate or House itself!
>See anyone being interviewed smoking, along with the interviewer.
>See train car scenes and restaurant scenes where in fact smoking had to be somewhat abated by the director because it interfered with the image clarity.
>See people getting into elevators with cigarettes/cigars/pipes.
>See street/crowd scenes where virtually every man was smoking (women smoked too, but never when walking outdoors back then).
>See people in theatres all smoking while they watched the movie or the play or the opera or the ballet.
>Smoking was EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME.
>
>Now what about the "sensitivities" of all those people???
>What about the health of all those people??? Shouldn't the whole generation (or 3) have died off of lung cancer and heart disease? Including all the non-smokers??
>
>I'm quite convinced that all this "attitude" about smoking is just the product of social engineering. It will be some other topic's turn in due course.
>
>I'm not advocating smoking any more than I'd advocate a friendly game of Russian Roulette. But let's face it, all these sensitivities are being way way way overdone. I guess a modern society simply needs something to be able to rail on about. Maybe, too, it serves to keep the people distracted while the politicians spend our money and get us into wars and...
>
>>
>SNIP