10.27.2007

Offensive Carcass

I was just reading a local blog that was discussing a petition for Anti-smoking legislation for any public space, what it really targets is places like food establishments and bars.
Having just returned from a trip that required air travel, to a city that already has and indoor smoking ban through out, I have to say a few things.
Firstly, I have no problem with stepping outside to smoke. I get that people don't like a lot of things that their fellow humans do, and don't want to be subjected to what they don't like. I'm not at all going to try to force someone to smoke with me, against their will. I try to be respectful, I don't stand right in front of the exit where they have to walk through a cloud of smoke. I don't blow it at people as they walk by. I don't even throw my butts at people who give me dirty looks and just generally look annoying.
Talk about anti-smoking anything always raises a few questions - such as - car exhaust, pollution, obesity. All these other things that cause more health problems than second-hand smoke. I've heard just about everything.
One thing I haven't heard, but think ALL THE TIME, is about the offensiveness of the carcass eaters food choices. I hate going to into a restaurant and being immediately attacked by the odor of carcass being baked, fried, sliced, diced, sauteed, boiled and chewed. Should I start trying to get laws passed about the unfairness of this? Why should I be subjected to having my pores being saturated with carcass greases and reminded of what all the carcass eaters will being carrying around in their colons for the next week?
The very idea that I would try to do such a thing would be very unpopular with most people - as most people in this country (and elsewhere) are partakers of animal flesh. I know that it wouldn't get very far and I'd be considered insane and silly.
And so, I just don't frequent places that are overtly focused on carcass-chomping. It's that simple. I don't have to attend Renaissance Festivals where people walk around chewing on turkey limbs, and I don't have to eat a wilted salad at a sizzling-cow buffet. Get over it, you always have the choice to just stay at home, at least then you wouldn't be polluting the air with your car exhaust.

7 comments:

Jessica Krug said...

Hahahahahahaha...We've been having this discussion for about a million years.

Ok, granted, I can chose not to go to a cigar bar, obviously, but I can't chose to not wait at my bus stop, for example. And I when it is raining/snowing/icing/doing any one of the millions of nasty things the weather does here, I like to stand under the actual bus shelter. Which usually means being enveloped in a cloud of second hand smoke. Now, when I am around cigarette smoke, my throat starts hurting and I get headaches, which is annoying and pisses me off, but what really worries me is that I, like my grandfather before me, will end up with lung cancer. The guy never smoked a cigarette in his life, and he died, and died painfully.

I'm the last person in the world to defend meat eaters, particularly since the choice of Americans to eat meat equates to the environmental devastation of much of the rest of the world. It is a question of power, and it is sickening. But at the very least I am unlikely to get cancer if everyone at the bus stop is eating a hamburger.

Blackpetunia said...

In that view point you'd have to logically start banning cars (which I'm sure is not an issue for you), but I don't think most people would agree to that. There are a lot of things that make people sick, that is part of my point. The part about carcass eaters is more from a sense of desperate humor than anything else. I just think it's a silly discussion in a sense because while cigarette smoke is not good for you, there are all kinds of other air pollutants that are just as bad, and a lot of the people that scream about second-hand smoke drive around in their indignant SUVs and that is just fucking too hypocritical for me to stomach. I guess my view is, until they OUTLAW cigarettes and stop selling them then they can't completely make the whole world non-smoking. It's absurd. I'm not one to push my habit on others, and again it comes down to being respectful, which I try to be. I don't smoke in enclosed spaces around people unless I know they are ok with the smoke. I know not everyone is this way. However, if I'm standing out of the way and trying my best to be respectful and you happen to walk into my cloud of smoke when you have 3-10 other options of walking somewhere else and THEN give me shit, well, that's not my fault.

Hannah said...

You are probably more likely to get cancer from the plastics around you than a sometimes encounter with second-hand smoke.

Ever reheat anything in a plastic container in the microwave? Sit in a new car? Use plastic diapers on your kid? Freeze anything in a plastic container? Use baby bottles? Bisphenol, baby, and polyvinyl chloride.

How about lead? The average American woman swallows like 6 pounds of lipstick in a lifetime (one of the Snapple facts). Lipsticks have trace amounts of lead.

What about the hints being made about possible dangers of aluminum? Ever drink out of an aluminum can? Wonder why glass containers always make your drink taste better?

These are just a few we have access to knowing about. Try getting info on what the industries in your area put into your soil and water.

I worry more about what I can't see or smell. Cigarettes give you fair warning. If you choke on their smell, you probably aren't close enough often enough to get any damage from their smoke.

Maybe we should just blame China?

Spoony Quine said...

` Lipstick has lead in it? Jeez! This is one good reason I will never wear it... unless I'm running around on a mountain in high heels and a silly skimpy outfit, freezing my ass off. (Don't ask. BTW, Snapple facts are probably not a very good source of facts.)

` Good post, Amber! Gets me thinking... every time I go to the sushi bar and eat the only kind of carcasses I've decided to eat (preferably those of slimy creatures that don't have brains and are still alive and wriggling), I don't have to suffer second-hand smoke at all - doesn't ruin my palate!
` I can't stand cigarette smoke, actually, growing up my entire childhood with it. But, I also can't stand emissions - and what's really great is that this bar is only a block away, so I never have to drive there!
` But when I do drive places, I can now not pollute as much! Yeeeeah!

locomocos said...

they made me eat pig face the other day.

it is now not just a band

they all sat around and watched me

i went around the corner an threw up. then i cried in a corner.

i choose second hand smoke.

Spoony Quine said...

` Cried in a corner? Sounds terrible. At least they didn't try to get you to eat pig uterus....

vivavavoom said...

you got tagged Amber. I have no idea if you still write in this blog or have another one....but I have a meme tag for you on my page.

hope the holidays are being good to you!