BCT Editorial – 6/19/08

This page was last updated on June 29, 2008.

Blowing smoke; Editorial; Beaver County Times; June 19, 2008.

This is at least the 40^th anti-smoking on private property editorial since March 2005, and the 15^th this year alone. There have been so many the Times is recycling editorial titles. The previous 39 editorials were “Momentum,” “Banned in Beaver,” “Get used to it,” “Trendy #1,” “Trendy #2,” “Straggling behind,” “Salutes & Boots,” “Smoked out #1,” “Smoked out #2,” “Smoked out #3,” “Smoke free,” “Survey says smoking ban popular,” “Inertia,” “Doing harm,” “Smokey state,” “Quit stalling,” “Snuffed out,” “Cleaning the air,” “Keeping up,” “Smoking ban,” “Life and death,” “Poor excuses,” “Banned,” “Smoky City,” “No more delays,” “Haunting fear,” “Sad state,” “Fear factor,” “Pay up,” “Banned in Bristol,” “Escape artists,” “Lapped,” “The right thing,” “No joke,” “Different drummer” and “Classic politics,” “No joke,” “Starting point,” and “No big deal.”

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were writing an editorial to convince readers to agree with my position, I wouldn’t use “Trendy” as the title. To me, it conveys messages of smoke (no pun intended) blowing in the wind and/or being a slave to fashionable positions. Also, note how these editorials frequently engage in name-calling.

Though “Snuffed out” conceded the Times is calling for a smoking ban in private spaces (bars, clubs, restaurants, etc.), the Times reverted to form in “Cleaning the air” and is back to referring to private property as “public spaces.”

The editorial says, “… some smokers direly warned that Big Brother government would turn its attention to fast-food next. Fat chance of that happening.” Oh yeah? In the third paragraph of “A food fight over calorie counts” (BusinessWeek; Feb 11, 2008; p. 036) we read, “… and in Los Angeles there has even been a discussion of ‘food zoning’ – barring new fast-food eateries from high-obesity neighborhoods.”

The editorial proceeds with “… their decision does not have any impact on you or your family.” Can we afford to make that assumption when it comes to the health of children and the elderly? The mere site/smell of a cheeseburger on the next table may induce someone to buy a burger, fries, and a sugary Coke instead of a nice salad with a glass of water. And what about kids? Without a ban or high taxes on “unhealthy” food, how can we protect the children? Since we’re told we can’t trust parents not to take their kids into private properties that allow smoking, how can we trust them to feed their kids only “healthy” food? The arguments we’ll hear supporting “unhealthy” food bans are completely predictable.

Finally, consider the editorial “Silence, please.” In that editorial, the Times lobbied for banning cell phone use on airplanes not for any flight safety or technical concerns, but because the editorial author found the practice annoying. The editorial concluded with, “Let’s no [sic] take any chance. Turn the FCC ban into law as soon as possible.”