[Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Hugh Gigante
hgigante at optonline.net
Sun Jan 6 15:23:03 CST 2008
Reverse your statements, Fred:
Why can't the non-smoker go outside and not smoke?
What can't non-smokers start smoking (remember, both smoking and not smoking are equal states under the law)?
Why should you (a non smoker) impose your preception of right and wrong on me? Can I do the same (I hate chinese food . . . lets ban it)?
Hugh
----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Atkinson
To: Mishmash
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 8:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Why can't the smoker go outside if he has to smoke?
We had a smoke free office at SkyTel when I was there. There was a smoking area on the top floor of the building where all of the smokers used to congregate.
The only time that offended me (in spite of them being upstairs in the smoking area) was when I had to go through that area to gain access to the paging equipment in the building (there was a door that accessed that room in that smoking area).
Better yet, why can't they stop smoking, improve their own health and possibly prolong their own life, and join the unhooked generation?
Regards,
Fred
----- Original Message -----
From: Hugh Gigante
To: Mishmash
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 6:06 AM
Subject: Re: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Dick;
Why can't the non-smoker quit? Why should the smoker have to do so? Why can't the employer be the one to set the conditions in his own private workplace?
Hugh
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Barth
To: Mishmash
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Hugh,
The idea of an employer setting his own rules is fine but has limits. Employers can do a lot
of things, but there are certain things not left to his discretion. Hazardous working conditions
are included. It might be cheaper or easier to hazard your staff's health, but you don't
always have that option. At this point, here is no question that smoking is a danger not only
to the smoker but to anyone exposed to the stuff blowing around the room. While a non-smoker may
have the option of avoiding certain restaurants and bars, he can't simply quit a job because the guy in the next cube is nicotine-addicted and too pigheaded to cooperate when his smoking makes other people sick.
Count me with Fred on this one.
I would think that, with your son's problems, you would be more realistic about the need to protect
people with health issues.
Dick
At 05:42 AM 1/3/2008, you wrote:
No irony, Fred. While I understand and see your point about the effect smoke had on you, I see it as one of courtesy and your employer setting his own rules for his work space, not an issue of law.
Look, I have a son who goes into asthmatic siezures if he even gets near someone wearing perfume. Same rule sshould apply there as well if you view government as social engineers.
Hugh
----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Atkinson
To: Mishmash
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 8:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Hugh,
I'm a little unsure of where you stand on this issue. Sometimes I read sarcasm and sometimes I read seriousness in your message.
For myself, I'm very grateful that they are enabling the non-smokers to prevent themselves from being smothered by smokers.
Back in the eighties, I was hospitalized for a fist sized bacterial abcess in my right lung. The doctor told me that if I hadn't been treated within thirty days of when they found it, I wouldn't have had a prayer of survival.
So I laid in the hospital for two weeks hooked up to intravenous antibiotics. When the doctor released me from the hospital, I went home and he wouldn't let me return to work for two more weeks. Even so, it took about six to eight months of oral antibiotics to get rid of the rest of it (the intravenous antibiotics had merely killed the bacteria so it wouldn't grow any more).
When I returned to the office, I had a smoker (who knew what I had been hospitalized for) sit down directly behind me and proceed to light a cigarette.
The policy in the building we were working in was that you had the absolute right to designate your work area as a non-smoking zone. And everyone was required to respect that zone if you did.
I told him to either put the cigarette out or situate himself somewhere that the smoke did not get into my area.
He told me that he had every right to smoke and that my doctor shouldn't have allowed me to return to work if I wasn't supposed to tolerate it.
I set him straight on that. He got up and went storming out of the office. He really had a chip on his shoulder after that. But I have no regrets in exercising my right not to be offended by cigarette smoke. Even to this day, I don't allow people to smoke around me.
I'm in favor of a total ban on cigarette smoking in public and public buildings. I think it would go a long way towards reaching a non-smoking generation [someday].
Regards,
Fred
----- Original Message -----
From: Hugh Gigante
To: Mishmash
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Here's my take on smoking laws.
Smoking is not illegal. It probably is not any worse for health than someone wearing perfume (you should only know what is in that crap.
So, given that it is legal and smokers are part of the public (and therefor own public spaces just like everyone else) why do we allow their rights to be discriminated against?
Laws effecting private spaces are worse. Why do we allow fools to impose rules on, say a restaurant? That is, after all, a private place nobody is forced to enter. If a restaurant owner wants to allow smoking and people don't like it, they simply won't patronize the place . . . just like if he serves bad food. But it is the owners right to decide how to run his establishment, not some putz who got himself elected.
I have a private company with less that 50 employees, which puts me under the radar for the social gestapo. Outside the rear door is a very neat sign.
It says "Employee non smoking area". Anyone who works for me knows they can step outside any time they want and not smoke.
BTW I got the idea from the pastor of my church.
Hugh
----- Original Message -----
From: Robyne Kerr
To: Mishmash
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 7:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
I think we have far too many laws and most are about making money than saving lives. We have had the smoking laws in Tasmania for years and now it is just part of life. The latest one is that you can't smoke in your own car if children are in it. They are gradually making public space a not smoke zone. I don't smoke but I don't agree with these kind of laws.
I have smoking friends so I go to the smoking areas with them, every pub has an area set aside outside but that would be hard in the snow. The smoking laws here are just getting stronger each year.
Robyne
well, since i was already old in 2007 - i don't really feel any older today. i went to my daughter's annual new years eve party last nite. not as many there as usually because it started snowing and blowing around here in the afternoon and the roads were pretty bad. (we live a in a very small rural town remember - no one cleans the streets and roads unles we get 6 or more inches it seems - and the country roads are the worst). we played a game called catch phrase until people started to leave before midnite afraid they wouldn't get home at all. then we played a game called scene it - about movies. i was very bad at that one.
this morning my friends called to see if i were going to go for coffee and i still had my jammies on - i told them to come over here and watch the parade with me so i had a house full of old women all morning. i intend not to leave my house today.
illinois just implemented a law today to have no smoking in all bars, restaurants, private clubs even and smokers have to be 15 feet from a door outside. you know, i have been socially unacceptable with my smoking and so have most of my friends. we have coffee every morning to check up on each other as we all live alone. if someone isn't there and we didn't know ahead of time it is time to start calling them. we're really upset about this law but will try it for awhile - if we decide coffee isn't fun anymore we will all congregate at my house. my non-smoking friends are as unhappy about the law as my smoking friends. i often wondered how the nazi's were able to just round up all the jews and they all got on the trains and filed into the showers. i'm beginning to see more and more how that could have happened - we just blindly do whatever our legislators deem right for all of us and most of them are a bunch of hired blowhards. they even want the citizenry to report on people disobeying this law. now, didn't the nazi's implement that tattling on your neighbor plan? ok - i've vented. happy new year you guys.
carole
-------Original Message-------
From: GALEHALLOCK at aol.com
Date: 1/1/2008 10:20:15 AM
To: mishmash at mishmash.net
Subject: [Mishmash] Can it really be?????
Happy New Years dear friends. Can it really be 2008?????
That makes me.........ahhhhhh........uhmmmmmmm........errrrrrrr............
quite old!!!!
Gale
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Richard Barth *** W3HWN(at)ARRL.NET *** Silver Spring, MD
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