Many of the great minds in human history had weaknesses that could be called bodily abuse. In this century alone we have seen Hemingway blow his own brains out after decades of indulgence, Jack Kerouac drank himself to death, Charlie Parker died from heroin, FDR and Churchill (sp) both smoked cigars. Somebody, probably a lot of them, have said they'd rather go to hell than to heaven because the people would be so much more interesting. If you've seen smokers throw their butts on the ground, do you get to generalize and decide that they all do it, even if only when no one is looking? Is this different from any other kind of generalizing? I have no argument about the legitimate health concerns that people have expressed here. No one should impose smoke or anything else on another, unwilling or unwise person. But I guess it's just a leftover from my youth, when I learned to question all authority and that one orthodoxy is about the same as another. I've attended and played at dances where if you had a beer or a cigarette or a hamburger you had better damn well go and hide yourself when you do it, and I couldn't help comparing this with the historical description of folk dances, which were basically parties where people drank, chewed, and whatever. In Irish Ceilis and Bothys of days gone by, do you think they meditated silently with Enya humming across a room with air as clear as bottled spring water? Today we want everything sanitized, and we pick and choose the parts that we can put up with in out daily lives and our neat homes and apartments. A Commanche blanket looks great on the wall, but how many are even interested in the kind of nature-centered culture that made them, let alone be willing to practice such? A large group of left-wing political types here in the seventies, of which I was a member, decided (not including me) that they were Sufis. The extent of it was that they had circles and group hugs that ended in "Ommm".

I'm not telling anyone to drink or smoke or to endanger their own health by hanging around smoky rooms. I have just so often seen this as more of a judgement of character than a health issue, and that is foolish and wrong. Will we now ban Hemingway for not being a good role model? I suspect so, if he and his work are not just forgotten altogether, as they are in today's literature classes.

Sometimes we give our culture away because it doesn't quite smell right. Sorry if I made anyone mad or uncomfortable.

Chet