The actress, her child, and a wisp of smoke
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 The Daily Mirror has asked me to comment on a "story" that a well-known actress has been photographed smoking outside a pub (I think it was a pub, it was certainly outside) with her child in close proximity. A wisp of smoke was caught drifting into the child's airspace and, well, you can guess the rest.
The Mirror asked me for 250 words so I gave them 254 which I will share with you in the morning. ASH have been asked to comment too.
Simon Clark
You can read my response in the Mirror HERE. Having asked for 250 words (which they told me would be edited to 200), the paper used ... 105. Interestingly, they changed the phrase "err on the side of courtesy" (an expression I first heard on Taking Liberties courtesy Rose Whiteley) to "err of the side of caution". It's obviously not a phrase they've come across before. We'll just have to keep repeating it until people get it.
Reader Comments (55)
"It is also heartening to see that the usual whingers (Oh! My asthma!) receive short shrift (the net votes being ‘disapprove’), as also do the ‘smoking should be banned everywhere’ crowd and the ‘no such thing as a safe level of exposure to second hand smoke’ gang, and the ‘your right to smoke ends at my nose’ lot."
I've noticed this encouraging tendency for some time. Go to any Daily Mail smoking story and click on the Worst Rated comments tab, and you can guarantee that five intolerant and spiteful antismoking comments will appear, each with its own red arrow and a number running into the hundreds.
It's the same story on the Guardian website. Admittedly you can only recommend comments, rather than being able to vote them down, but you'll see that every antismoker comment (from the likes of the blatantly idiotic Lucy Q) has only a sad little handful of recommendations from fellow nutcases, while tolerant and pro-choice ones have high numbers against them.
There are some people in the pro-choice movement who think that all this internet activity is a waste of time and that people should be out on the street doing something, but the situation on these news websites tells me a different story. People are coming round, progress is being made, and sooner or later things are going to change.
Yes, I've noticed the same thing. Another tactic they use is to post multiple times. It may look like a minority are antis, but in reality it's far worse than that - what may be 40 anti comments on a piece may actually only be written by a dozen people. Look out for this tactic.
What needs to be done is that "antismoking" needs to be" denormalised".
I mentioned on the Freedom site the other day that most non-smokers don't give a damn about smoke. Cue some foaming at the mouth anti-nutter who said, "What rot! Non-smokers hate it! Rant, rant, rant."
A simple, "No, YOU hate it. The fact that 25% of the population smoke and this anti-ban thread has 70% support shows that for every smoker voting for repeal there are two non-smokers joining them, It is in fact YOU who are the minority" soon ended the argument.
You see, they love the "rule by mob" definition of democracy. Reminding them that even after a decade of state-sponsored brainwashing, and weeks of ASH drones undoubtedly opening multiple accoutns to vote on the thing, they are still just the tiny number of whining bigots that they were twenty years ago, REALLY winds them up.
As Junican says, don't be disheartened by the number of anti comments - they only make an impact because they are the same small group posting multiple times. Look at the arrows of support/non-support. And look at the antis (posting for the ninth or tenth time) whining about how many smokers there must be in the Mail readership or how they can't believe everyone disagrees with them. Heartening.
It's a shame these small-minded idiots don't realise the whole thing is beyond the smell of smoke, hence their assumption that every comment is from a smoker. Their tiny brains can't comprehend people disagree with them because the science is wrong, that people disagree with the ban because of the mockery it makes of the law, the way it infringes on civil liberties or private property rights.
That said, even without these additional factors, in my experience the vast majority of non-smokers don't give a damn about smoke anyway. I'm the only smoker in my group and in 20 years of pubgoing I've only heard them complain about smoke twice, both in tiny, low-ceilinged pubs with no ventilation or open windows. And even then, they all stayed there for 5 hours and it certainly wasn't on my account as I am only one of a dozen and we have moved on from pubs they didn't like for other reasons before now (like having bad music) which I was quite keen on staying in.
Adults have a high degree of protection from second-hand smoke since the public ban - and they have a moral duty to give children the same.
Adults never needed protection from SHS, and don't need it now. Children don't need protection either.
We strongly recommend parents do not light up in front of youngsters.
Recommend all you like.
Breathing in other people's smoke is not just unpleasant but can cause serious harm for children including bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma.
Tobacco smoke smells great. And it does mo harm to children. Most certainly it doesn't cause either bronchitis, pneumonia or asthma.
Tobacco contains over 4,000 chemicals and around 60 that are known to cause cancer.
The roast chicken I ate earlier contained well over 4000 "chemicals" too. And well over 60 of them "cause cancer.
Children who grow up in a household of smokers are also more likely to become smokers themselves.
So what? Children who grow up in a household of Methodists are very likely to become Methodists.
Everything these people say is either a lie or a smear.
"Children who grow up in a household of Methodists are very likely to become Methodists" via idlex - hahahaha very good