Ban means shot at coolness goes up in smoke for nerds, geeks, and social rejects.
Clyde Ferndexter sits alone in a State College bar as other better-dressed, better-looking and better-named Penn State students gyrate to music and the internal rhythms of profound intoxication and other forms of over-indulgences.
Normally, Ferndexter would light up a Marlboro and be instantly welcomed into the in-crowd, but not anymore. Ferndexter is another victim of Pennsylvania’s smoking ban. The Clean Indoor Air and Non-Hip Identification Act prohibits smoking in most public places, including the boy’s room.
“It’s almost impossible to fake coolness now without the cigarette as a prop,” said Ferndexter. “I tried a toothpick, but was laughed at and someone swatted it out of my mouth. I was ashamed.”
According to the Surgeon General, smoking has been known to cause second-hand coolness. The condition gives an air of rebelliousness and savvy to non-rebelling teens and college-age kids.
Professor Arnold Mumutz, of Penn State’s Tobacco and Grease Institute, said the rejection of the non-cool may have serious implications on health issues in America, including the country’s birth rate.
“I mean, you take a guy like Ferndexter, here, without cigarettes and a good deal of alcohol on his would-be female partners part, he has only the slimmest chance of reproducing,” Mumutz said. “Very slim indeed.”
Melanie Glock, a cool girl, said the banning has helped her more efficiently identify and dispatch non-cool guys from her circle.
“I, at one point, wanted to date Ferny,” Glock said. “Then I gotta look at him outside of his non-menthols. Not so much, now.”
In other headlines…
Johnstown shack market bucks bad housing market trend.
Penn State football team gears up for match-up against Altoona Beauty School.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Big Jimmie Beaver // Sep 15, 2008 at 10:39 am
The non-smoking law is the best law that PA has ever passed. Noting ticked me off more than going out to a bar and getting killed by second hand smoke.
Now if we can just ban NASCAR and the Speed channel in bars we’d be rid of being killed of boredom.
2 Pacowithtaco // Sep 15, 2008 at 11:58 am
Noted
3 Ken Hill // Sep 16, 2008 at 5:35 am
My letter relates to all form of anti-smoking laws, on an almost world-wide basis.
*An open letter that was emailed to all Ontario MPP’s in early May, 2008. No replies!
Betrayal, Anti-Smoking Message is Like Fascism that Preys Upon Our Children
We must not look within ourselves. We may discover what we are becoming!
Moral judgement is the mirror, mirror, on the wall image, always lurking in our mind, like an alter-conscience, prepared to reveal the frightening truth, in our soul, such as the undeserved vengefulness, at any cost, wielded against smokers. Even betrayal, of the next generation, becomes palatable within self-betrayal.
This remorseless mental/emotional preying upon, our precious children, recklessly poisons their mind and spirit, under the government’s pernicious slogan “health and safety.”
By supporting anti-smoking, we endorse and promote Fascism, an historically proven scurvy upon humanity!
The inevitable shame, of our past actions, can still be averted, by rescinding this government agenda!
The most”dangerous smoke” comes not from cigarettes, instead from the government smoke screen to obscure from view, that the real issue is Capitalism and science versus Fascism and politicized environmentalism, not ‘health and safety.’
Science and politicized environmentalism are colliding worlds, science being the height of pursuing truth, politicized environmentalism the depth of distorting truth. Anti-smoking is part of politicized environmentalism and the attempted foundation of Fascism!
Do we therefore side with Capitalism, science, Second World War troops and our allies– honour; or do we side with Fascism, politicized environmentalism, our enemies of the Second World War– disgrace? Thus far we blindly follow our enemies and disgrace!
From the mouth of Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace, “It doesn’t matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true…..You are what the media define you to be. Greenpeace became a myth and a myth-generating machine.” We deserve truth, not half-truths and propaganda!
For any high ranking government official that lack this critical knowledge, they are in their office under false pretenses. They are unprepared to govern. Their present course of anti-smoking legislations is the proof of that statement.
In the words of Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, “I was acutely conscious of the pressure to ‘adapt’ and to absorb the values of the ‘tribe’—family, community and culture. It seemed to me that what was asked was the surrender of my judgement and also my conviction that my life and what I made of it was of the highest possible value. I saw my contemporaries surrendering and losing their fire. Why was growing up equated with giving up?”
Philosopher/Novelist Ayn Rand wrote, “If some demagogue were to offer us, as a guiding creed, the following tenets: that statistics should be substituted for truth, vote-counting for principles, numbers for rights, and public polls for morality–that pragmatic, range-of-the-moment expediency should be the criterion of a country’s interests, and that the number of its adherents should be the criterion of an idea’s truth or falsehood–that any desire of any nature whatsoever should be accepted as a valid claim, provided it is held by a sufficient number of people–that a majority may do anything it pleases to a minority–in short, gang rule and mob rule–if a demagogue were to offer it, he would not get very far. Yet all of it is contained in–and camouflaged by–the notion of ‘Government by Consensus.”
‘Rule by Consensus,’ (Rule by health care pressure group) is todays’ anti-ideology in government. Appeasement of these power-lusting, health care pressure groups is of higher priority than our children and all other tax payers, voters, and citizens. The permeating emotion from ‘Rule by Consensus’ is demoralizing, debilitating fear instead of an optimistic view of the future.
Note this recent example, Premier Dalton McGuinty said he wouldn’t entertain a ban (smoking in cars with children) because it amounts to “too much intrusion into people’s private lives.” The logical interpretation of this statement is that the entire anti-smoking movement eliminates smoker’s individual rights, and has always been an intrusion into a smoker’s family dynamic. Now, the Ontario government is prepared, in predictable flip-flop fashion, to enact such a ban.
In ignobility, many people have misaligned themself with politicized environmentalism, despite the fact that 1930’s, 1940’s, Germany used “politicized ecology and public health” to base its rationalizations. Are we predisposed to mistakenly mirror the historic footsteps of self-loathing mass destruction? No! Everyone has an individual mind and conscience, above party politics. Be true to them, follow your courage (truth) and dethrone your fear (fallacy). Rescind this government’s shameful anti-smoking agenda.
References:
Paul Watson - Environmental Overkill, (Whatever happened to common sense) - book
Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem - book
Ayn Rand - Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal - book
4 AirCav101 // Sep 16, 2008 at 6:03 am
Man I could go for a cigarette after that.
5 Big Jimmie Beaver // Sep 16, 2008 at 11:56 am
What!
Ken you gotta remember we’re from Central Pennsylvania and the books we read usually have to do with shooting deer or fishing for largemouth bass my friend.
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