The end of "a Minor Local Celebrity"

Went across the bay to Superior to stop in my favorite bar for a beer in my usual large mug. Looked around -- no ashtrays. I remembered some mention of the laws in Wisconsin eventually following Minnesota in banning smoking in most public places. And after a Google search I find that's what happened on July 5. Anyplace where people might work, any public place, smoking is banned. So as a smoker, I'm a 3rd class citizen.

I originally took on the "Life and Times of a Minor Local Celebrity" subtitle because I'd been singing so much karaoke people actually -recognized- me, people who were otherwise strangers to me. But karaoke happens in bars, and I"m not welcome in bars anymore. I actually continued to go to bars in Wisconsin, even though I live in Minnesota, because I was allowed to be myself there. Now I'm no longer worthy, apparently. Now I'm an evil sinner to be shunned.

I've read a disproportionate fraction of smokers are older people, lower income people, and people of color. I qualify as the first two. Ironically, if the government passed any law attacking those groups as such, they'd get burned at the stake. "But they're smokers! Everybody hates smokers!"

So I guess that's okay then. Enjoy your beer. I'll be going now. Glad drinking your beer without a cigarette makes you happy. It makes me unhappy. Too bad, huh?

No, please keep the preaching to yourself. I'm old, I earned this. You don't want me there, then I"m not there.

New subtitle: "Life and Times of a New Media Celebrity." New Media I can do from my own home, where I can be myself. Never was a very public guy, anyway.

Tax it to death?

Today, it seems the Minnesota Legislature is debating the legalization of marijuana, at least for medical use.  There are a number of arguments on both sides; I'd be leaning toward the side of legalization.

Just now it struck me, though, one option for legalization has been often brought up: legalize hemp, then tax it to death.  "But that would never work!"

Well, wait a minute, though.  We now have actual, experimental data that is, I think, entirely on point.  Essentially all 50 states have tried to do exactly that --  to tobacco.  It's legal to consume.  Sometimes it's hard to tell, but yeah, it's still not a crime to smoke a cigarette.

Is it working to keep tobacco legal, and tax it to death?  Certainly tobacco is heavily regulated.  In more and more places, cigarette smoking is treated like peeing in public; worse, since they provide public bathrooms.  And if you don't think smoking is being "taxed to death," you don't buy cigarettes in Minnesota.

Is it working?  I suspect it's working as well as deregulating any drug would work.  The casual smokers are quitting because it costs too much.  The Smokers with a capital S -- people like me, mostly older people, poorer people, military veterans and people of color -- aren't quitting, and are being steadily crushed into the dirt by the punitive taxes driven by the anti-smoking Aversion Fad.  Hating smokers is fashionable, and any abuse is acceptable, even admired.

If today's treatment of smokers is desirable, then it would be perfectly reasonable to apply the same techniques to marijuana, at least.  There are difficulties; many of the current growers are career criminals who just happen to have chosen marijuana as their specialty.  There'd be a year or two of transition -- I wonder if any of the current MJ growers might be the next Joe Kennedy...

Once it was legalized, the price would drop precipitously, and there'd likely be a boom in backyard growing, for that same couple of years.  Then, likely, some company like Archer-Daniels-Midland ("corn butcher to the world"), or one of the tobacco companies, would corner the mass-growing market, selling the fibers, and perhaps finding a way to produce ethanol from the waste.  As recently as World War II, hemp was a Vital Defense Resource or words to that effect.

And there'd be commercial producers for smoking, and Revenooers going after selling independents for tax money, nothing new there.  The market for automatic weapoons would likely fall off.  Hawaiian sugar cane fields might actually be used for growing sugar cane, of all things.

So, could it work?  Yeah, I think so?  Will anyone have the guts to try?

I doubt it.  Some folks just love Prohibition, the idiots.

NaNaPooPoo, or whatever.

So, I signed up the other day for National Podcast Post Month, or NaPodPoMo. The name threw me, at first -- wondered what "NaPooPooMo" might be. (Need new glasses.)

NaPodPoMo is an idea inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, I think that is. Writers pledge to write X thousand words every day for an entire month. Arguably, one could complete a novel in a month that way. And writers support each other in meeting their goals every day, which is rather hard, like anything else you have to decide to do on your own.

National Podcast Post Month requires a podcaster (like me) to produce at least one podcast every day, for all 31 days in November. On the face of it, this seems like a Good Thing. Podcasting is somewhat related to writing, depending on what you're podcasting. Some of it IS writing, of course.

Now I'm having second thoughts, at least on how to do this right.

Do I do much shorter shows, so I can manage to come up with 31 days of worthwhile (cough, cough) content? The case could be made that my shows are too long anyway, so it'd be an improvement, nu?

Would it count if I did 31 episodes of "Stories from the Hiber-Nation?" That would only require recording and editing; I wouldn't need to actually write that many shows. But that's not doing 31 days of my original "Grizzly's Growls" podcast. That would -definitely- require shorter shows, and at least one IDSL tune for each show.

And do I get to count both "Grizzly's Growls" and "Stories from the Hiber-Nation" shows? I'd think so, but I want to abide by the spirit of NaNaPooPoo, or whatever. (I think NaNoWriMo sounds much better and is easier to say. Am I wrong? I think it should be called NaPodWriMo, because podcasting requires writing, too, I think.)

And considering my next Grizzly's Growls will be show 70, I'd be producing Episode 100 some time during NaPodPoMo. Is that a Good Thing, or a Bad Thing?

Given I normally have no idea what I'm going to talk about on GG, doesn't that necessarily reduce the quality of the shows? Is producing 31 days of Mindless Drivel sufficient to the spirit of the event?

Don't ask me, I ave no idea. Anybody have any thoughts?

ASD and Smoking?

Okay, I guess the whole mercury in vaccines and Autism link is thoroughly
and repeatedly debunked. I'm fine with that, they looked, they didn't
find any evidence, so that ain't it.

I was just listening to "The Naked Scientists" podcast, talking about the
effects of smoking and exposure to smokers pre- and post-natally. Fairly
well proven to increase birth defects and learning disabilities. And, of
course, those of us in the "Autism Epidemic" part of the Baby Boom were
frequently exposed to second-hand smoke as babies, and third-hand smoke as
fetuses. Certainly I was; my Dad, a WWII veteran, was also a very heavy
smoker, a much heavier smoker even than me.

Have there been any significant studies as to causality between tobacco
smoke exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorders? It seems like a likely
suspect, and I'd be surprised if there -aren't- any such studies.

Aversion Fads -- Smokers Are Scum!!!

If you'd missed it, cigarette smokers are scum!

You could ask the Governor of Wisconsin. He's decided recently, that:

Taxes should be increased on cigarettes, essentially doubling cigarette taxes for folks who buy cigarettes in Wisconsin, and

Smokers should be barred from bars and restaurants in Wisconsin -- but not exactly.Waitaminute, what do I mean not exactly, and wassup with the "aversion fad" in the Subect: line?

Well, first of all, a "fad" is a form of mass dementia. An Aversion Fad is a fad to hate a particular group of people or type of behavior. A victom of an Aversion Fad will hate, loathe, despise either people of that type, or people who behave in that particular way -- with no consideration of who they are or what they do otherwise. If one is a victim of an aversion fad toward the use of toothpicks, for example, and Mother Theresa used toothpicks, then Mother Theresa is the embodiment of evil, and must die, or at least suffer the worst punishment the aversionoiac (a word I just created) can accept without actually having to think about it. Aversion fads aren't about thought. They're about getting in line to accept hating whatever one needs to accept hating to get on the bandwagon and be accepted as part of the tribe.

We've seen it before, and the consequences have been uniformly, profoundly and frighteningly ugly.


It gets worse, pretty reliably.


Aversion fads are a common tool of politicians. This has been true at least as long as humans have had language. Get folks to hate a particular group, and if you aren't part of the Evil Group, you are by definition Good ("Either you're for us or against us") and can be completely trusted to speak the truth, even when you're obviously lying.

So, now the Governor of Wisconsin feels that (A) taxes have to be nearly doubled on cigarette smokers, many of whom are WWII war heroes, and (B) those smokers must be denied the freedom to act like smokers in public restaurants and bars.

You can't smoke in restaurants and bars, if the Gubinator prevails. BUT he wants to make sure to double the tax rate on cigarettes as part of the same process. His claim is that he wants to stop people from smoking -- but he's makiing very sure the state of Wisconsin doesn't stop getting the billions of dollars of tax money he gets from cigarette smokers. So even if he stops half the current smokers from smokiing, he still gets to spend the money.

Smokers are smokers, and we aren't going to stop being smokers. If young kids aren't fooled by the government, as I was, into becoming smokers, I'm all for that. But I'm a smoker.

Except now I get to be treated as a second- or third-class citizen, not worthy of eating in a restaurant or drinking in a Wisconsin bar, but I get to pay substantially more in taxes for the privilege.

Oh, HELL no. Trust a politician to find a way to abuse law-abiding (albeit spit-upon) citizens, but still make sure the billiions of dollars we produce still keep rolling in. Uh-huh.

This sucks. You can read this and know it sucks, smoker or non-smoker. You're gonna let Governor Beavis get away with this? Spitting on veterans?

It'd be easy, wouldn't it, though?? Everybody hates smokers, even though most smokers are from the Greatest Generation, right??

NOTE: I: refer to Him as Governor Beavis, because the only alternative would be Governor Butthead, and that would b e insulting. Even though he has insulted the intelligence of everyone who pays taxes in this state, calling him Governor Butthead would be an insult to the office, which deserves better treatment from me. And from him, for that matter.


And not all smokers are from the Greatest Generation. Not all are veterans, either -- though I started smoking seriously in basic training, and I am a peacetime veteran. And nobody ought to be treated like pond scum for becoming addicted to a substance that was promoted for a century and a half at least by most governments. (There are more smokers in China than people in the US.) My addictive behavior may be stupid. But I damn well earned it. If Governor Beavis wants to tell me I'm not worthy to be treated as a legitimate citizen and (heavily) tax paying citizen, he needs to do me and my fellow veterans the courtesy of saying so to our faces, rather than kicking us to the curb and dropping a doubled tax bill in the gutter -- where he assumes we live.

I'm going to skip the part where I start cursing vehemently. For the moment.