gotta light?

when did politicians first put down their law books and don nanny aprons? because they're at it again.

the complaint of ONE british viewer is causing a complete redrawing of cartoon history. from now on the bbc children's channel will show all episodes of touchstones like "the flinstones", "tom and jerry" and "scooby-doo" censored of smoking. unless, of course, it's a bad guy. even though smoking remains legal, and clearly was quite common during the periods in which these classics were produced (can't you still see *him*, lucky strike dangling from his lips, hands stained with india ink, scribbling over the story-board late into the night?) our children must be protected! nefarious mice and perniciously persuasive stone-agers cannot be allowed to lead our kids down the path of certain cancerous doom. heaven forbid, parents actually be allowed to provide context. where's the guy objecting to tom's tongue stuck in the mouse trap? violence! cruelty to animals!! it's august, so he must be vacationing.

my parents all smoked. relatives, neighbors, friends' parents, workmen, etc. all lit up, all the time. even though she knows how horrible it is, my mother still loves to smoke. as a kid the smell made me grimace, and i hated having to kiss goodnight anybody who'd just exhaled. yuk.

but still, i gave it a go. not because the road runner could blow up wile e. coyote with a cigar and a cherry bomb from across route 66. not because of the languor and longing in black-and-white hayes' code flicks, but because everybody i saw in real-life fucking loved it. they finished dinner, sat back, and that first inhale looked like orgasm. before i even knew what climax was, i saw first-hand how utterly enjoyable those tareytons and parliaments were.

i finally quit because i couldn't stand the smell of my hair, lol.

closer to home, apparently marshmallow fluff is ruining our childrens' brilliant futures. sure. cornstarch, sugar and peanut butter will be what stops junior from solving cold fusion, and definitely halt world peace.

stay off my plate, out of my medicine cabinet and far away from my bedroom. don't mess with my tivo.

please concern yourselves with the issues of macro-governing. pesky matters like the "the war on terror", healthcare and our crumbling infrastructure... anybody visited our new 3rd-world nation of new orleans lately? how about the terrifying, multi-fused powderkeg of the middle-east? our swan-dive of international influence? hello?

from here, let's please hear it for the notion of personal responsibility, shall we? you can smoke on my deck, if you like...