Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Judge Ye Not

I have no particular opinion on today's decision in the Disney lawsuit involving Mike Ovitz's severance pay. But if you'd like to read the judge's decision, here it is. It's a PDF file, meaning you'll need some kind of Adobe software like their Reader.

• Posted at 6:24 PM · LINK

Smokin' Hot Topic

Folks are sending me messages about smoking and about smoking among their friends and relatives. I can't run them all but I thought some of you might enjoy this one from my pal Shelly Goldstein, a fine writer and performer. I met her mother a few times and Shelly is right: Her female parent was an amazing lady.

For all it may be worth, I went through a bit of an emotional breakthrough yesterday.

Watching all of the Jennings-related news was sad because he seemed like a genuinely good guy, was assuredly a superb newsman (something we as a society can ill-afford to lose) and, most of all, because my Mother died of lung cancer.

She was diagnosed in 1983. She died in 2003. She lost her left lung in 1983 and was remarkably healthy until a new tumor was found on her remaining lung in late 2002. As she only had one lung left, surgery wasn't an option. They treated it with chemo, but it had metastisized and...well, that's the ball game.

I heard repeatedly yesterday that survival statistics for lung cancer victims are unbelievably low...Something like 85% of patients die within 5 years (the prognosis my Mother was given in 1984) and 90% die in 10 years.

That my Mother lived 19-1/2 years in not perfect, but remarkably good health put her in the absolute highest percentile of survivors. I always knew my Mother was remarkable — now I have medical stats to prove it.

This was a woman who began smoking — thanks to Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and other glam stars of the golden era — when she was 13. She smoked for just over 50 years. When I was growing up, she smoked something like 5 packs a day. She was always smoking. I adored my Mother and it drove me crazy as a child — especially when driving in the car during sub-sub zero Chicago winters with the windows closed. I have never smoked and, speaking as a very tolerant person, smoking drives me insane. I can't stand it. I can't even type the word of those things people smoke.

Remarkably, soon after my Father died in 1977 (a light smoker who had quit years before and died from a different cancer, melanoma) she quit. Just stopped. No patches, no programs, no hypnosis...just stopped one day. I'm not even sure why.

She told me once that not a day went by that she didn't miss smoking. But she never smoked again. Not even once. This was an amazing woman.

I do not wish anyone to live through experiencing, as a caretaker, the death of a loved one to lung cancer. I can't imagine the pain of actually having to live (and die) with the disease.

Of course we all do stupid things, thinking we can cheat death, or at least hold him off — even if it's "just this once." That's why people drink to excess, that's why people go for the fried foods over the veggies, that why people do drugs, that's why people smoke. The immediate gratification of the unhealthy high is addictive. And whereas the administrative aspect of society tells us, "these things bad!", the real influences (commercials, movies, etc.) tell us, "these things good". It's high school all over again and we know that everyone listens to the popular kids, not the principal.

That's why I find it darkly amusing that smoking has literally brought us all back to high school. Just like back in the day, all the smokers still huddle in doorways outside, while the rest of us are inside in Algebra.

And I am aware that tobacco companies have made their product the most addictive substance on the planet, or at least one of the top three.

Which brings up one of the many lies we, as a society, live. We say we care about our citizens. We say we care about health. There is not many a politician with a breath in his/her body — even if it's hooked up to a respiratory machine — who would dare take on the tobacco lobby and their money.

Profit matters much more than the health of our citizens.

That why there are Coke machines in every junior high in the land.

The societal health costs of smoking are staggering — we ALL pay for smoking-related death. But so what? It's a free country...It's just the smoking that isn't free.

We have come to worship profit in this country. We are a country of divergent religious views (thank God!!) but rather than worry about whether it's appropriate to print, "In God We Trust" on our money...Perhaps we should really be true to ourselves and print, "In Dollars We Trust" on our bibles.

But I digress. This began with my astoshiment yesterday that my glorious, wonderful, funny, remarkable, beautiful Mother had been so blessed by beating the odds of her disease for much longer than she might have. And it ended with my infinite gratitude as having lived a life so blessed by her company for so many years.

Will all this press on Jennings death inspire smokers to quit? Maybe. For a couple of days, at least. I hope so.

It angers me that people smoke. But it angers me more that we still parrot things like, "Just say no" to bad and unhealthy behaviors when it is clear that the profit they make — with a healthy cut to political coffers — is the ultimate word.

Crazy me. I care more about the needs of the coughers than the coffers.

• Posted at 5:36 PM · LINK

Lighting Up

I haven't seen anyone post the video of Keith Olbermann's anti-smoking sermon online yet but MSNBC has the written transcript of the entire hour here. The segment which I found so interesting was at the end, and I've taken the liberty of posting it on this site since it will soon disappear from the MSNBC site. You can read it here, and while the written word will not be as effective as hearing and watching Mr. Olbermann deliver it, you can at least absorb the message.

Several people have written me to address my stated view that people have a right to kill themselves, even with cigarettes, if they so choose. Here's one from Ruben Arellano...

I have to disagree when you state a smoker can "decide it's an acceptable trade-off of pleasure versus death and doctor bills, that's their choice". I think the terms "pleasure" and "choice" are misleading here. I can't see that there is any pleasure in smoking, and the choice is mostly removed with the intense addiction that drives most people to continue their "habit." When I see people struggling to light their smokes up in a stinking back alley in the dead of winter, in the rain, I really can't see that is their little pleasure time.

It's just easy for people to do the easy thing, that is continue what their addiction drives them to do. Not many people have the wherewithall to make major life changes like that, never mind one that is driven by chemical addiction.

I would go so far as to say it should be entirely illegal for companies to sell tobacco, as they are basically poisoning society for no good benefit except financial gain. I can't think of any other industry that is allowed to do that in such an obvious way. But big tobacco is too much a part of our economies to let that happen.

(sorry, didn't mean for that to turn into a soapbox rant).

To stay on topic about your posting, I think it is fantastic that Olbermann stated what he did, and I find it appalling that more public figures don't do the same.

I'm not the best person to argue that smoking gives some people pleasure. As I said, I've never smoked. It never looked to me like anything that could possibly be pleasant. But other human beings do a lot of things I could say that about. They have parts of their bodies pierced. They ride roller coasters. They bungee-jump. Some people even — and I know this is hard to believe but it's apparently true — pay good money to see The Dukes of Hazzard.

I agree with you that people shouldn't smoke, but I think there's a limit as to how far government should go to protect them from doing what we think they shouldn't do. As inconceivable as it may be to some of us, there are people who enjoy smoking...people who, if you tell them it may shave X years off their lives, will decide that's an acceptable risk. I don't think they should be allowed to do this in a room where their smoke will affect me. I don't think my health costs should go up because of their choice. But I do think they own their bodies and have the right to pollute them. I hope they don't, and I do what I can to dissuade friends from electing that option, but I think it's ultimately an individual choice. I will say that when I encounter a real-life example, such as the one provided us by Mr. Olbermann, I feel less militant about that position. You may yet get me over to your side on this one.

• Posted at 8:45 AM · LINK