Lies, More Lies & A Small Touch of Sanity
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Kevin Godbee - Jul 3, 2011
- 4 min read
By C.R.S. Lyles
Dear Readers,
I write to you from the road as I flee the oppressive atmosphere of a campus run rampant with anti-smoking campaigns and rules targeted to ostracize those brave enough to light up at the University of Florida.
My destination?
Vegas.
Long known for its "anything goes", "whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" attitude, it is more the entire state of Nevada that I am interested in relocating to. Adverse to the ham-handed legislature of its neighbor Arizona (which has caused quite a media riot over the last several months), Nevada has actually managed to pass a rather controversial piece of legislature without inciting the fury of the masses.
Just a few weeks ago, Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law a bill which grants taverns and standalone bars "the right to permit both smoking and food service."
It’s really kind of sad that I find this so exciting and worthy of a completely random move, but I am a smoker, after all, and moreover a smoker who lives in a country who bombards every free sense I have with anti-tobacco commercials and advertisements.
For Christ’s sake, they’ve just passed another bullshit piece of legislature which makes all cigarette packages come with the "new and improved" Surgeon General’s warning, a heart-warming collection of images which include a limp cigarette (as an allusion to effect on male virility), a bald woman graphically dying beside the words "Smoking causes cancer", and an image of a diseased set of vocal cords, all of which are featured prominently on the front or back of the package instead of on the side.
And the kicker? They call this a "historic initiative."
There is some hope, though, in the knowledge that the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act has officially been slapped in the face by Assembly Bill 571. Now, if only two similar proposals could get into a death-match in my most recent city of Gainesville, I might have considered living there longer.
I wish I could have informed them of some of the recent rumblings I’ve heard from the rebellious smoker’s underground. I wish they could see some of the information and evidence that I’ve been waving in their faces since last summer, but they all refuse to listen to logic or reason.
Besides, I’ve got far too many smoking citations on campus to really risk getting too radical.
But I do want you to at least know this information for the next time you have to defend yourself against some snoopy, mollycoddling nanny, so here it is.
C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General from 1982 to 1989, said this after his infamous statement that second-hand smoking was responsible for 2,000 deaths in the United States: while he may have pulled the figure out of a hat, it was all in a good cause. The principle was right.
The principle was right?!?!
Only that it wasn’t.
A 1987 study by the American National Academy of Sciences found noevidence that second-hand smoke jeopardizes the health of non-smokers.
Checkmate?
Never.
"In 1993, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) went one better than Koop. They took the official position that second-hand cigarette smoke is a health hazard, responsible for 3,000 lung cancer deaths in the U.S."
Only that it wasn’t.
Just a few years later, questions about the legitimacy of the statement began to emerge, and by 1998 Federal District Judge William Osteen ruled that "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun. The EPA disregarded information and made findings on selective information."
But wait, isn’t second-hand smoke still considered one of the major causes of death in U.S. every year?
My little plan about getting out to where the gettin’s still good is starting to look mighty attractive now, isn’t it?
And for those of you who smoke cigars or pipes, yeah you might get dragged down into the mud with the more disreputable cigarette smokers, but at least you’ll have your health.
"A U.S. Surgeon General report ‘Smoking and Health’ noted ‘Pipe smokers who inhale live as long as nonsmokers and pipe smokers that don’t inhale live longer than non-smokers." And even though it’s only about three years longer, at least you can have the last laugh.
So I guess this is about the point where I should get off my butt from the little rest stop I’ve stationed myself at to write this to you. I hear Vegas calling my name, and as Robert Frost once said, "I’ve miles to go before I sleep."
Yep, all I’ve got to do is just hop in my car, turn the key in the ignition, put on some tunes and then crank it up….
Crap. Out of gas.
There’s a sign in the distance for a Chevron hosting Regular Unleaded for $3.97.
I’ll get into my thoughts about the gas issues we’ve been having later.
Cheers,
C. R. S. Lyles
Carter R. Lyles is a student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL and at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is a journalism/psychology major, and in addition to his work at Pipes Magazine, he has contributed articles to The Alligator, Thursday Night Magazine, and The Fine Print. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. 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A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Thank you for giving voice to our collectively vented rage again, Carter.
Thanks, Carter, for once again demonstrating that there are indeed intelligent and articulate souls among the smoking community. I must join you in mourning the sanity and integrity of my alma mater which has also chosen to become completely smoke free. ( It’s somewhat more north of your UF )
Hi, Carter:
Great article, as usual. I live in Las Vegas, and always thought the ban on smoking in bars that serve food was idiotic. In fact, off the Las Vegas Strip, the law was widely ignored, and the state of Nevada didn’t try very hard to enforce it either. Gov. Sandoval was just acknowledging reality by getting rid of that stupid law. Also, the bars were suffering economically, because the fact is, people like to smoke, drink, eat and gamble here.
However, I must add that even in Las Vegas, there is an element of prudish pleasure haters. One of the casinos off the Strip, Tuscany, has banned cigar and pipe smoking in the casino or at any of the bars. I wrote them a scathing letter and said, among other things, that I couldn’t believe, in the current economic climate, that they would want to exclude any group. But in general, Nevadans are pretty tolerant and free. We just have to constantly guard against the “Californication” of our state. One thing that’s very true here is that it all comes down to money. If it’s profitable, they’ll do it, which makes Las Vegas one of the most honest places to live.
Kevin Cardiff
You make some very good points, and expose the fraudulent claims made in the name of public health — self-admitted lies with good intentions — from no less than the nation’s chief of medical “science”! It is clear that freedom is under attack by brazen propaganda and thought control. Thanks for exposing the deception.
.
Of course, none of this rescues the article from the appearance of having been hastily cobbled together at some roadside rest stop. You’ve done better, Mr. Lyles. Rest up a bit, and for Pete’s sake, put some gas in that tank!
Carter,
Please explain to me about your “smoking citations” on campus. Do they fine you or what?
Not having been a college student since 1975, and with no “citations” to my name (OK… maybe I parked in the wrong place a few times), I was just wondering what the no-smoking police is up to.
Terrific article!
Carter,
I think you should run for Office! How about President? I’ll vote for you!
@Jimbo – Carter is currently off on assignment, but he said you can get all of the details of the policy here: http://www.gatorzone.com/story.php?id=18382
Kevin,
Thanks for that link from Carter. I read it. Oh, brother! BIG Brother rears his ugly head.
Hi, All:
The Florida campus smoking policy really does remind one of the book 1984.
We recently did a trip north to Utah to see some Shakespeare plays in Cedar City. I found that state to be extremely repressive. It was difficult to find a place to smoke even OUTSIDE, and we stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of town. There were signs at every door of the hotel stating their non-smoking policy, and citing a recent law passed, prohibiting smoking “in public areas.” I kid you not. So it’s okay to sin in private, but not in public. They apply this same attitude to drinking establishments. There are three bars listed in the Cedar City yellow pages, and you really have to look hard to find one. (We did).
Needless to say, I am much more loath to spend my tourist dollar in Utah after this latest experience. Kevin Cardiff