Lies, More Lies & A Small Touch of Sanity
-
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
9 Responses
Smokingpipes.com Updates
2 Fresh Todd Johnson Pipes |
72 Fresh Savinelli Pipes |
18 Fresh Neerup Pipes |
12 Fresh Erik Stokkebye 4th Generation Pipes |
New Cigars |
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 585. Our featured interview tonight is with Glen Whelan. Glen is the Director of Sales for Peterson of Dublin. Peterson is a family tradition for Glen. His father worked in the factory for 50 years, eventually serving as Factory Manager. Although Glen now serves as Director of Sales, he started as a part-time retail associate in the Peterson store at the age of 16. After more than a decade in Peterson retail, Glen joined the sales team in Sallynoggin. At the top of the show, we will have an “Ask the Pipemaker” segment with Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 584. We have a special show tonight where there will not be an interview, but we will have Jon David Cole as co-host. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and he is the former co-host of the now discontinued podcast, Country Squire Radio. Country Squire Radio ran for 10-years and is still one of the most popular pipe-niche podcasts. Brian and Jon David will be talking all things pipes and tobacco, and we will get an update on what’s new at The Country Squire. We will be preempting our usual first segment to start right off with JD. We will have the usual music, mailbag and rant at the end of the show.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 583. Our featured interview tonight is with Tanner Halligan. Tanner is from Columbus Ohio, and makes the Butterbone Briars line of pipes. He first tried pipe smoking in high school with some friends, and enjoyed it on and off. About a year ago he began making pipes part-time, but was struggling until he decided to buy some pipe making kits by RawKrafted. The kits are made at Smoker’s Haven in Columbus. Tanner went into the shop and was immediately hired by shop owner and pipe maker Premal Chheda. With Premal’s mentoring, Tanner’s pipe making skills took a big leap forward. At the top of the show, we’ll have a Pipe Smoking 101 segment on flake tobaccos.
Saturday, I spent a wonderful day at Ohlone Cigar Lounge in Fremont, CA, sharing the stage with the ever charming Joe Fabian, who was doing a “Trunk Show” of Savinelli and Peterson pipes, which evolved into being as much of a pipe club experience as it was a sales event. It was a great opportunity to spend time with a bunch of folks talking about pipes, tobacco, food, cars, the joys of rigid-frame mountain bikes, and pretty much anything else that came up. To me, this sort of fellowship is one of the best things about pipe gatherings, and I certainly look forward to doing more in-store events in the future! At one point some of us had a conversation about why we tend to prefer one size or bowl shape to another, and we all had different views to share. Some choose pipes for their weight or their balance, others for their aesthetics, still others for capacity. This got me thinking about my own collection. While some may have very specific criteria, and their pipes exhibit a certain sort of “sameness,” my collection exhibits a pretty broad range of shapes and sizes from tiny to cavernous, and each has its place. For me, choosing the pipe I want to smoke is often as much a practical decision as it is one of whim and whimsy. On the practical side, one thing that often comes up for many of us is whether or not there is time to spend with a large bowl. For me, a certain irony arises in that decision process all too often; I think I don’t have time for a long smoke, but end up burning two small bowls instead, consuming as much time as the larger bowl would have, if not more. My whacky brain is now swirling with something almost too geeky to discuss, but I’m going to anyway. If you had, let’s say, a finite amount of tobacco and wanted to maximize your smoking time, would you be better off with smaller bowls or larger ones, especially wide, squat bowls vs. narrow, tall ones? How would you choose which pipe or pipes to smoke? Tall, narrow bowls filled with the same weight of tobacco seem to have a slight edge over wide, squat ones, at least with respect to time alight. As an informal experiment tonight, I chose a Castello 55 weighing in with a chamber diameter of 23mm and depth of 35mm, and my Sea Monster bent, with its 18mm x 53mm chamber. I chose these two because they are both exquisite smokes, and have similar chamber volumes. Each was filled with the same 2g weight of a VA tobacco, packed with a gravity fill followed by a very light tamp. The Castello gave up after 32 minutes. The Sea Monster lasted 40. I guess if you were stranded on that often discussed island, and maximizing your smoking time was an important consideration, you’d be better off with the tall, narrow bowl. But smoking time is certainly not all there is to consider in selecting a pipe to smoke; other differences are at least, if not more important, especially if maximizing enjoyment is the intention. Not surprisingly, the taste of the same tobacco from each of these two bowls was quite different. The smoke from the pot was a little sweeter, a little more complex, while the taller bowl delivered a brighter, more zesty flavor. In this case, both were delightful, but that hasn’t always been true. Is there such a thing as “the right” bowl geometry for any given tobacco type? Opinions are as varied as we are, but for me, flakes tend to sing in wider bowls, delivering nuances of flavor that can be somewhat attenuated in a narrow one. Yes, this is counter to the “conventional wisdom” that pipes with narrow, tapered bowls are “Flake pipes,” and large bowls are better suited as “English mixture pipes.” Though I’d never question another’s preferences, I’m comfortable taking the contrarian position here with respect to my own. Years ago, when I was developing my first VA/Perique flake, I did what I always do, and smoked the prototypes in a variety of bowl geometries. One of the pipes I chose during my exploration was a GBD 9493, a lovat-like pot with a wide aperture and conventional billiard height. The tobacco took the center stage spotlight and sang arias in that pipe. Since, I’ve repeated the experiment many times, always with the same result. If you want to experience everything a flake has to offer, try it in a pot. Wide bowls also offer something to the burly aficionado, bringing out some of the more subtle nuances of that leaf while keeping the smoke cool. Things get perhaps more interesting when it comes to bowl height. Since tall bowls tend to concentrate more of the distillates that form when tobacco burns, they can be both harder to keep lit at the bottom, and can intensify some flavors. This can be a good or a not so good thing, depending on the tobacco type, and the smoker’s preferences. I love shag cut tobaccos in tall bowls, while flakes are just too often challenging. Too, I find that fuller latakia mixtures deliver their best in medium and smaller bowls. This might have more to do with “palate fatigue” than the smoking dynamics of a particular pipe’s bowl geometry. (Truth told, unless I’m really focused on the process, I rarely could be considered a “slow smoker,” and as my cadence rises, so does the intensity of some of latakia’s less friendly characteristics, especially as the bottom of the bowl is reached. Combine that with a tall bowl, and my tongue just gets fuzzy.) But, I’ve known many who enjoy gigantic bowls of heavy lat-bombs. Maybe this is one reason the “conventional” medium billiard bowl is, and has always been so popular. It’s kind of the middle-ground – not too tall, not too wide, and does pretty […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 582. We have a tobacco filled show for you tonight. Our featured interview is with Adam Boolen of Cloudbear Custom Blends. He became interested in pipe smoking when he walked past the Tinderbox in the Cerritos Mall while he was in high school. He smoked a pipe on and off again with years in between. When he became interested in pipes again five years ago, he downloaded a book on home tobacco blending, which eventually lead to Cloud Bear Custom Blends. 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.
This will be a bit of a stretch, a hill, a ridge too far for some of my pipe-smoking friends. Let’s just say the Pundit continues to suffer from being a mile too high. On a recent trip to Colorado, I traveled up and across Berthoud Pass, a mere 11,106 feet skyward, and later returned over the Continental Divide. Up and down, over, and beyond! Berthoud Pass is 1.4 billion years old, give or take a million. And the Continental Divide is a mere 70 million years old. Please, no jokes about Pundit’s age. It’s not in the millions. Just sayin’. Cutting across the Great Divide in Colorado—which slices through some 21 counties in the Centennial State since it earned statehood in 1876, 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence—Pundit was stunned by massive, and ever-hovering rock structures. And whether or not you are into geology and rocks, you might like to know that a couple of famous geologists (and presumably rockhounds) from way back were pipe smokers. There was John Muir, naturalist, botanist, writer, and author, who traipsed across the nation on foot! Make that a 1,000-mile trip afoot! You might recall that after viewing the phenomenal natural beauty stretched out before him in Yosemite, he convinced ol’ Rough Rider U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt to join him on a camping trip to see the land in all its geological beauty. Muir’s influence was instrumental in getting the land preserved. A natural loveliness we enjoy today, just as it was in Muir’s and Teddy’s time. And Muir had this to say of his early stint in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the heart of what is now Yosemite National Park: When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe—from his book, “My First Summer in the Sierra,” 1911, page 110. John Muir was a pipe smoker. Then there is John Wesley Powell, a naturalist-geologist, like Muir. He was one of the first to float the upper Colorado River and to give the Grand Canyon its name. And from one of his observations of the canyon and its marvels: The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail. John Wesley Powell too was a pipe smoker. He even swapped pipes with some of the Native Americans he encountered in the great canyonlands and elsewhere as he explored ranges and valleys. Now just hold on a bit more. I hear the boobirds in the audience trying to drown out the vistas. I see all the eye rolls. Those craggy Colorado mountains, the famous Rocky Mountains just right there nestled up to roads cut through immense solid rock structures, reminded Pundit of the beautiful sandblasts some of his pipes show off. I know, a stretch. But what is life without imagination and art? Imagine rock arrangements wrinkled in layers and stacks, lines etched into massive configurations that once reposed on the bottom of seas that once existed and have since disappeared. Returned and faded into geologic history once again. That’s right. Crags and even the look of plateau briars (that knobby rough rim of the bowl). For a better understanding of plateau shapes just head over to SmokingPipes.com. I can even hear now the loud chorus for someone to get out the stage hook on that one. But if you have ever had the opportunity to scrutinize those magnificent monoliths, you might arrive at a better understanding of the “craggy” aspect of a pipe’s outer sandblasted skin. Not to mention the pure natural beauty of our pipes and the artisan’s imagination. One of Pundit’s favorite pipe writers, Chuck Stanion at SmokingPipes.com has some wonderful stories on sandblasting. But those gigantic rocks of the ages have more lessons. They just didn’t appear in Colorado. They went through billions of years of emerging and disappearing. Oceans came, went, and returned. Some of the table mountains reminded me of a few of my Sherlock Holmes Petersons, especially the Holmes original with its calabash design. Up, flat, curved. Mark Irwin, another of the pipe world’s finest authors, has a delightful piece in his Peterson Pipe Notes about the Holmes and the history of the Peterson calabash. Which brings us to a final thought. Our pipes are born in nature as are we. We are all “hitched” together to everything else in the universe, as John Muir said. And master pipe artists provide us with a view of the past and present in their marvelous constructions. Layered, craggy, smooth, stained as is the earth in all of its past iterations. We enjoy such rich pleasure smoking these pieces of history with that fragrant leaf, tobacco in its many forms. Connected. Sometimes traveling a mile high into the great Rocky Mountains not only takes your breath away but gives us insight into other parts of our lives.
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