Cell Phones and Cigarettes

I have some concerns with the new rules for schools as reported by the CBC. The biggest concern is that the funding cuts came Friday, but yet another cell phone ban is the big news, and no money is left for cleaning the air. 

As a teacher, both cell phones and cigarettes being accepted without question and without boundaries is a problem. Well, students aren't officially allowed to smoke on the property, but we created a nice space for them, kids as young as 13, to smoke just on the other side of the property line out back to keep them from loitering on public property at the front of the school, which wouldn't look good. The same thing happened as a student in the 80s. It's still perfectly legal for children to smoke -- it's just illegal to give them cigarettes. That law comes from legislators unduly affected by tobacco lobbying.

Brief Hiatus

I've been busy gardening, and then I took a break to check out NYC.  The entire album, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, played in my head on a loop while I was there.  It was a nice distraction from the provincial election stuff, and the NDP couldn't ask me for time or money for four whole days!  I'll be voting NDP today in the advanced polls because they're the likely party to keep out the Cons in my riding, but my typical steadfast support is wavering and the badgering isn't helping.  Because I run the Student Vote at school, I made a comparison chart for students, and, of course, some students complained of bias.  I just took top bullet points for each category off each official website.  That's not bias; it's real - and really scary.  Anyway...

It was interesting to me to check all the stereotypes about NYC I had developed from movies and late night shows perpetuated particularly by Letterman and Jon Stewart.
- New Yorkers don't walk fast - at all  It was a weekend, but still.  Monday was no different.
- It's as clean as Toronto.  The level of smoking and garbage is about the same.
- It felt as safe as home - maybe more so as there were families walking around even out past dark.
- Besides the hotel, prices were similar to Toronto.  Some galleries were by donation even.
- And most surprising, based on TV perceptions, was that everybody was very polite and friendly.  Bumping into someone elicited "sorry" from both parties.  Just like Canada.  And here I thought that was our thing.

Some of the stereotypes played out.  The place is bustley and noisy and crowded.  We really slept to cars honking all night.  And our hotel window faced a brick wall a few feet away.  Classic.  We walked everywhere, and I wondered about all the cars on the road barely moving faster than our pace.  It's about 20 km end to end; bikeable in an hour if you can get through traffic (and bikes get their own traffic lights!).  With subways and busses and cabs everywhere, it's curious how many people have cars - although we never did figure out how to get a cab.  Seriously.  And the food was fantastic. Every restaurant had flavourful food that tastes differently than the other restaurants.  That's not always the case in Waterloo where I swear most restaurants just heat up food from a central kitchen.

And the architecture was spectacular.  It evoked that bit from Hannah and Her Sisters where they tour the city pointing out the finer pieces that few notice with their heads down.

We went to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Neil Patrick Harris, and he didn't disappoint - except, that is, that we missed sitting in the audience with Hugh Jackman by two days!!  

The show was more physical than I expected, with NPH on stage almost the entire time - doing all costume changes while he sang.  And I regretted not spending the extra cash and phone time getting front row seats for the chance to participate (i.e. have his crotch in my face).  After the show, people crowded at the exit for a chance to get an autograph and picture.  I hung in there for about half an hour until someone in the crowd started smoking, and I bailed.

But what makes me want to go back for more - besides that Colbert Report tickets were ungettable this time round and that my daughter and I couldn't go to the Comedy Cellar to maybe stalk spot Louis CK because she's underage at 20 - is the Met.  It's too big for one day.  The Central Park Zoo was negligible  next to the Toronto Zoo, and the Museum of Natural History was more or less on par with the ROM, but the Met outshone the AGO by a mile.   This photo is me in a gardeny installation on the rooftop.  Very cool.

It was legen...wait for it...dary!

On Regulating Smoking for Youth

Letter to the Editor in the Record today.  It's hard for me to stick to 200 words!

Make it illegal for teenagers to smoke
RE: Ontario bans youth from tanning beds — Oct. 10

I was ecstatic to see that a bill banning youth from tanning beds passed unanimously in the Ontario legislature. Malignant melanoma causes more than 1,000 deaths per year in Canada.

But it's baffling that 20 times as many people die each year from lung cancer, and smoking is still a legal hobby for youth and children to pursue. It's illegal to give or sell a cigarette to anyone under 19, but they can smoke 'em if they got 'em. And, somehow, they always manage to get them.

Tanning beds can be habit-forming for some, but smoking is physically addictive. If tobacco producers can get them when they're young, they can own them for life. If we can pass legislation to prevent youth from starting until their brains are mature enough to make good decisions, then we can make a huge dent in the leading cause of preventable deaths.

We've tried stopping the flow through various regulations at stores, and it's proved minimally effective. If we really care about our youth, we will make it illegal for anyone under 19 to smoke. Teenagers smoking in public should be fined the way they would if they were caught drinking in public.

And then we'd really be saving their skins.

 Marie Snyder Waterloo


If you agree, take a minute to tell your MPP (Catherine Fife's link is here)!


ETA - My 17-year-old son took offence at the suggestion that teenagers have immature brains, but I'm using this study as my backing.  There it is.  

Just Legalize it Already

I spent a lovely extended weekend in Awenda and fell in love with Penetanguishene through a scenic bike ride.  The sun filtered through the trees on either side of the road, with the blue, blue lake peeking through - gorgeous!  But it was marred by my chosen beach read:  Chris Hedges' grim Empire of Illusion, which actually gave me nightmares - featuring Hugh Laurie for some reason.  Spooky, me possums!  I'll get to the book another day, but for now, let's focus on the distraction du jour:  marijuana legalization.  That's much easier to think about.  Tra-la-la.

Medicinal ganja is already legal, and new regulations are apparently streamlining the process to access it, but that's a boring issue anyway, so we'll move on.  The meaty question is: Should another mind-altering substance be legally available to the healthy masses?

On Smoking and the Illusion of Concern

I took the kids to the beach on Sunday, and there's new signage everywhere about the problems with using the sand as an ashtray.  In hopes for a "butt-free beach," they included information on wildlife concerns, toxins, costs to taxpayers, and the level of pollution:  cigarette butts are the most common type of litter found on beaches.  But the signs didn't seem to affect anybody's behaviour because they didn't come with people actually patrolling the beach to offer friendly reminders much less tickets or anything more punitive.  Nor did they offer other options - like empty cups from the garbage half-full of sand for people use as ashtrays, then throw back in the garbage.  Nothing.