Help kids by enforcing existing anti-smoking laws

(The flu kicked my butt last week. I got a seasonal flu shot on Sept. 17 and two days later I was sneezing, had a runny nose, aches and pains, watery eyes, all the good flu symptoms. My breathing became more labored, too, which frustrated me it had improved over the past few weeks. It appears that the worse is over, though, but, yes, Rolan, I am going to the doctor anyway. I promised. Not sure I want that HINI swine flu vaccine, not after how seasonal flu shot made me feel.

On a positive note, Sunday I fit into a pair of shorts that that were too tight to wear just two months ago. The triple h's - hazy, hot and humid - were in effect Sunday so I wore them out. I would have worn them if it had snowed. Celebrating weight lose trumps seasonal fashion. And now, the column...)

First off, if you smoke or are considering smoking after being exposed to all the evidence about the dangers of tobacco and nicotine, you are a fool. A drug-addicted fool, but a fool no less.

I am a reformed fool. I smoked for more than 20 years and quit only after sarcoidosis look hold of my lungs and heart. The desire to smoke was strong. I started smoking again shortly after a 10-day hospital stay for shortness of breath, chest pains and other symptoms of the autoimmune disease. Now, it has been almost three months since my last cigarette.

I could feel my body telling me that it was time – past time – to stop, and with the help of a little, blue pill…No, the other little, blue pill. Get your mind out of the gutter…I was able to stop. I liked smoking and I am sure that the nicotine implored me to continuing puffing away even though evidence was mounting that something was wrong. I will continue to fight the urge to smoke and take solace in the fact that my lungs are improving. However, they are nowhere near as good as they were before sarc. I just know it would be foolish to slip back into that nasty old habit, so I won't.

While I agree cigarettes are terrible, I am against the new law banning the importation of flavored cigarettes. We already have laws on the books that, when properly enforced, keep cigarettes out of the hands of kids.

(My buddy's favorite smokes) I am writing in support of a friend of mine who loves imported clove cigarettes. I would smoke them with him on breaks at the New Haven Register. I preferred Marlboros or Camels. These cloves were too rough. When I inhaled one, it felt like a hole was being burned through my throat. They were tasty, though, like an exotic fruit. An exotic fruit that can burn a hole through your throat.

(Children are better off if we feed them the toys that come with the kids' ''meals") If we want to pass laws protecting kids, let's ban kids' meals from fast food restaurants, commercial aimed at getting kids to crave fatty, salty, sugary foods and drinks, and cap the number of hours kids can watch TV or play video games.

The news media got excited about kids setting records for playing the video game Guitar Heroes. Video games are fun, but kids are wasting time on games when they could be outside getting exercise or doing something that might spark imagination and innovation, like spending hours actually learning how to play a real musical instrument. Something. Anything but being a lump on sofa pretending to be a guitar hero.

I just imagine a generation inspired to do their best to mimic the work of the world's best musicians instead of aspiring to create original great music themselves. And I imagine the contestants preparing for battle by crackling their knuckles, sitting on their flat, ever-widening asses and pouring and shoving massive amounts of soda, French fries and who-knows-what-else down their throats.

Consider banning fruit-flavor spirits and malt liquor. Very few wine coolers have actual wine in them, honey. It's a good bet the key ingredient is malt liquor, the swill that down-and-out men used to hide in paper bags and chug while leaning in street lamps to steady themselves. The manufacturers wanted to move more of it so they camouflaged the taste and drab brown look in sweeteners and food coloring, prettied up the packaging so it would be cool for young people, especially young women, and ta-da! Drink up, just careful not to crash your car and mindful of whom you might wake up with after a fruity-tasting bender.

(Ladies and gentlemen, our new Guitar Hero champion! Whoa!) My friend is an adult, a taxpayer and should be free to consume whatever he wants in the privacy of his own home as long as he is not harming anyone, and he is not. I wish I could wrap up this column up by writing that I want my buddy in Connecticut to quit smoking because I want him to be healthy for years to come. However, he and some other smokers I know puff away with nary a hint of respiratory problems. Their luck might one day be steamrolled by science, but they are fine right now. More power to them.

Perhaps it was all those years of exercising and playing in the sunshine during the good old days before video games became popular.

Hey, pale fat kid, drop the remote, get outside and play!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">