Smoking - The Book
Well, I finally finished reading “Slow Burn” by Don Oakley. Normally, I wouldn’t write a whole post about a book, I’d just update my “What I’m reading” page, but I think this one deserves as bit more.
First off is a warning; this book is a chore. It’s about 600 pages of quite factual stuff that needs quite close attention. If you’re the sort of reader that skims, you probably want to avoid this one.
Second is another warning. The guys style is not the easiest in the world to get along with; he cares deeply about his subject, but the phrasing he uses to put his points across can be irritating. There were several occasions when I nearly threw the damn thing across the room because I was annoyed not by what he said but how he said it.
Taking those two points into account, what do you get? Well, what you get is an examination of the whole arena of smoking and the effect that it has had not only on people’s health but also on the way society functions. Oakley takes issue with practically every piece of anti-smoking reportage that has been produced in the last 40 or so years, starting with the Surgeon General’s 1964 report and continuing up to 1999 when the book was published.
He explains at great length the ways in which statistical probabilities have been manipulated to present the public with scare-mongering facts to encourage them to give up smoking (children have a greater risk of health problems from a glass of milk a day than they do from living in a house where one or both parents smokes). He discusses how many conclusions about smoking and health have been based on only one (narrow) study. He takes issue with the way that many studies into the effects of passive smoking (or environmental tobacco smoke) are based purely on after-the-fact anecdotal evidence provided by friends or relatives of the person supposedly effected.
There is a big hole in his arguments, though, in that at the same time as condemning statistical manipulation and extrapolating from only one study, a lot of his counter-evidence does just that. He accuses various bodies of having bias towards anti-smoking, but displays bias of his own. Having said that, though, there is enough evidence presented here to make you re-consider your anti-smoking stance; if only half of what he says is only half true, it still presents a completely different picture than the anti-smoking brigade, public health policy groups and politicians would have us believe.
The truly thought-provoking part of this book comes, though, when he moves on from discussing the implications for health to discussing the implications for society. We’ve all seen the way that smokers, over the last 20 to 30 years, have slowly been ostracised from society, but the picture presented by Oakley is much worse than I would ever have thought it could be.
Consider this; you’re a woman, or non-white, or Jewish - or perhaps all three - and you apply for a job. The company turns you down because you’re a non-white, Jewish woman. What’s the first thing you do - call your lawyer! Now, replace those groupings with just one - smoker. Don’t bother calling your lawyer, he won’t be in.
Smokers are being regularly discriminated against because they smoke. Not because they smoke in a room where co-workers may be effected, mind. Just that they smoke - or have done in the last 12 months, or whatever arbitrary time limit the prospective employer might like to put on it. Coupled with the fact that (in the States at least) they have to pay more for health care, and many other things, smokers are as victimised as any minority group since the slaves were brought over from Africa - but no-one seems to give a damn.
And that’s why I would encourage you to read this book (if you can find a copy); to make you re-think the social ramifications of anti-smoking policies.
- - -
I feel that I should point out that I am not a smoker. I never have been. I grew up surrounded by smokers and never really saw the attraction, but I don’t have any deep-seated feelings against smoking. I have never been convinced by the arguments against smoking, or passive smoking, and the recent introduction of a blanket ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces here in the UK quite frankly pisses me off. I realise that my opinion is not one that is shared by many people but there you go!
Lord of the Flies goes Reality Prime Time
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m a little disturbed by this story.
I’m not a big fan of so-called reality TV; programmes like Big Brother, Castaway, Shipwrecked and all the others just leave me cold. Unfortunately, I seem to be in somewhat of a minority as they seem to be on all the time (except when they have to make way for soap operas). I don’t see the point in sitting around in my house watching a bunch of people sitting around in a house - I wouldn’t socialise with these people, why do I need to see them sleeping, eating, or doing any of the other things that the TV controllers like to serve up to us?
So, to read that a TV network in the US is planning to put a bunch of kids from 8 to 16 years old into a reality TV situation really does disturb me.
All of the reports I’ve seen are likening this to The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, a book in which a group of stranded children gradually turn into primitives, forming themselves into tribes and attacking each other with terrible consequences. So far, no commentator that I have read has asked the questions that are uppermost in my mind:
1. In a world where children are the target for so much abuse and mis-treatment, why are these 40 children being exploited in this way?
2. Why would any loving parent even consider allowing their child - whatever age he or she may be - to go through something like this? Surely you don’t want the fame or the money that badly?
3. Considering all the comparisons to Lord of the Flies, has anyone thought of the psychological damage that these children may suffer, trying to survive in a world where the normal boundaries and safety nets that they are used to have been removed.
4. If these children really are to be left to fend for themselves - as seems to be implied in the publicity that is circulating at the moment - how can the network condone this program?
To me - as an avid non-watcher of reality TV - this really does seem like a step too far and it’s about time we re-looked at the sort of society we are becoming if this sort of thing can even be considered.
The Machine Stops
I’m beginning to think that the machines are out to get me.
Its been one of those days, you know? Every machine that I’ve had to use today has not worked in the way that it should. The PC locks up, the paper jams in the printer, the packing machinery doesn’t pack. And now I’m sitting here writing this on another machine, which keeps slowing down for no good reason.
It has made me wonder about our reliance on machines throughout our daily lives, reminding me of an EM Forster short story, The Machine Stops. In this story, based sometime in the future, everything is controlled by The Machine and everyone lives in little cells, with everything provided to them. Then, The Machine starts to break down and suddenly no-one knows what to do…
We’re not heading that way.
Are we?
Why - and when - did Stephen King become so crap?
No, really, I want to know. I’ve been a big fan since about ‘82, when I read ‘Christine’ for the first time. Since then I’ve read everything that’s been published in book form (and e-book form) and over the last few years I’ve come to a horrbile conclusion - the guy has lost the plot.
The accident didn’t help, I think that’s a given. Being run over while out walking has got to screw you up big time. It certainly screwed up the guy who ran him over - I seem to remember hearing he’d drunk himself to death. But then Steve-O bought the pick-up…
King talked of retiring after the accident, and I think that’s exactly what he did. Anyone who’s read any of his intro’s and his non-fiction stuff will know about The Trunk. Where the books that weren’t quite good enough go to die. I think, though, what we’re seeing now - with From A Buick 8, Everything’s Eventual, Cell, Lisey’s Story and (unfortunately) the second half of the Dark Tower saga - is The Trunk being resurrected, updated and foisted on an undeserving public.
I’ve even harboured the thought on some dark, cold nights that maybe Tabitha couldn’t get a publishing deal anymore and so some of the recent stuff has been hers…
I long for the classic days; The Shining, Salem’s Lot, It, hell even Pet Sematary, but I fear that they are gone forever. It’s sad to see a master disappear slowly like this - much better to go out with a bang and leave them wanting more.
I think he really is publishing his shopping list these days…
Wolfs Stuff
Wolfs Helpers
-
