hey, judy, wherever you are – the president signed the FDA tobacco bill. i think you’d be pleased with most of it.

miss you.

earlier this month, the VA state legislature passed what is (IMO) a pretty pathetic compromise clean indoor air bill. perhaps to show they can come up with meaningful legislation, they’ve just passed a bill to expand the death penalty.

you read right. once the ink dries, a whole new category of people will be eligible for capital punishment: those who assist in a murder, but don’t actually kill anyone.

yay richmond.

i recently blogged about the clean indoor air legislation that seems to be on virginia’s horizon, and on shepherd fairey’s artistic talents. i may have typed too soon on both accounts.

in an otherwise horribly slanted article in today’s post, the reporter notes:

The fight over the ban is far from over in Richmond. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) yesterday criticized the bill approved by the House, saying it violated and “weakened” the terms of the deal he worked out with House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford.) In addition to dropping the ventilation requirements for smoking sections, the House version exempts bars that do not serve minors and would allow smoking on outdoor patios. “We need to get the bill back to the deal,” Kaine said.

weakening is what happens when something gets worn down. the house bill pretty much guts any meaningful legislation, although i wasn’t too crazy about the terms of the deal as reported earlier. if you’re passing clean indoor air laws to protect employees, having “separately ventilated smoking areas” isn’t going to cut it. exempting bars is even worse.

and shepherd fairey? well, he’s pre-emptively sued AP over his use of their photo of obama as the source material for his obey “hope” poster, and looks like he’s seeking a declaratory judgment that it’s fair(ey) use. whatever. it’s his previous unattributed use of other artists’ materials that’s bothering me. in those cases, he treated prior works as a clip gallery, not bothering to change them at all before working them into his designs. now, there’s an argument to be made that he’s simply doing the electronic equivalent of collage, but the difference there is that in a traditional collage, it’s obvious what has come from a third party. the computer-assisted design output has no such visual cuing.

anyhoo.

the wapo is reporting that virginia’s governor and speaker of the house have struck a deal to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.

Kaine and Howell said they expect the legislation to sail through the General Assembly with bipartisan support. The Republican-controlled House General Laws Committee, which has repeatedly killed previous smoking bans, will take up the bill later today.

really? in virginia? home to philip morris altria? frankly, my dear scarlett, i’m surprised off my ass.

while if passed it won’t affect me much (most of the places i hang out in NoVA are voluntarily smoke-free, including the once-caliginous¹ bob & edith’s), this is potentially huge for the rest of the state where smoking rates are still high and clouds of blue are often seen accumulating near ceilings.
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¹ you like that, don’t you? i’m rocking out with the thesaurus.

“we may prevent a tobacco user from growing up.”

says Kathleen Dachille, director of the Center for Tobacco Regulation at the University of Maryland School of Law.

okay, so she’s not threatening to kill kids. but it was a very unfortunate phrasing. and even as a former tobacco control advocate myself, i think the PG restrictions are asinine. they’re really going to attempt to charge people holding a single cigar with a drug paraphernalia offense? give me a break.

for a long while, in a previous professional life, i was a tobacco control advocate. i worked on the framework convention on tobacco control, coordinated legislative proposals in “the global south,” and helped review “how-to” manuals released by such august organizations as the UICC and the american cancer society.

it was interesting work, and i was, i still believe, fighting the good fight.

but as with many well-intentioned projects, there comes a time when the work spontaneously becomes reductio ad absurdum. such is the case with old morris tobacconists, in the city of victoria, british columbia.

Rick Arora is caught in a situation you would only expect to find in a dark comedy about bureaucracy run amok. If he covers up the historic signs on Old Morris Tobacconists, the City of Victoria is threatening big fines.

If he doesn’t, the Vancouver Island Health Authority plans to charge him under provincial laws banning tobacco ads and displays where people under 19 can see them.

my take remains the same as it was when i discovered harpercollins had removed the cigarette from the jacket photo of clement hurd, the illustrator for goodnight, moon (coincidentally one of my favorite children’s books ever): enough already. pre-verbal children won’t become smokers because of a barely-visible butt in an old black-and-white photo, and i seriously doubt teenagers are going to have an uncontrollable urge to light up after seeing antique signs for “house blend tobaccos” and “havana cigars.”

yes, public health measures are by nature coercive. but when they attempt to rewrite history, they go too far. such exercises are more fitting of stalinists and the taliban – company that public health advocates in “free” societies should be loathe to keep.

hat tip: james.

her pollster/chief political strategist: mark penn.

mark penn: worldwide ceo of burson-marsteller.

burson-marsteller: the pr/ad agency behind the national smoker’s alliance, philip morris‘ “grassroots” smokers’ advocacy group.

(b-m seems to like playing both sides. no honor among advertising agencies?)

dog decided he wanted attention at 7:30 despite my best attempts to sleep in (the husband had spent time with him last night so i could go to sleep early), and after rushing outside to pee, he’s curled up under the blanket with me on the couch. so i’m reading the WaPo. and i’ll share the headlines i found interesting enough to click. because it’s that or fall asleep on the couch and get a crick in my neck.

1. RI wonders if it can divorce a lesbian couple married in MA. maybe it’s because the preliminary schedule is set for my birthday, or maybe it’s just ‘cuz i think that full faith and credit should let RI divorce the couple just like they would a hetero couple married out of state. or perhaps it’s because it’s proof that queers are just like heteros: they marry, and they divorce. but with case law in RI silent on same-sex marriage, i don’t see what the problem is. assert jurisdiction, make a decision, and let the appellate court figure it out.

2. porn for pandas. now this is fascinating, because i didn’t know that pandas could process 2-d images. or maybe not:

On the use of movies, Zhang said: “It’s the sounds of breeding that stimulate them. Pandas are just like human beings. They understand everything.”

and it’s a whole different take on furries.

3. unfortunately, this one turned out to be a boring, pointless article. so the kid sheds his goth persona on turkey day for the sake of his family. yay. and he’s different than any of the rest of us who behave at the family dinner for the sake of harmony how? maybe he could dress up like a pilgrim.

4. and finally, effective december 1 of this year, the national zoo bans smoking on its grounds. (if topeka can do it, it can’t be that big a deal.) this, coupled with dc’s antismoking legislation taking full effect on january 1, makes me a happy jack-booted public health nanny-state thug.

On January 1, 2007, bars, nightclubs, private clubs, brew pubs and bar areas of restaurants are required to be smokefree. This applies to establishments that hold a tavern license (Class C/T or D/T), a club license (Class C or D), a brew pub permit (Classes C/R, D/R, C/T, or D/T) or a nightclub license (Class C/N or D/N). Establishments that hold a restaurant license (Class C/R or D/R) may allow smoking until January 1, 2007, in the bar area only.

yesterday peru became the 40th country to deposit an instrument of ratification with the UN. yes, i’m talkin’ about the FCTC. we did it!

i found out in the middle of health law & ethics last night, prompted to check the treaty site when prof. public health made a comment about “if it ever gets enough signatures…”

naturally, i couldn’t contain my excitement, so i blurted out, “no, in ninety days!”

give american tobacco companies a shot!

it’s bad enough that thousands of american wwii vets are dying from lung cancer because the u.s. government promoted smoking among the troops. now this. *sigh*