Hey, Idiot!
You smoke cigarettes, a pipe, or cigars? Then, yes, I'm talking to you. Peter Jennings is dead, but Keith Olbermann lives to tell the tale:
‘So,’ I thought, as I was hunched over, spitting blood into the garbage can in my office, half an hour before the newscast, ‘this is it — this is cancer.’ It gets uglier, I understood that — so ugly that those who've survived can't even describe how much uglier it gets.Still, that imagery that I want to have stick in your mind, is pretty good: They've just had to cut something out, from inside your body because they think it's cancer. And because it doesn't heal up right away, every couple of hours the coagulation breaks and your mouth fills up with blood — and all of a sudden, hunching over a garbage can, spitting it out, is the best available option.
I'm not doing some sort of bad taste ‘what-if’ on the passing of Peter Jennings — I have had a tumor removed from the roof of my mouth.
It was benign — that makes all the difference in the world, of course.
Except for the part — where it doesn't make any difference. Because, I was in that position — spitting globs of myself into a garbage can in Secaucus, New Jersey, entirely through my own doing, my own fault.
And maybe there's the chance that if the loss of Peter Jennings hasn't impacted you, that maybe if you listen to my story you might get smart enough in a hurry — or scared enough in a hurry — so that you don't wind up spitting blood into the garbage can, and spending five days like me, thinking you had cancer — or actually having it.
There are some things in life you don't have much control over — terrorism, lightning, and even cancer when it runs in your family or when you just get it.
But that's not what this tumor was — the one that for five very long days had me convinced I had cancer. This is from me smoking pipes and cigars for 27 years. And if you work for a company that produces or sells pipes and cigars and you are recoiling defensively and saying ‘you don't know that’... well, let me quote Robert Novak — "bull" — I do too know that.
The place where this thing grew on the roof of my mouth, is precisely above the spot where the end of the cigar, or the tip of the pipe, would sit, nearly every time I've smoked. I've been smoking — with the first place the smoke connects with my tissue, right in this one spot in my mouth — since Jimmy Carter was President.
So, yes, biologically speaking, smoking caused that tumor. Behaviorally speaking, I caused that tumor — period.
So...if you are a smoker, why do you smoke? Just ignoring the science? Even if you don't get cancer, impaired lung function and emphysema can't be anything to laugh at. Do tell...
Oh, and P.S. don't tell yourself you're doing no harm to other people by smoking in their presence. You are. Asshole.
Gah! I can't believe a seasoned journalist like him uses 'impact' as a verb. (Actually, I can...)
I really don't care if people smoke - none of my business. When I go into a bar, I know people will be smoking, and I've obviously decided that I still want to go in there, despite that fact. But those who stand on a public street, blowing their stank at people, need to be severely beaten with a rusty bike chain. It's people like that who make the nanny staters think we need a ban on smoking in public. So knock it off, buttheads!
Jackie Danicki at August 10, 2005 3:37 AM
My mom's been smoking for 40 years. Besides the fact that she has to pause every couple of sentences to cough in that wheezy horrible way and that every morning she starts the day standing over a sink hacking stuff up, she can hardly walk!! Years of poor circulation and lack of energy means that she moves less and less so that her leg muscles have atrophied to the point that a walk around the block is completely out of the question. Her breath, her hair, her skin, her urine reek of tobacco. Her quality of life, her interaction with other people, EVERY SINGLE THING SHE DOES, is compromised by her addiction. She seems half-dead and I mourn that.
Diana at August 10, 2005 8:21 AM
Apparently that segment wasn't such a hit with the boss...
Jim Treacher at August 10, 2005 8:47 AM
Defensive smoker, I'd say! Treach, you're always RIGHT ON IT!
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2005 9:24 AM
Regarding secondhand smoke in bars, here's a comment, via email, from a friend of mine about her late husband. The cancer killed him:
X didn't smoke but he worked in smoke filled nightclubs for years and his doc said it was a textbook smoker's cancer in his throat. He couldn't believe that X didn't smoke.
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2005 11:20 AM
"and P.S. don't tell yourself you're doing no harm to other people by smoking in their presence. You are. Asshole."
That's what I love about you Amy - you always sugarcoat the truth to go easy on people!
Jeff R at August 10, 2005 11:25 AM
As a kid, when I had no friends, I wanted, more than anything, to be liked. Luckily, I've made a miraculous recovery.
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2005 11:30 AM
I saw this teen and his mama eating in Quizno's today. The teen couldn't even finish his sandwich before he had to go outside to smoke. Mama finished her meal, got the rest of his to go, then met him outside for a drag. Child abuse, plain and simple.
Jason Ginsburg at August 10, 2005 12:37 PM
French people smoke.
Richard Bennett at August 10, 2005 12:43 PM
I understand the Spanish, Mexicans, and Canadians do as well. Your point?
Amy Alkon at August 10, 2005 12:49 PM
The cowboy Bush doesn't smoke, and the French do. It's therefore obvious that all sophisticated people smoke and only dullards and imbeciles refrain.
Non-smokers are so extremely dull, in fact, that the world would be a better place without them.
Richard Bennett at August 10, 2005 2:28 PM
The worst part about hanging around smokers (aside from the persistant feeling that you are surrounded by exhaust pipes with appendages) is that even sitting down to dinner includes at least 4-6 mutual "wanna go have a cigarette?" interruptions.
Smokers really shouldn't be travelers. Quite frankly they just get really lousy mileage.
Jake at August 10, 2005 5:24 PM
So - does John Kerry smoke? Al "I've cut it and stacked it" Gore?
I'm amazed that smokers yell about their "rights" while they flip butts everywhere, apparently too drugged to see ordinary ashtrays. Intersections are the perfect place to discard butts.
Radwaste at August 10, 2005 5:29 PM
Dick- you grow more pathetic daily. Not everything in America revolves around W. K-mart is having a sale on aluminum foil this week- put another layer or two around the house.
eric at August 10, 2005 7:30 PM
Rad, that's another pet peeve...I call it "the world is my ashtray" syndrome. I yell that at smokers, as in, "Hey, what makes you think the world is your ashtray?!" as I'm running. They always look so bewildered. I mean, is that so hard to figure out? If you wouldn't throw it on your momma's living room floor, maybe it shouldn't be tossed on the sidewalk?
Amy Alkon at August 11, 2005 12:38 AM
"The French" are not a monolithic unit. Emmanuelle Richard does not smoke. She's French. And so on. I could name 20 other French people who do not. Just off the top of my head. And we had a party tonight for Paul Feig's new book, and there were many, many Americans smoking. Richard, I'm all for people bitchslapping me with their wit. Maybe, someday, if you can hire somebody to write your blog comments for you, you might even be one of them.
Amy Alkon at August 11, 2005 12:49 AM
If I did, would you notice?
Richard Bennett at August 11, 2005 3:16 AM
Just picked my sister (41) up from the airport yesterday...she's back for a two week "r&r" from Iraq! So good to see her, can't think about her having to go back. Anyhow, she started smoking again since she's been over there. Irritates the hell out of me because it's so bad for her health, yet she's in a War zone, sees dead people every day, dodges mortar rounds lobbed onto base, etc. At the moment, cigarettes are one of the lesser things I could be worrying about for her. She says she'll quit before she gets back home next time again. Sure hope she does.
Claire at August 11, 2005 6:43 AM
40% of the French people are assholes then because that's about the percentage of their population that smokes. Yet their rate of deaths due to lung cancer is a fourth of the U.S. rate. Perhaps it's due to the fact that the French smoke like they drink--in moderation.
nash at August 11, 2005 8:34 AM
I dunno, I don't see a whole lot of "moderate" smoking there. The French who smoke are morons, just like the French who are socialists. Socialism and smoking are irrational -- but only smoking is deadly. There's a chance, and I say this based on conversations I've had with my friend, investigative science journalist Gary Taubes, that the French diet is helpful in preventing the level of cancer we have in our society. Also, Will Clower, in his book, The Fat Fallacy, notes this in the case of heart disease, the incidence of which is far, far less in the Frog state.
Amy Alkon at August 11, 2005 8:46 AM
I was under the impression that the majority of cigarettes in Europe remain unfiltered, like the old Pall Malls were in this country. Is this still true? Yikes...
Dmac at August 11, 2005 11:21 AM
The surviving relatives of the people killed by Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao might take issue with that "socialism isn't deadly" crack.
In the real world ideas have consequences.
Richard Bennett at August 11, 2005 12:21 PM
"Anyhow, she started smoking again since she's been over there."
I find that strange, too, since there is no situation in military service that rewards that: on ships, tobacco (and other) smoke is fatal to electrical and electronic equipment; the health effects are bad for stamina; the glowing coal makes a fine target for a rifleman at night. Tobacco contains a drug, nicotine (which as a sulphate is a potent insecticide), and that's all there is to it. Users drug themselves, and no matter what the situation, it would be better if they didn't - at least, with nicotine.
Radwaste at August 12, 2005 5:19 AM
Nicotine enhances short term memory and improves concentration, just like Ritalin does for ADD sufferers. Concentration just might save your life when a terrorist is trying to kill you.
Richard Bennett at August 13, 2005 12:16 AM
Nicotine patches -- unless you roll them up and smoke them -- should do the trick without hurting the lungs. PS I don't "suffer" from ADHD...in fact, in many ways, I benefit from it. My brain simply works differently.
Amy Alkon at August 13, 2005 12:46 AM
The guy who started JetBlue swears that his ADHD made him into the success he is today - and he's refused all treatments because it works for him.
Dmac at August 13, 2005 8:04 AM
Nicotine patches...should do the trick...
They use them on Alzheimer's patients because they're too dingy to smoke, but nothing gives the brain a kick like a good smoke.
Richard Bennett at August 16, 2005 6:45 PM
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