Smoking Policy and "Great American Smokeout"

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: SSU: Smoking Policy and "Great American Smokeout"
From: hornea@sonoma.edu
Date: Sun, November 22, 2009 1:41 pm
To: "Susan Kashack"
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Dear Dr Schwartz:

Thank you for advising me of the fact that smoking is unhealthy. It's
important to make informed decisions about things which may effect my
health no matter how fun and fulfilling they are. I will try not to let
this information impede my further enjoyment of smoking. If you have time
I would also appreciate some information about masturbation and blindness.
Of course being blind seems like a huge bummer and I'm not looking
forward to it, but I really like jerking off and I think I'm prepared to
accept the risk. While we're all just jerking off, it might also be
worthwhile to discuss the inconvenience associated with smoking, standing
more than twenty feet away from buildings and the way people keep stealing
my lighters by 'mistake.' The cumulative effect of going outside every
time I want a cigarette is almost certainly taking more time from my life
than five years or so that I can expect to lose off the end as a result of
smoking related diseases. I wonder if anybody has a creative solution to
this problem to propose and if it would be helpful to create a forum to
discuss possible measures. A smoking section in the library, for
instance, would save time and encourage many of us to spend more time
there studying. I'm sure you agree that anything that might enrich our
academic experience and encourage us to spend more time engaged in serious
scholarly pursuits bears further consideration. I know funds are tight
right now and I understand that a study group to investigate this matter
further and produce recommendations would have to be all volunteer. I
would be happy to serve. If you could help coordinate volunteers to work
with me on the project I would appreciate your assistance very much. With
the proper support, a committed core of volunteers like myself could have
us smoking in the library in no time. Building on our successes there, I
foresee smoking in other public buildings following shortly, with the
associated time savings paying dividends almost immediately. I look
forward to working with you on this.

Best Regards,
Andrew Horne


> November 17, 2009
>
>
> TO: All Students
>
> FR: Georgia Schwartz, MD, Director, SSU Student Health Center
>
> RE: Smoking Policy and "Great American Smokeout"
>
> Although the number of smokers is dropping, about 21% of American
> adults still smoke, and about 400,000 new smokers - mostly young
> people - join their ranks each year. Ironic, since most adults who
> smoke wish they didn't. As long as they smoke, they and those close to
> them have to deal with the daily irritations of bad breath, stinky
> clothes, yellow teeth, respiratory tract irritation, reduced
> resistance to infection, lost vigor and productivity, needing to find
> over $2,000 per year in their budgets to buy cigaretts (1 pack/day
> annual cost in California). They also must deal with the reality that
> they are likely to join the 440,000 American smokers who die
> prematurely each year and the millions that are sick or hospitalized
> as a direct result of the impact of smoking on their health.
> While smoking hurts smokers the most, you don't have to be a smoker to
> be hurt by smoking. About 50,000 non-smoking Americans die each year
> from exposure second hand smoke, and millions of other non-smokers
> suffer from related asthma attacks, pneumonia, middle ear problems,
> coughing, lung irritation and infection, heart attacks, and other
> maladies. In addition, Americans as a whole bear the burden of higher
> insurance premiums and taxes resulting from some $193 billion in added
> healthcare costs and millions more in lost productivity directly
> attributable to the effects of smoking.
>
> November 19 is the "Great American Smokeout" an annual event that
> reminds and challenges smokers to quit for at least 1 day and provides
> information resources to help them quit permanently. Successful
> quitting (though it may take several tries) has immediate and long-
> term benefits for everyone. Support those who wish to quit and speak
> up to protect yourself and others from secondhand smoke.
>
> Remember, SSU prohibits smoking inside and within 20 feet of the
> outermost perimeter of all campus buildings and on all stairways,
> ramps, partially enclosed or covered areas, clustered outdoor seating,
> event, and dining areas, as well as in any circumstance or location
> that unavoidably exposes others to second hand smoke.
>
> More information about the Great American Smokeout is available at
> http://www.cancer.org
> . Free help for quitting smoking is available by calling 800-QUIT-NOW
> (800-784-8669) or visiting http://www.smokefree.gov, or just Google
> "second hand smoke" for information and tips on impacting and/or
> avoiding secondhand smoke.

despite having once lived in a small town my brother and I are not, nor have we ever been rednecks

there were no rednecks in idyllwild. it was not in the boonies proper, rather, it was in a georaphically isolated region near palm springs so that yuppies and boomers and fundies with a back to the land impulse could enjoy fake rusticity without great difficulty or the inconvenience of real isolation. The town consisted mainly of two contingent.: there were the hippies who were not quite commune material but hardly fit for society either; their leaeder was a man called richard geole who played the guitar execrably and had dropped so much acid that he really believed himself to be the second coming of chirst our lord and savior. then there were the fundamentalist xtians. their brand of hick piety was so extreme that they could not open their mouths in the presence of sane people without causing grave offense nor could the be exposed to normal society without becoming so shocked and offended themselves as to necessitate an immediate prayer service and circle jerk. It goes without saying that they hated richard goele for pretending to be jesus, who they happened to know personally and they felt the imposture was in the worst possible taste.
There had once benn real rednecks in idyllwild but they seemed to have all been scared off by the arrival of the acid casualty wirdos and the religion casualty weirdos. My parents had little to do with either camp, though my mother, being an idiot, occasionally spent time with the new age spiritualists. We mainly lived there because they needed a competent engineer like my father to run their water district and the whole lot didn't seem to have a single competent anything among them. Let us be thankful that they've chosen to sequester themselves in a remote locale where they cannot annoy the shit out of the rest of us. Wes and I were not so fortunate during our childhood, but by a stroke of goode luck we had nintendo and MTV around to teach us the truly important things in life and distract us from our disgusting social milieu. One redeeming virtue of the 12 year olf daughters of brain dead hippies was that they were completely ignorant of sex, but not at all shy about lifting up their skirts to show their nearly hairless pudendae to curious ten year old boys. of course, it was far less secually arousing han the africans issues of national geographic (this was before the internet) but I think one or two of them might have let wesley put it inside, or at least touch it.