So there's a bill being hooted about proposing a public indoor smoking ban. It would apply to all restaurants, bars, and stadia (since those are pretty much the last places you can smoke).

Ditka's all up in arms, and for good reason- his restaurant caters to cigar-chompin, park sassidge-eatin', hart-attack-havin' Bears fans like himself. Proponents of the measure say he's a shill for the tobacco industry, that he's listening to false figures from them about the effect it has on business. That's a load, right there. Who believes a report from the tobacco industry? I'm sure Ditka's quite set, financially. Ditka just wants to be able to sit in his own restaurant and smoke a stoge.

I agree that employers have a responsibility to manage risk in the workplace. But what this would mean is that employees and patrons alike don't have the *choice* to accept that risk. That's bullshit. Life is risk. Everybody who moves to California knows that they're moving to another country, if not planet, and accepts that. Everybody who doesn't live in California doesn't for a reason.

Every restaurant is allowed to choose whether to have a smoking section. But what fool decides to work in a smoking bar but objects to the risk of secondhand smoke? This is the kind of freedom-means-my-idea-of-freedom that the knee-jerkers in California propogate, while the real residents don't give a shit because either a) the air is worse or b) they're so rich off their military contractor job that they breathe canned air. It's perfectly in line with this thinking that meat be banned in restaurants and bars, because cooking meat produces gas-phase aromatic hydrocarbons, a carcinogen that affects even the non-meat-eaters. So what's next for bar employees to whine about after that, a public ban on drunken assholes macking on them? Nobody ever went to work in a mine without knowing it was dangerous- heck, these days they make you sign a form that has a set payment for whatever body part you lose. Compared to the risks of industrial work, service work is a breeze.

Since when did the left stop being about the common man and start being about the politics of victimization? It's everywhere these days- feminists who don't seek to empower women in the face of risk, but rather seek to eliminate risk from women's lives (an impossible goal). Vegetarians and vegans who don't make their choice for health, economic, or environmental reasons (all very sound decisions), but rather to save the feewings of the widdle animals, as if Nature didn't consist of everything eating everything else from the beginning of time. This mentality extends to personal rights- "not only am I making the decision to avoid smoking establishments, I'm going to make the decision for you, too."

I agree the stadia should be smoke-free- you don't get to choose where you see da Bulls. Let any restaurant or bar they want ban it. But it's crazy to think that every single smoker out there is doing it because they were duped as children, have been addicted ever since, and are clueless about the danger and need to be rescued. Some people like to smoke. I like to smoke- but only when I'm drinking. In bars. I'm all for separating smokers and non-smokers- I wouldn't want my choices to infringe on them- but jeez, you start legislating risk and there's no point to living. Bungie jumping and rollercoasters are all about the perceived risk. Meat- raw, red, juicy meat- is well worth the risk. Fries are worth the risk. Smoking is almost desirable because of the risk.

At the Clark & Barlowe hardware store on Orleans & Grand, you can smoke. This policy says much, much more about the store than merely their decision regarding the risk they are exposing their customers to. They don't give a shit about that, in fact. You can't browse- you ask the guy with the cigar and the "It's God's Job To Judge Bin Laden- It's the Marines' Job To Arrange The Meeting" hat what you want and he goes and gets it. If you don't know what you want, maybe you should go to Home Depot. Clark & Barlowe knows that there are people out there with real problems and real issues, and that the world is a tough, dirty, dingy place. The hi-rise construction worker with the missing fingers, shopping for Hole Hog bits, knows all about risk.

It's a symptom of privelege to be worried about something as petty as cigarette smoke. Quit whining, or me and Ditka are coming over to expose you to a little risk.