The City of Minneapolis would be better served by encouraging businesses
and new permit applicants to go smoke-free, rather than imposing it on them. It
would be cheaper to offer short term incentives and deterrents than to
enforce the provisions of any state, metropolitan, county, or muncipal ban. You know
the old joke:
A person goes to the doctor and says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this."
And the doctor answers, "Then don't do that."
We all know what we have to do here. Michael C. Libby has it right in his
post on personal responsibility. We have, bar and restaurant owners as well, a
responsiblity to provide for our own welfare. I look forward to seeing smoking
tolerant businesses go broke without a ban because they don't know what's good
fer 'um, not because we do. And when Laura Waterman Wittstock says:
The silent killer is the gathering of wealth into fewer and fewer
hands, not the big brother nation,
she ignores the fact that the former alternative killer she offers is the
same as the latter. Voting and elections may be a bit farcical at the moment, but
when we succeed in getting the bulk of private money out of them and our own
money in the hands of the businesses who provide us with the real goods and
services that we need instead of those they need to sell us, they will mean
something for a change. Free speech is fine, but we all know when it is bogus;
public campaign funding will make this obvious one day when people look beyond
the target message to the truth. The airwaves belong to us and we shouldn't have
to pay the communications media corporations for the public use of them; let
us hope this is one of the last election seasons in which that happens (the
obscene amount of money in this presidential race should do the trick).
Bill Kahn
Prospect Park
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