The Citizen, 2006-03-16, Page 5Oh, soul good
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2006. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Should you smoke after sex?
When I was young, ashtrays were
everywhere and the entire damn
male world smoked like coal-fired.
locomotives. Bogie and Eastwood; Churchill
and Edward R. Murrow; Dad and my uncles;
one hundred per cent of all the cool guys in my
class and several of the dorks like myself.
Smoking was hip. It was sexy, Smoking
was, as humourist Fran Leibowitz so
eloquently put it, the whole point of (wanting
to be) a grown up.
Times change and so do tastes. You still see
smokers up on the big screen, but check out
who's actually sucking on the butts these days.
It's not heroes like Humphrey and Clint. It's
doofuses, low-lifes and also-rans. Murderer-
rapist Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking. Dim-
bulb hit man Paulie 'Walnuts' GatrItieri in The
Sopranos.
This is not my imagination — it's official.
Researchers participating in a study conducted
at St. Michael's Medical Centre in Newark,
New Jersey sat through 447 Hollywood
movies — all the top-10 box office hits since
1990 that dealt with contemporary American
society. Observations: nearly 40 per cent of
the bad guys had nicotine habits compared
with just 20 per cent of the good guys.
And almost 50 per cent of the smokers were
portrayed as members of lower socio-
economic classes'.
Clearly Hollywood is engaged in some
serious message-sending here, and the
message is: smoking is for losers.
And if the messages are getting less subtle,
so are the messengers. A recent production of
Arthur Miller's play A View from the Bridge
ground to a halt when a woman in the
audience stood up and screamed at the stage:
"Put out that cigarette!"
The smoking actor, Sebastiano Lo Monaco,
Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty wants
to abolish the Senate and, while this
will not exactly set Ontario voters'
blood racing, it may disturb his Progressive
Conservative opponents.
McGuinty has been urging the federal
government now led by Conservative Prime
Minister Stephen Harper to return more of the
tax money it raises in Ontario.
When Harper indicated his more urgent
concern is having senators elected, a principle
he has pushed since his Reform Party
beginnings, McGuinty retorted sharply this
would not benefit Ontario, which has fewer
Senate seats than its population warrants, and
he would prefer it eliminated.
Ontario's MPPs in fact voted for the Senate
to be abolished as far back as 1992, in a free
vote under a New Democrat government.
While reforming the Senate is considered the
most boring subject in politics, rivaled only by
softwood lumber tariffs, it was a lively debate.
The motion to abolish was moved by
Conservative Norm Sterling, who has held
senior cabinet posts and is one of the two
longest.serving MPPs and no hothead.
Sterling objected particularly to the Senate,
which is unelected, having powers to block
legislation approved by the elected Commons.
He said this is unnecessary when political
parties and others including news media have
many opportunities to oppose.
Sterling also criticized having elected
Senators, saying they would feel even more
compelled to take stands for those who voted
for them and block and harass the Commons.
Liberal Jim Bradley, now a minister and
•government house leader, said Ontarians
"want a situation where democracy rules and
not a second chamber."
was dumbfounded. "This has never happened
to me in more than 300 performances." the
actor — err, fumed.
Theme performance was suspended for 15
minutes, and then resumed with an 'amended'
script featuring a suddenly smoke-free
protagonist.
Did I mention that this incident occurred in
a theatre in Rome, Italy— where smoking has
been a sacred rite among Italian men, since
Nero went around igniting Christians?
No more. For the past year it's been illegal
to light up in any enclosed public place in the
entire country.
The tobacco worm has turned and not just in
Italy. Non-smokers rule! And any poor wretch
still chained to his Marlboros can expect
nothing but scorn, ridicule....
And photographic revisionism. There's a
classic children's book called Goodnight
Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown. It's sold
millions of copies, most of them with a
photograph of the illustrator, Clement Hurd,
on the back cover. There is Hurd, looking
cheerful and relaxed, smiling back at the
camera.
With an unmistakable cigarette between the
first two fingers of his right hand.
The outrage couldn't stand of course — and it
hasn't. Any copy of Goodnight Moon you find
in bookstores now still features Mister Hurd
on the back cover, but the cigarette in his hand
Other MPPs threw in comments they
collected that underlined the public's concerns
about the Senate over many years.
These included a senator, John Haig, telling
his colleagues in 1950 "We members of the
Senate are the highest class of pensioners in
Canada."
Artist Harold Town said in 1964 "We have,—
only one really well-run home for the aged and
infirm, prematurely or otherwise, and it is
called the Senate."
Newspaper columnist Richard Needham
summed up what many felt when he wrote in
1969 he supported the then hue and cry over
welfare cheats "sitting around taking handouts
and sponging off taxpayers — so let's abolish
the Senate immediately."
Humorist Stephen Leacock observed in
1913 "whatever be the virtues of an ideal
system of appointment, the Canadian Senate is
a mere parody of it."
J3urton Richardson, a senior adviser to
Conservative prime minister John
Diefenbaker, said in 1959 the Senate had not
contributed a single creative idea to the
solution of a problem in its history, because it
had no capacity to gather information and did
not know what was going in the country or the
world.
MPPs voted to abolish the Senate by 27
has been artfully 'disappeared' — airbrushed
into oblivion.
The publisher, Harper Collins, said it altered
the photo to avoid giving "the appearance of
encouraging smoking".
What next? Will the publishers who put out
the autobiography of the Dalai Lama paint
hats on the front cover photos of his Holiness
to avoid giving the appearance of encouraging
baldness?
And what of other famous smokers in
history? Will General MacArthur wade ashore
without his corncob pipe? Will pictures of
FDR no longer show him smiling perkily, a
gasper jammed in a long stemmed cigarette
holder clamped between his teeth?
Groucho Marx without a cigar?
It all sounds 'way too much like those
famous photos of the Soviet Politburo in
Stalin's time. Joe was a poster boy for Tony
Soprano. Every time somebody bugged him,
Joe had him whacked — or relocated in East
Iceberg, Siberia.
And in the next officially circulated Soviet
government group photo you would see this
airy space where Comrade Igor Fallguy used
to be.
Now we're using the same technique on
cigarette smokers and nobody complains. I
doubt anybody will stand in path of the
juggernaut Non-Smokers' Lobby.
Smoking is passé and isn't likely to ever
swim back into favour.
Pity. It leaves behind some unanswered
questions. Such as the one posed in the
headline to this column — should you smoke
after sex?
According to Woody Allen, the answer is no.
He says if you, smoke after sex, you're doing it
too fast.
votes to 18. NDP premier Bob Rae did not
vote, mainly because the federal and
provincial governments were in sensitive
discussions on Constitutional change,
including reforms to the Senate wanted by
several provinces, and there were fears an
indication the biggest province was
determined to abolish it would throw these
into disarray.
But the NDP has a long history of favouring
abolition, senior Liberals supported it and
Conservative opposition leader and future
premier Mike Harris later agreed, so there was
a time when all Ontario parties were for
getting rid of the Senate.
But the Ontario parties might not be
unanimous in speaking for abolition of the
Senate today. Some Conservatives led by
former senior minister Bob Runciman have
joined the push to elect senators. Runciman is
concerned because of such appointed senators
as former Ontario Liberal leader Andrew
Thompson, who drew $80,000 a year while
attending .only two per cent of sittings and
sunbathing at his house in Mexico.
Runciman has introduced legislation
requiring senators to be elected. and does not
give up easily. Provincial Conservative leader
John Tory will be forced to choose between
the two different views in his own caucus and
may even have to quibble with his federal
leader, who already has enough critics.
Final Thought
The greatest thing in life is love and the
iskond is. laughter.
— G.Y. Morgan
They say what's good for the body is
good for the soul. So I fig4re it's wise to
pay heed to that, because we all know
how right 'they' usually are.
The New Age has brought with it an
increased emphasis on total wellness, on
nurturing one's self head to toe, inside and
out.
Hedonistic pampering, once the domain of
the wealthy, has found its way into the
mainstream. Once expansive retreats
accessible only to the rich and famous, spas
have made their way to Main Street,
Everytown. More and more regular folk enjoy
spa treatments and the babyboomers have
embraced a more spiritual approach to
physical health. Ironically the generation that
once found passion and answers in chemicals,
is looking beyond prescriptions to purer
methods of treatment.
It was probably 10 years ago that I began
questioning traditional methods of medicine as
the best way to feel well. First, I have a very
low tolerance and as a result had seldom found
a medication that actually did make me feel
better. If I ingested enough drug to ease my
constant headaches, I was likely to be out of
commission on some level for awhile, either
through nausea or sleepiness. As well, my
growing aversion to masking the pain rather
treating the problem, had me seeking
alternatives.
With doctors offering no real solutions other
than strong prescriptions that would, if not fix
the problem, hide it I started to accept a
throbbing head as the way of my life. Then
one day, a kind colleague having listened to a
a few of us complaining about stiffness in our
neck and shoulders treated us to a massage.
The effect was noticeable enough to make me
curious about long-term. I began regular
massage therapy and no longer have regular
headaches.
Next came facials. I had purchased them for
gifts for people and as a true hedonist
wondered one day, why not me. I am now
addicted. I've never been one to nap, really just
can't, but I drop off without fail as that
mystery goop on my face does whatever it is
it's supposed to do. No idea what that is; don't
know, don't care. I'm just happy to be there.
I also believe in the power of aromatherapy,
rosemary to wake, lavender to soothe. An
increased sense of smell with middle age (I
have no idea what that's about) has been the
inspiration behind the purchase of items to
scent my world, from skin to atmosphere.
It may all be a bunch of hokum to some, but
I don't care. It works for me. So much so that
I love to share the experience when possible.
This past weekend my daughter and I enjoyed
a day at the spa as part of her Christmas gift.
Talk about the good things in life. Hanging out
with one of my favourite people in a place
designed to spoil you.
I truly believe that much of how we feel
physically is a result of how we're doing
emotionally and mentally. If you hold in your
true feelings, if you don't find ways to relax
and de-stress or forget to take care of your
needs your body will let you know.
There should be no guilt in doing something
good for yourself. It doesn't have to be costly,
it can be as simple as a walk in nature or some
quiet moments with a good book, anything that
makes you feel comforted and relaxed.
If the body loves it, the soul will too. And a
happy soul can pave the way to good physical
and mental health.
Senate loss a threat to Tories