Opinion

A look at the Smoking Cage program

Vox clamatis...

Chris Jones
Managing Editor

There are those who feel the recent installation of smoking cages on the margins of the SCC campus must be the product of some under-worked, overzealous, Puritanical, self-righteous bureaucrat. This view is not correct. It is true that the smoking cages were installed without any input from the people whom the cages are designed to marginalize; and, it is also obvious that converting Metro bus shelters into smoking cages required a minimum amount of design, expense and thought. These defects are not, however, sufficient reason to rise in protest.

Smokers pay billions of dollars in taxes to the state, but there is no reason for smokers to expect equal access to public facilities merely because they pay more taxes. And while it is true that for many years the government conspired to promote tobacco use and pretended not to notice the health risks of smoking, it does not mean they have any duty to actually spend tobacco tax revenues on smokers. Money is fungible and it must go where the majority says it should go. Sure the smoking cages are just converted bus stops but there is nothing to say the administration had to go to even that degree of expense – they could easily have economized even further by just cutting out one side of old dumpsters. Smokers should be thankful, not critical.

It must also be admitted that the administration exacerbated the smoking problem on campus by their own actions. Ash trays were removed and replaced by a very few strange plastic contraptions which had none of the requisite functions of ashtrays and looked as if they were intended as birth control devices for elephants. With no ashtrays around, cigarette butts proliferated. A few functional ashtrays strategically placed might have helped the situation, but we should not fault the administration for not thinking of this alternative. It is now clear that they had a more extensive plan requiring the full focus of their mental energy: a comprehensive long term plan to rid smoking from the SCC campus.

A superficial critic might find the administration’s actions undemocratic or even dictatorial, but it must be remembered that we are no longer living in a country which can afford the delays and inconveniences of the democratic process. In unilaterally instituting the smoking cage plan the administration was just carrying out their paternalistic duty to protect SCC students and staff.

We must not fault the process which brought us the smoking cages (flawed as it may have been) when the motives behind it were so clearly well-intentioned. We should, in fact, applaud these efforts to remove pollutants and encourage further measures along the same lines. We should hope – now that the smoking cages have shown their worth – that the administration will move swiftly against the numerous other threats to public health on campus.

It is expected that the smoking cage program will become a model for other more extensive efforts. During the many building projects planned for the next few years, students and staff will no longer have to breathe the carcinogenic fumes of roofing tar as they did for a number of weeks this year. Future roofing projects will be enclosed in giant plastic bubbles where only the roofers will be exposed to the dangerous fumes. The campus shuttle bus, which currently spews out more pollutants than all of SCC’s smokers combined, will have its exhaust gases re-routed into the cab where only the driver and the riders will be subject to its deleterious effects. And, of course, the same will apply to anyone who drives on campus – all vehicles will have to divert their exhausts into the passenger compartment.

When these measures have gained general acceptance the administration will attack other health hazards. The guys who like to stand out in front of the PUB and spit on the ground will be confined to their own spitting cage. Drivers will no longer be allowed to blast hearing-destroying 90 decibel music while driving through the parking lot; the use of earphones will be required. The administration will then move to control visual pollution by instituting a permit process for the display of body piercings, tattoos, flab, thong underwear and butt cracks. The current practice of exposing these items in various combinations will be strictly forbidden. Finally, when these evils and evil-doers are controlled, the administration will move into the area of mental health and a list of dangerous ideas will be drawn up and proscribed from any mention on campus.

These measures will be taken for the good of all students and staff. Any dissent is, by definition, either misinformed or malicious and will be ignored. Those individuals who still hold the anachronistic delusion that their opinion is of some value may send expressions of praise and support to the administration, the Ebbtide (webbtide@yahoo.com) or to an email address established by student Derek Chapman to collect opinions on the smoking issue, shorelinesmoker@yahoo.com.

GW Bush: hired assassin

on our environment

Carol Brocker
Webmaster

Bush’s next target is our Pacific Northwest Wild Salmon!! In September 2000, Bush said “This state (Washington) faces a challenge: to save its salmon. For fishing families and businesses, (the salmon) is a vital resource. For Native Americans, they are a cultural cornerstone. For all of us, these fish are a wonder of nature, and they must be restored.”

Now, in a new policy (the details of which have not been released), Bush and his administration would like to add hatchery-bred salmon to any decision about protecting wild fish runs under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The change in policy is in response to a 2001 court victory by the Pacific Legal Foundation. In the case, a federal court ruled that the government was illegally excluding hatchery salmon from fish counts in order to qualify wild salmon for ESA protections.

“This policy circumvents the most basic tenets of Endangered Species Act and effectively lets the federal government off the hook for any responsibility to recover salmon and healthy rivers and streams up and down the West Coast,” said Kaitlin Lovell of Trout Unlimited.

It is not enough he is killing our old growth forests as fast as he can. Now Bush wants to destroy our salmon.

In his latest bag of tricks he’s trying, so he says, to promote salmon restoration in the Pacific Northwest. In reality, he will kill off our wild salmon.

With our old growth forest slated for destruction at a record pace, Bush has set his eyes on our wild salmon. What will we have left to be a symbol to attract tourists?