"Did you know? (Facts against smoking.)" written by Tinypliny on estrip.org

10/20/10 12:02 - 46.ºF - ID#52984

Did you know? (Facts against smoking.)

A recent debate on (e:dcoffee)'s journal - (e:dcoffee,52972) about smoking prompts me to remind everyone about how evil smoking actually is. Did you, for instance, know that:

Approximately, 30 percent of all cancer is caused directly by smoking. It is a risk factor for cancers of not only the lung, but also the larynx, the oral cavity, esophagus, bladder, kidney, pancreas, stomach and cervix.

And if that was not enough, 100% of Smokers inevitably end up with either emphysema or chronic bronchitis.

Admittedly, cancer is a rare disease, but 30% of all deaths due to cardiac disease is also directly attributable to smoking. Cardiac disease is the #1 killer in this country.

Children exposed to secondhand smoke in households are more likely to get asthma, chronic respiratory disease, middle ear infections and cardiac disease as adults, . More than a 3rd of all the children who have ever tried even one cigarette will become regular daily smokers before they leave high school.

US spends at least $100 billion every year for health care addressing smoking-related issues in its hospitals and clinics. The state makes payments of over $20 billion in smoking-caused Medicaid payments every year.

It is SO hard for me to sympathize when someone defiantly brings up smoking as an excusable recreational habit instead of feeling guilty about it. I just cannot see their point of view and maybe deep inside, don't want to. It is on par medically with all of the other hard drug addictions, simply because of the massive medical and financial impact it causes. As I write this, some MORON smoking in my building and hanging their cancer-sticks out their window is causing smoke to drift into my living space. You will excuse me if I feel this intense urge to go right up to them, scream in their face and choke them to death.

Blatant admission: All of this is completely plagiarized from various sources on the net. It is comforting to know that infinitely wiser people have arrived at these various damaging conclusions against smoking and that it is not some personal ill-supported propaganda of mine. Google each sentence on this blog and you will likely find a million peer-reviewed research documents in support.

tinypliny writes at 10:06:10 10/21/10 - Comment #58983: Hee Hee.

jason writes at 08:57:55 10/21/10 - Comment #58982: Okay Tiny, so don't smoke.

libertad writes at 12:07:39 10/21/10 - Comment #58980: @(e:metalpeter), I don't think I could have said it better myself. Addiction, and I think this one in particular are very complex. Tobacco use is done at a much more frequent rate than other addictions. Most other addictions could not sustain the frequency of abuse that smoking can for as long a period of time. In other addictions, use at such a high rate would result in either an inability to function normally, lethal overdoses or incarceration. This is, in my belief, the reason why illegal drug addicts have a harder time kicking cigarettes than the street drugs.

@(e:tinypliny), most people who are current smokers that enter a hospital for treatment (smoking related or not) are offered the nicotine patch. When the patient is released they will often remove it, most likely due to liability issues, because they are no longer under medical supervision. When people are released it is also very often a time of relapse for many very legitimate reasons. Smoking with the patch can be particularly dangerous to people who have already experienced some type of health trauma.

I don't believe inpatient smoking cessation is an option for probably 99% of smokers. Can't back that up scientifically but I believe it is an accurate guess. From what I have heard, the only type of treatment that people who are hospitalized for anything that can be linked to smoking is the patch and very rarely is behavioral counseling offered except for maybe a referral to the their state's quit line services.

metalpeter writes at 06:37:51 10/20/10 - Comment #58977: Just want to add something about the smoking addiction. I think there are a few factors to why it can be so hard to stop and it all comes down to multiple addictions and habits....

Yes there is the Addiction to the chemicals in them. But it is more then just that there is the addiction/habit of smoking. If you are at work you have a pattern and go out side at certain times. That is a habit at those times that you used to smoke what do you do. Hey everyone else is smoking and here you are alone or vice versa when you went out there you got to escape from everyone. Humans are creatures of habit. As an example at work when I work with certain people I right down their Name (PD, RF) but then when they take a day off habit makes me write them in even though my mind knows not to. I think that physical part is a big factor that habit, it is more then just the nicotine. I have heard of people using wooden cigarette or pencils so that they can get used to the feeling of holding them...... It is a very complex issue and what works for one person might not work for another in terms of quiting....

tinypliny writes at 07:26:23 10/20/10 - Comment #58972: Thanks for writing and adding to the post (e:libertad). It definitely balances the point of view and presents some hard facts about how we, as a medical community and political system are ALSO in a state of denial about the need to take and treat smoking more seriously.

I was not aware that taking off the nicotine patches was something that was forced on patients. I don't think it is a medically sound move because addictions cannot stop that abruptly and come back with even more force if nicotine patches are not slowly graded down. Surely everyone who has the faintest medical knowledge knows this.

Are the patients told that they have to continue treatment as an inpatient if they don't remove their nicotine patches? If they refuse to remove their patches, are they then given inpatient treatment for their addiction? Why is that a bad thing? I am not sure I understand the logic behind this remove-nicotine-patches or we won't let you go threat. What kind of diseases are we talking about? Is this true for all the spectrum of smoking-related hospitalizations? Why would they be still smoking when they enter the hospital if they are wearing the nicotine patch? We are missing something in this picture.

Political will is a non-existent thing. I have NO faith in politicians. They are scum who leech money out of people and go on egotistical trips from the power they have. If politicians and people in power had any intention of doing good, we would be a vastly better planet instead of a planet that is dying and in denial. :/

libertad writes at 05:09:56 10/20/10 - Comment #58971: I think we all do know this information, it would be very hard not to. You mentioned in your comment about the need for the addiction to be treated clinically and it already is. Nicotine addiction is listed in the DSM IV and treated in much the same way as other ailments. Unfortunately, this does not usually go beyond the writing of a script.

While almost any former illegal drug user will tell you that cigarette smoking is the hardest to stop they received more support getting of the street drugs. We offer very little mental health counseling to someone who needs/wants to stop. Please don't assume that people do not know what they are doing to themselves or that they don't really want to quit. Telling someone to quit or telling them they are going to get cancer or COPD is not enough to stop. There often is strong denial which is just a way to cope with their inability to stop. We do not offer inpatient care for smoking cessation which I firmly believe is needed for many seriously dependent individuals.

Do you know how many patients I have spoken to who are hospitalized for smoking related illnesses that are released but only first after they rip the nicotine patch off of their arm? The medical profession is setting these people up to fail at a time when they are most vulnerable. Then *we* look down on them and think of how foolish they are to continue to smoke. How weak and selfish they are to burden everyone else with the costs of their illnesses.

My job can only provide so much help. I can provide up to a half hour of phone counseling for an addiction that starts when people are still children. Many I talk to have been smoking for 40 to 50 years and the only counseling they will ever get is going to be less than 30 minutes on the phone. Often people are humiliated by their addiction and therefore do not ever even get the brief counseling we give over the phone.

So here is the big picture. We have a government that is now dependent on the sale of cigarettes cutting what little help is available in smoking cessation. They will never make cigarettes illegal in our lifetimes. It didn't work with prohibition of alcohol and it isn't going to work on cigarettes. I also believe that they need to stop manipulating the tobacco to make it more addictive. The time to do this is now. This is something that can be done politically unlike making them illegal. We can do this without making them appear safer. It will make it easier to stop and harder to get hooked if they would just regulate the production. The answer is never going to just lie with just one solution.

Permalink: Did_you_know_Facts_against_smoking_.html
Words: 369
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/20/10 12:20

Category: simple pliny

10/16/10 03:52 - 57.ºF - ID#52959

Sick of clutter.

My flat is in a dreadful state of preventable clutter and it's annoying! There is always this small corner in my flat that has a big laundry box with piled up papers, journals, books and whatnots. I am determined to get rid of that pile today. I really like the idea of a floor level "bookshelf".

My floors are not grey but they are due for a thorough cleaning and polish. It's been 7 months since I polished them last.

tinypliny writes at 08:04:07 11/20/11 - Comment #66332: That is a really nice space.. How terrible. My corner clutter has built up ONCE AGAIN! AAArgh I made that floor level floating bookshelf work for about half a year and then I started throwing everything on top of it till it became a pile.

I think my floors are somewhat okay now - polishing them makes them very orangey but they need a clean up too. NO time till december end.

I don't like those chairs in that flat. I would sit on the floor near the windows with the low table. :)

tinypliny writes at 01:30:26 10/18/10 - Comment #58917: I would be in heaven if that was my flat!! Sadly, it is not.
Anyway, mission accomplished. I managed to get rid of every little sheet of paper that I won't be reading, gave away a zillion journals to the unofficial Mayflower basement freecycle, washed the grime off my keyboard, washed all the piled up dishes and scrubbed the sink, polished the floors so much that I think they are rather slippery now, populated a "floating" almost-floor level bookshelf with books that I will actually read, rounded up the books that I have always hated to be sold, packed up folders and old statistical methods notes to be given away, found (e:jbeatty)'s Lebanese cooking book that I never gave back (despicable me!), found a credit card that I thought I had lost and a cheque for $11!

Next weekend: Bathroom cleanup and polishing.

LOL, I guess this makes me sound psychotic, but you have no idea how much of a clutter a pile of random paper and cardboard can make. I guess this is part of how I get ready for a gloomy winter ahead - by making the flat so shiny that I can ignore the terrible weather even though I have no curtains. :-)

What I really want is the Philips LivingColours :::link::: but at $199, it's a bit too expensive to justify as a "winterizing" purchase.

dimartiste writes at 05:25:51 10/17/10 - Comment #58914: You would actually have a heart attack to enter my humble abode. I have years worth of paperwork to file (thankfully I already have the filing cabinets);Things that need to be gone through, thrown out and reorganized to my new thought processes. Beautiful flat BTW! Very neat and organized. Space as a great deal to do with your perspective. If you had a small closed flat with separate rooms your clutter would not be the same kind of noticeable. Your open floor plan makes the littlest thing out of order come to your attention. I was less curious about the rugs versus white chairs, how do you keep them White?

metalpeter writes at 10:04:45 10/17/10 - Comment #58906: great comment by (e:libertad) .... It sounds like what you need is One Filling Cabinet That could maybe be in like a corner or some type of thing to hold things you need but hide them away (I need about 7 of those).... Here is the thing that is odd. Books you read on the floor is clutter but books on the table displayed for people to look at or magazines in that half circle are part of home decorating.........

libertad writes at 06:59:27 10/16/10 - Comment #58905: Only pyschotics live in places like those. I like to have some clutter. Books on the floor?

Permalink: Sick_of_clutter_.html
Words: 81
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/16/10 03:54

Category: the odes

10/13/10 10:43 - 53.ºF - ID#52949

So what did you do today?

And now I just want to sleep for 100 hours.
Good Night.

Permalink: So_what_did_you_do_today_.html
Words: 14
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/13/10 10:43

Category: e:strip

10/10/10 08:27 - 59.ºF - ID#52932

The votes are in.

One of my three faithful readers thinks I sound like a super-boring, pedantic, self-aggrandizing and basically, obnoxiously patronizing prick on my blog.

Yes, thanks very much mum, for sharing all of that. Your honesty is refreshing.

Permalink: The_votes_are_in_.html
Words: 38
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/10/10 08:27

Category: i-tech

10/09/10 09:58 - 55.ºF - ID#52923

Classmate Tablet

What I really want is this. The design screams "Education!!" - like no other tablet can.

Plus of course, I want to able to toss the laptop on my desk in moments of frustration and not have to repent later. And how cool is that 180 deg swivel camera?!

So instead of this conversation:

Me: Mum, it's snowing here!
M: Really?
Me: Yeah! Look! *Twist Twist*
{Major twisting, silent cords tangling and..}
Me: Damn! Sorry. Unfortunately I cracked my LCD screen with the power plug. Let's talk later.

I could have this one:

Me: Mum, it's snowing here!
M: Really?
Me: Yeah! Look! *Swivel Swivel*
M: That is lovely! Are you wearing a sweater? I hope you are wearing a muffler. Did you have some tea? Are you eating well ... or anything at all? I can clearly see your bones sticking out.
Looks like you have a cold...
Me: Wait. How can you see all that when you are looking at the snow?
M: Don't change the subject.
Me: Damn! Sorry. The connection is awful. Let's talk later.

Permalink: Classmate_Tablet.html
Words: 179
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/09/10 10:13

Category: the odes

10/09/10 09:47 - 55.ºF - ID#52922

A little wicked wicket gate.

Completely annoyed with the new wicked wicker wicked gate that has sprung up blocking the small concrete path that leads around the LinNor building.

It was the only way to avoid jumping over or falling into the gaping holes of construction all around the North, N.Pearl and Franklin intersection.

Which means I have one more fence I really want to learn to jump.

And this time it's not even an option. I would rather jump this fence than strategize my way around and across a muddy slushy pit... and possibly fall in. The trouble is I am not sure jumping that fence is going to be easy to begin with, let alone jump with a long coat on or in the rain or snow - when that shortcut path REALLY helped. Damn you. LinNor.

Permalink: A_little_wicked_wicket_gate_.html
Words: 139
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/09/10 09:52

Category: music

10/09/10 08:40 - 53.ºF - ID#52921

Hackwave

Totally digging Pronobozo's electronic-D&B masterpiece - Hackwave right now!

Permalink: Hackwave.html
Words: 13
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/09/10 08:42

Category: the odes

10/09/10 08:20 - 53.ºF - ID#52920

Danbo

The Japanese have the weirdest obsession with crazy new toy concepts.

Meet Danbos.

Look at the quality of these boxes! Makes Amazon.co.jp that much cooler.

-- Photos belong to Randy Santa-Ana

-- What in the world is a Danbo?

Permalink: Danbo.html
Words: 57
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/09/10 08:20

Category: the odes

10/07/10 09:25 - 57.ºF - ID#52915

Crows on Linwood

A murder of crows is shrouding Linwood right now.

They are cawing up a frenzy. They have been fluttering around since the afternoon. I wonder if one of the baby crows has fallen out of a nest or if someone has died on the street.

1. Photo from

2. American Crows have a fascinating natural history

Permalink: Crows_on_Linwood.html
Words: 73
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/07/10 09:35

Category: the odes

10/05/10 09:55 - 47.ºF - ID#52904

Baking is sub-cellular alchemy.

Didn't you know?

My building management wants me
to freeze to death.
Can't feel my toes or
the tip of my nose.
My fingers are turning
a lethal shade of whitish-purple.

No. That's not Deep Purple or you know, Annie Lennox. It's just that weird fifth floor tenant in that corner building up the street from (e:PMT) - croaking to the tune of Die Another day. So in celebration of not being frozen already, I just read this on the fresh loaf:

I decided to revive my dormant Carl Griffith's 1847 Oregon Trail starter last week, so I had a lot of nice ripe starter by the end of the week on hand that I wanted to use up. I used an excel spreadsheet I made up for Flo's 1-2-3 sourdough to use up any amount of excess ripe sourdough starter, except in this case, I needed to increase the hydration since I was using all whole wheat flour in the final dough, so it became 1-2.25-3 bread (78% hydration final dough). The reason I made this as 90% whole wheat is simply because the excess starter I had was made up of about 25% whole wheat and 75% AP, so even though the final dough is all whole wheat, there is about 10% AP in the overall formula due to the large amount of starter

That is just so very confusing on so many levels. I am going to try and decipher all of this patiently. So Griffith made some kind of a sourdough starter from the yeast he collected from the Oregon trail? Back in 1847? And in 2010, exposure to these mutant yeast made thefreshloaf bloke use Excel for quantum calculations. He has an alter-ego Flo, who is learning to count at the kindergarten - obviously a Frog, by the sound of it. That much is crystal clear, thank you.

That's it. The rest of it is quite clearly in *that* cryptographic code taken from the most superficial crater on Jupiter's 10th moon. I think my fingers are too purple for wikipedia.