Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Fading Fast]

It's all part of the "culture of cool," the idea that doing such things somehow tells The Man where to get off. That culture is as heavily marketed and promoted commercially as anything else, in the guise of being "alternative culture." The Boys work both sides of the street, with no regard for contradiction.

You tell The Man where to get off by actually standing up and telling The Man where to get off. You accomplish absolutely no rebellion of any value sitting on your rear end inhaling poisonous stinking filth.

I understand your meta-analysis (you taught me "meta") and get the "high-level" selling of "cool" "alt," but still say, those are some brutally hard-hitting, anti-smoking commercials. If young people simply tune them out - then it is what it is - but everyone I've talked to who's seen them, has been impacted by them. It appears to me that TBFM employed their skills quite effectively in making anti-smoking adds.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Boys don't care who signs their checks as long as they clear.

Originally the anti-smoking ads were mandated by the FCC -- during the 1960s, when the government was battling to get the tobacco industry off the air, they passed a regulation requiring one anti-smoking ad to be run for every tobacco commercial aired by any network or local station. These were the days of "Kick the habit -- join the unhooked generation!," in line with the idea that smoking is a drug addiction like any other. The graphic gory ads didn't really come along until fairly recently, and were inspired by requirements in many other countries that all tobacco packaging be dominated by gruesome photos of cancerous lungs and such. So far Big Tobacco has kept such requirements at bay in the US, but that won't last forever. Of course, they're not too worried, now that they're all set to take over the marketing of Big Pot, which figures to be an even bigger moneymaker for them.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

The first anti-smoking "commercial" that I recall was one featuring William Tallman, best known as Perry Mason's hapless opponent, D.A. Hamilton Burger. It appeared in 1968, and made an indelible impression on me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yul Brynner made one very much like that one -- it was filmed right before he died, but not released until after he'd passed. The impact was unforgettable.

 

[Paisley]

You tell The Man where to get off by actually standing up and telling The Man where to get off. You accomplish absolutely no rebellion of any value sitting on your rear end inhaling poisonous stinking filth.

In an interview many years ago, David Goerlitz, a former Winston model, said he was at a meeting in Colorado and--along with the altitude getting to him--found it odd that the cigarette company executives weren't smoking. One of them told him, "We don't smoke this $%!+, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black, and the stupid."

The Man makes money off your nicotine habit. So do a lot of middle-aged fuddy-duddies with tobacco stocks in their portfolio.

Now, if you work where I do, The Man won't even let you smoke in your car on your break (the company owns the parking lot). Fair? Maybe not, but discouraging smokers from working there likely keeps your health insurance premiums down and keeps your workplace from catching fire.

 

[tonyb]

FWIW, some employers, major ones among them, will not employ smokers. Period. Full stop. Can't even smoke on their own time, away from the workplace.

 

[Stearmen]

 

[Fading Fast]

In an interview many years ago, David Goerlitz, a former Winston model, said he was at a meeting in Colorado and--along with the altitude getting to him--found it odd that the cigarette company executives weren't smoking. One of them told him, "We don't smoke this $%!+, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black, and the stupid."

The Man makes money off your nicotine habit. So do a lot of middle-aged fuddy-duddies with tobacco stocks in their portfolio.

Now, if you work where I do, The Man won't even let you smoke in your car on your break (the company owns the parking lot). Fair? Maybe not, but discouraging smokers from working there likely keeps your health insurance premiums down and keeps your workplace from catching fire.

My girlfriend's father worked for Westvaco and he had the opposite experience. He said that, at least up through the '80s (when he still had tobacco company accounts), the tobacco company executives chain smoked and meeting with them at their offices was a always a throwback to the '60s smoke-filled meeting rooms. But that was +/- 30 years ago - one would assume they've changed by now.

Hadn't thought about this, but how do tobacco companies attract young, new managers? Are there any 20 years old who want to work for Big Tobacco? My guess is pay does the trick, but it must be higher than comparable companies' pay as I bet there are a lot of kids who would never consider even working for a tobacco company.

 

[Fading Fast]

FWIW, some employers, major ones among them, will not employ smokers. Period. Full stop. Can't even smoke on their own time, away from the workplace.

While I'm good with the sentiment - is that legal?

 

[tonyb]

While I'm good with the sentiment - is that legal?

I believe it varies state to state.

I quit the habit myself in '06, so such policies have no direct effect on me. Still, I remain opposed to them and to their legality. And I strongly suspect the policies are motivated by desires (on the employers' part) other than the stated ones.

Obesity is unhealthful. So is a sedentary lifestyle. Consuming more than small amounts of alcohol ain't exactly good for a person, either. The rationale in refusing to employ tobacco users might as readily apply to denying employment to overeaters and drinkers and couch potatoes.

 

[HudsonHawk]

While I'm good with the sentiment - is that legal?

Depends on where you live. I think about half the states have "smoker protection" laws, that prohibit discrimination based on off-duty, lawful behavior, including tobacco usage.

 

[Stearmen]

I believe it varies state to state.

I quit the habit myself in '06, so such policies have no direct effect on me. Still, I remain opposed to them and to their legality. And I strongly suspect the policies are motivated by desires (on the employers' part) other than the stated ones.

Obesity is unhealthful. So is a sedentary lifestyle. Consuming more than small amounts of alcohol ain't exactly good for a person, either. The rationale in refusing to employ tobacco users might as readily apply to denying employment to overeaters and drinkers and couch potatoes.

Of course, if the person doing the hiring notice smoke on your cloths or alcohol on your breath, you know where your resume is going! Some companies do drug testing. I believe I have read that it takes longer for an over weight person to get a job. There are all kinds of things that they can get away with, and if they are asked they will have another reason for not hiring!

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I haven't seen the studies, but I don't doubt the conclusions. People generally respond more favorably to good-lookin' people (there's a reason they're called "attractive"), and obesity is contrary to our standards of beauty.

It isn't fair, of course. And employers (and others) who reject people on account of their looks may well be denying themselves the best candidate.

We are left to wonder to what extent our standards of beauty are culturally defined, as opposed to "hard wired."

 

[Fading Fast]

^^^ And the flip side, if employers are required to provide healthcare and sick days, and away from those things, people missing work (even if they don't get paid) disrupts the business and cost money, is it wrong for employers to want to choose those that look healthy (don't smell of smoke, etc.) and have a demographic (younger) that statistically says they'll get sick less. I am not an employer and am not arguing my personal view, I'm just saying I understand the thought process.

I've worked for small and large businesses, successful ones and ones that went bankrupt - not all owners / employers are mean, money-grubbing people. A lot of them work hard just to survive - really and sincerely want to pay their employees fairly - and sick employees can threaten that survivability. Is it wrong for that owner to think about these things?

I am really just putting the thought out there as I think it is wrong to discriminate, but I've been in the trenches and understand why an owner would want a healthy workforce and would make hiring choices based on that. Discrimination is wrong / but wanting to keep your business going is not wrong either.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

To this day I thank God that my 4th grade teacher showed our class photos of diseased lungs caused by smoking. Forty-six years later, I can still see those black, horrible looking things in my mind. I never smoked thanks to Miss Mauck being one of the first anti-smoking advocates in our school district. When my grandmother and my dad would smoke around me, I'd sit there with a magazine fanning the smoke away from me and back to them - they weren't happy about it, but I didn't care. I can't even go into a house where a smoker lives because I feel like I can't breathe. I also hate walking into or out of a business where the employees are allowed to sit and smoke right at the entrance and exit doors. I always say loud enough for them to hear that I didn't shower that day to go home smelling like an ashtray.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In the 1910s, the delicate flowers of the Anti-Cigarette League would walk right up to smokers, snatch their stinkweed out of their faces and dash it to the ground, and then hand them a pamphlet on the dangers of smoking.

It's a myth that "smoking was popular because nobody knew it was dangerous." The negative health effects of tobacco use were known a century ago -- and the Boys were hard at work suppressing those facts in every possible way. Their most common routine, as thoroughly documented by journalism critic George Seldes in the early 1940s, was to, first, spend heavily to advertise tobacco products in newspapers, and once they'd established a dependent relationship, to threaten to withdraw that advertising if any news even slightly critical of smoking or tobacco use was published in any part of the paper. The same was true of radio, where tobacco advertisers spent more than any other product. This money gave Big Tobacco effective control of all the popular media in the US, and there wasn't a thing that could be done about it under the laws of the time.

Seldes did everything he could in the 1940s to undermine Big Tobacco by publishing and circulating books and alternative-media articles about its deadly product -- and then in the early 1950s, columnist Walter Winchell took up the cause. A vocal supporter of the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund, and the most powerful single newspaperman of his generation, Winchell began denouncing tobacco as a cancer risk in his newspaper column and on his television and radio programs more than a decade before the Surgeon General was finally roused out of his torpor and moved to do something about the situation. Winchell was hardly a paragon of high-class journalism, but in taking on that crusade he demonstrated he had more guts than any of the "legitimate" journalists of his time.

 

[Paisley]

King James was on to the dangers of tobacco back in 1604.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Counterblaste_to_Tobacco

 

[Paisley]

^^^ And the flip side, if employers are required to provide healthcare and sick days, and away from those things, people missing work (even if they don't get paid) disrupts the business and cost money, is it wrong for employers to want to choose those that look healthy (don't smell of smoke, etc.) and have a demographic (younger) that statistically says they'll get sick less. I am not an employer and am not arguing my personal view, I'm just saying I understand the thought process.

I've worked for small and large businesses, successful ones and ones that went bankrupt - not all owners / employers are mean, money-grubbing people. A lot of them work hard just to survive - really and sincerely want to pay their employees fairly - and sick employees can threaten that survivability. Is it wrong for that owner to think about these things?

I am really just putting the thought out there as I think it is wrong to discriminate, but I've been in the trenches and understand why an owner would want a healthy workforce and would make hiring choices based on that. Discrimination is wrong / but wanting to keep your business going is not wrong either.

My employer has a 90-day probationary period where you're allowed to be absent or late or forget your badge only so many times--and it's not many. The supervisors I've met don't brook any nonsense. When you look around, you see people with their noses to the grindstone; one of the reasons I was hired was because I seemed like a hard worker. That kind of culture weeds out people who are unable or unwilling to pull their weight. And as you alluded to, it's one reason the company is growing, profitable and able to offer a generous benefits package.

 

[Paisley]

Of course, if the person doing the hiring notice smoke on your cloths or alcohol on your breath, you know where your resume is going! Some companies do drug testing. I believe I have read that it takes longer for an over weight person to get a job. There are all kinds of things that they can get away with, and if they are asked they will have another reason for not hiring!

Some people might think of Colorado as the Amsterdam of the West since you can legally buy recreational pot, but employers there can and do screen for drug use. The managing partner where I used to work said plainly that he didn't want drug users working there.

 

[Stearmen]

^^^^^
I haven't seen the studies, but I don't doubt the conclusions. People generally respond more favorably to good-lookin' people (there's a reason they're called "attractive"), and obesity is contrary to our standards of beauty.

It isn't fair, of course. And employers (and others) who reject people on account of their looks may well be denying themselves the best candidate.

We are left to wonder to what extent our standards of beauty are culturally defined, as opposed to "hard wired."

It's learned! I remember the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, when the African Bush Man sees his first white women. "That morning, Xi saw the ugliest person he'd ever come across. She was as pale as something that had crawled out of a rotting log. Her hair was quite gruesome; long and stringy and white, as if she was very old. She was very big - you'd have to dig the whole day to find enough food to feed her." Incidentally, she was very attractive by Western standards.