greedy grubby globalists

Della is 49, happily married with kids living independently and has a high powered job earning her a six-figure salary. What is more important, though, is that she enjoys an untarnished reputation in the business world. She will only work for ethical corporations but finding such an employer among so many greedy grubby globalists is not easy.

"Mostly," says Della, "the global lay-off frenzy that heralded the start of the 21st century was a genuine coping reaction by companies in trouble. Those that delayed cutting staff went under. And plenty went under. However, there is growing evidence that some companies were not in trouble and simply laid off workers in order to artificially boost stock value."

"When you work for such a company," says Della, "you are placed in an ethical dilemma. Do you stay and show loyalty above and beyond your gut feelings, or do you consider that working for such a company is beneath your dignity?"

"A successful career woman," advises Della, "does not stay with such a company. Her value is very much allied to the reputation of the companies with which she is associated. She does not allow herself to become devalued by working for a company that sells socially unacceptable products or is in any way engaged in unethical practices."

"When you read about companies that have laid off hundreds of workers - mostly at a strategic time, either in terms of the fiscal year or the accrued benefits of the workers - and then shortly afterwards have hired hundreds of contract workers or outsourcers to do the same work, one gets to comprehend, very sadly," says Della, "that for some companies it is all a greedy and grubby game."

"These days," says Della, "the salaries of more and more company executives are being sacrificed for stock. Rather than a seven figure salary, it could be six figures or less with stock. In fact, stock options are often offered to new staff as a perk but you would be silly to sacrifice salary for a nebulous bit of paper - especially when such offers imply a commitment to work long hours for the benefit of a company in which you would be a miniscule shareholder."

"With company executives depending largely upon stock value to boost their personal fortunes, it figures," says Della, "that they are going to take on a more aggressive role. Rather than their traditional role as servants of shareholders, they now have both the power and the incentive to manipulate the company's value for personal gain. Look at what happened to Enron!"

"Artificially boosting profit margins by laying off workers is the quickest and easiest way to boost stock value," says Della, "and if this laying off can be accomplished at a time when other companies are seriously in trouble -- laying off staff in order to genuinely stay afloat -- it can pass as a legitimate lay-off rather than the greedy and grubby maneuver that it is."

Della advises that when official figures show an increase in job losses, yet an increase in new job creation, what we are looking at is nothing more than sleight of hand.

Remember the Pink Slip parties organized by recruiters during the layoff frenzy a few years ago? These parties almost indecently coincided with the exact date at which certain companies laid off staff, making it appear that they were part of, rather than a reaction to, the lay-off frenzy.

"You see," says Della, "the recruiters were invariably hiring people as contract workers -- or consultants, same thing -- to do the very same jobs they once did as long-term employees. Only this time around the employees were not getting the financial benefits of long-term employment that they would have been entitled to had they not been laid-off before such entitlements fell due."

"In this respect," says Della, "older workers are prime targets when company executives decide to lay off staff in order to boost their personal stock. They are not first in the firing line because they are too old for the firm's image, or not as productive as younger staff. They are first in the firing line because they are due for entitlements. This is grossly unethical and if it is legal, as it appears to be, then a law should be passed immediately to make it illegal."

So, would a successful career woman work for a company that has laid off staff for the sole purpose of boosting the stock value and thus the personal wealth of its executives?

"No. Definitely not," says Della. "A successful career woman guards her reputation. Wealth gained by unethical practices is likely to tarnish her value."

Would a successful career woman accept re-employment as a consultant or contract worker by a company that fired her before she was due for long-term financial benefits?

"No. Definitely not," says Della. "A successful career woman would not fall for such exploitation."

Would a successful career woman buy the goods or services of a company that has laid off staff for the sole purpose of boosting the stock value and thus the personal wealth of its executives?

"No. Definitely not," says Della. "She would boycott them."

Most women are so concerned with job survival that they don’t look at the big picture. Successful career women, like Della, have the big picture in mind at all times and it is not just their incomes that reflect their worth but also their untarnished reputation.

This story first appeared as corporate ethics

anti-smokers target women, avoid men

After several attacks from anti-smokers who deliberately avoided smoking men in order to target her, Gilda, 56, is wondering whether the anti-smoking crusaders are chicken-livered cowards or whether the campaign is designed to stop women, not men, smoking.

"Traditionally, men have always smoked in our society -- they had smoking rooms and smoking jackets and tobacco clubs where they hung out -- but it's only in relatively recent times that women took up the habit," explains Gilda. "It was very popular with emancipated women from the 1920s onwards, but didn't catch on with working class women until the 1950s."

"We all know what happened after the late 1960s," laughs Gilda, "and I'm wondering whether the anti-smoking campaign is just another backlash by men and their dependent women against feminism."

"Nobody in their right mind could object to the image of a macho guy smoking, let alone try to stop him -- he's so cool," laughs Gilda, "but it's a different story with women smokers, isn't it?"

"Guys of my generation -- the baby boomers -- are reasonably comfortable with women smokers," says Gilda,"It's the older men, the younger men and immigrant men of all ages who seem to have trouble with women smoking."

"Where I lived last year was an elderly couple in their 70s and although the wife was pleasant the husband was incredibly hostile to me -- not only attacking me for smoking but for being a single women, too," laughs Gilda. "He was from the old school who felt a woman's place was at home, under a man's thumb, and that smoking was something guys did, not women!"

"That guy would have a lot in common with Islamic men and might enjoy living under Sharia law where he could stone a few women to death," sighs Gilda, "and his beliefs are pretty widely held by men, and dependent women, of his generation. Too young to have fought with the smoking men and women in WWII, and too old to have enjoyed the 70s. Poor, lost souls."

"There were other smokers in the apartment block -- mostly male -- but that guy left them alone and just attacked me!"

"With immigrant men from backward cultures who denigrate women you expect a bad reception -- and I've had plenty of those in recent years thanks to our government opening the flood gates to middle-eastern refugees," sighs Gilda. "They just don't seem to understand -- or want to understand -- that women in our society have equal rights to men, including the right to smoke."

"At a outdoor coffee bar one lunch-time I was accosted by a middle-eastern man who screamed at me for smoking and raised his hand as if to strike me," says Gilda. "I didn't even see him arrive with his wife and baby and sit behind me. I was too busy reading. Considering we were seated on the sidewalk with vehicles belching out their poisons I was surprised that he didn't see the irony of what he was saying and, why, indeed, he didn't use the non-smoking section of the coffee bar if he objected to cigarette smoke."

"Again, several male smokers were seated outside but this guy left them alone and attacked me," sighs Gilda. "And guess what, the male smokers smirked rather than coming to my aid. Very gallant of them, eh?"

"Young men, too, seem to be particularly averse to women smoking," says Gilda. "I'd be a rich woman if I were paid a dollar for every young man who thought it was his male prerogative to insult a lady for smoking."

"But it's not just men who behave badly towards smoking women," says Gilda. "Women of all ages -- even my own -- seem to be coming out of the woodwork and beating up on members of their own sex who smoke."

"And, like the cowardly male anti-smokers, they target women smokers and leave the male smokers alone," says Gilda. "The young girls at my office have similar complaints so it's not just older women being targeted. In fact, some of the young girls have told me stories about being physically assaulted for smoking by the men in their lives."

"While it's sensible for female crusaders to avoid male smokers in case of violence, it's downright cowardly for the male crusaders to attack women and leave male smokers alone, isn't it? asks Gilda. "So, what is it? Are we looking at deliberate discrimination against female smokers, or just cowardice?"

"Do the anti-smokers want to stop everyone from smoking, or just women?"
"Is the hidden agenda of the anti-smoking campaign to regain tobacco for exclusive male use?"

"Are macho male smokers behind it all?"

"Don't laugh," sighs Gilda. "In this crazy world of government spin and faceless male elites ruling the world behind the scenes, anything is possible."

"You'd think, wouldn't you, that after fifty years of feminism we'd have more respect and political clout than we have today," adds Gilda. "We're going backwards -- no doubt about that -- and I blame globalization and immigration for eroding the feminist values that the grand old dames of the 20th century won for us."

"And, yes, smoking is a feminist issue," asserts Gilda. "Remember the cigarettes Virginia Slims and their slogan 'you've come a long way, baby'? It's all about being treated equally, and if women are being victimized for smoking and men aren't, then something is going on that all women,smokers or not, should be alerted to because you don't know what's coming next."

anti-social smokers?

Contrary to the belief that smoking is mainly a sociable habit, taken up by impressionable young people in order to fit in with a crowd -- a belief upon which anti-smoking deterrents are based -- Topaz, 23, took it up because she wanted to keep people -- especially men -- away from her!

"It's the most effective way I know to avoid unwanted attentions," laughs Topaz, "and when some pushy guy dares to break into my personal space to tell me how much I stink, and how unattractive he thinks smoking women are, it only reinforces my belief that smoking is one of the best defences a girl can have."

"I know that a lot of smokers -- men and women -- feel very threatened by this sort of abuse," says Topaz, "but in today's anti-smoking climate you cannot really expect people to behave otherwise towards you."

"Social smokers are extremely vulnerable to this sort of abuse," explains Topaz, "and that's why they're quitting in droves. They cannot handle people hating them. They want so much to be loved that they'd eat dog poo is someone influential told them it would make them more lovable. Poor souls!"

"The self-medicating smokers are terribly defensive when faced with abuse from anti-smokers," says Topaz. "They are likely to respond with equal abuse or slink back into their shells of despair depending upon their personalities or size."

"As for anti-social smokers like me, it's water off a duck's back," laughs Topaz, "and yes, I do understand the irony of my situation. I realize that smoking in public is likely to attract attention -- which I don't want -- but if I did NOT smoke I would receive a lot more attention. Get it?"

"Some girls -- consciously or otherwise -- actually put on weight to avoid unwanted attentions," says Topaz, "and that option was not attractive to me. I wouldn't like myself if I were fat. Smoking suited my purposes perfectly."

"If you cannot understand why I took up smoking to avoid unwanted attention then you are either a man or a very ugly girl," laughs Topaz. "I have been hassled by men since I was a little girl, and I just didn't want to be preyed on any more."

"Also, I didn't want other girls being mean to be because I am better looking than they are."

"I didn't want to solve this problem by making myself unattractive --- putting on weight, wearing ugly spectacles or wearing false buck teeth," laughs Topaz, "and I couldn't hide myself in a burka like women in other cultures do, so I decided to take up a dirty, stinking, disgusting habit that would make me a universal pariah."

"It worked like a charm," laughs Topaz, "and what's more, I enjoy it."

"No, I wouldn't say that I am anti-social -- a loner -- by nature," explains Topaz, "but I am probably a lot more self-contained than most people are."

"I have a good job, I'm paid very well and my boss -- a woman -- disapproves of my habit without disapproving of me," says Topaz. "She understands why I started smoking and just tells me not to smoke around her!"

"As for boyfriends," laughs Topaz, "I choose them rather than them choosing me."

"When I see a guy I like, I won't smoke if he's not smoking -- and yes, I can stop smoking when I want to because I'm not doing it to medicate myself."

"Preferably, I'd choose a guy who doesn't smoke because I don't want to take on a guy who may have problems," says Topaz, "and besides which I want children one day."

"I wasn't raised in a smoking home and I wouldn't want my children to be exposed to extra pollutants while they are developing," explains Topaz. "Our environment is toxic enough with vehicle and industrial pollutants and while adults can take it I don't believe little children can."

"Am I an anti-social menace because I smoke?" asks Topaz. "Well, I suppose I am in a way, but in a society that's anti-social towards me -- encouraging men to be predatory and women to be their playthings -- a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to protect herself."

powwows and peace pipes

Celeste is a school teacher -- no, she doesn't smoke on school premises -- and she points out that what is sadly missing from the ongoing war between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations -- and the ongoing harassment of smokers by community bullies that results from it -- is a genuine desire to resolve the conflict.

"I was watching the great foes of Northern Ireland -- the Republican extremist Martin McGuinness and the Loyalist extremist Ian Paisley -- finally resolve their differences after an endless war that took many lives and ruined even more," says Celeste, "and it suddenly occurred to me that the tobacco war has been going on for almost as long and it's about time that it, too, ended."

"It's probably not a particularly appropriate suggestion," laughs Celeste, "but what they need to do is to sit down, have a powwow, resolve their differences and smoke a peace pipe."

"Personally, I don't encounter much harassment where I live and work -- we're a pretty laid back sort of community," says Celeste. "While the principal doesn't approve of staff who smoke he's happy to butt out of our personal lives after working hours, and I'm happy to preach all the anti-smoking stuff to the kids because they need to be informed of the health hazards of all drugs."

"It's a different matter, though, when my husband and I have to travel," sighs Celeste. "What's with you city people? There are so many non-smoking signs and self-appointed citizen smoke police in the city that we can't believe we're in the same country!"

"Twice in the past six months I've been harassed by these self-appointed citizen smoke police -- for smoking (with my own personal ashtray) in a park and then outside a library, neither area prohibiting smoking," sighs Celeste, "and I can imagine how horrific this sort of environment would be if you have to put up with it every day."

"What's more scary is that when my husband and I tally these harassing encounters he receives half as many as I do -- and he smokes twice as much," sighs Celeste. "The harassers, so far, have all been male, so it's not just smokers they are targeting but women smokers particularly -- and this puts a nasty slant on it all."

"As I see it, if the ongoing war between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations came to an end, so would the ongoing harassment of smokers by community bullies that results from it," says Celeste. "So, how about it guys? Are your agendas negotiable or non-negotiable? Are you like Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, willing to make peace; or are you like Hamas and Israel, with the former pledged to destroy the other?"

"If we put up a wigwam on some neutral ground, provided you with the finest feathers to adorn your noble heads and gave you the choice of smoking the peace pipe or swigging back some fine whisky, or both, would you meet for a powwow?"

"It was once the time-honored way ancient cultures -- and some of our ancestors -- resolved their differences," says Celeste, "and it's a tragedy, really, that smoking the peace pipe would now be seen as a filthy, dirty, stinking and totally anti-social habit."

"Smoke -- in all its forms -- has incredible powers over and above its mundane uses," says Celeste. "It's been used for thousands of years as a medium for communication, healing and rites in a variety of ancient cultures."

"And tobacco -- like most plants -- has medicinal as well as toxic properties," explains Celeste. "We don't even know half of the magic of plants and herbs that ancient cultures knew -- this knowledge, an oral one, died out when the last ancient culture was wiped out."

"Lighting tobacco and smoking it," says Celeste, "is a peaceful and healing experience for me and, I'd say, for all smokers. It's why we do it, guys. Get it?"

"I'm certainly not going to advise that everybody should take up the habit," laughs Celeste. "On the contrary, I think it only appeals -- in its deepest sense -- to people with a spiritual connection to our ancient roots."

"What can be more fundamental to being a human being than our relationship with fire?"

"I know there are social smokers -- people who just put a cigarette in their mouths to make out while they're in company with smokers -- but they're not real smokers," says Celeste. "And I don't think chain smokers are real smokers, either -- they need stronger medication for what ails them."

"Someone who smokes alone, or in quiet accord with another smoker, is showing a spiritual connection to our ancient roots," says Celeste, "and it's this 'peace pipe' affect that's sorely needed in the tobacco war."

"Once the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking organizations have made their peace I don't expect that harassment of smokers by community bullies will stop overnight," sighs Celeste, "and I don't think powwows and peace pipes are a particularly a good way to deal with bullies in any case."

"What the harassing bullies need is a bit of zap-pow and a piece of pipe stuck where it hurts."

smoking in japan

Prior to becoming a widow, Felicity's life revolved around her job and her husband, Bill -- a heavy smoker like herself -- who was killed by a drunk driver not lung cancer; and of all the countries she's visited since his death it was only in far-away Japan that she was able to light up in public without attracting the sort of hate-filled censure that she exprienced everywhere else.

"Bill's generous life insurance policy allowed me to retire early and devote my life to traveling regularly between continents to visit family and friends," says Felicity, "but as bad as the post-9/11 restrictions on overseas travel have been, none is as bad as the restrictions that have also been put on smokers, not just at airports but in all areas of life."

"There's something about having plenty of money that opens the doors you want opened -- such as travel -- and shuts those you want closed -- such as work," says Felicity, "but unfortunately in respect of my smoking it hasn't helped me at all."

"I've been smoking since I was 14, I enjoy it and have no intention of quitting," says Felicity. "For all the heath warnings it was not smoking that killed Bill and it was chain-smoking, not medication or God, that got me through the terrible period after his death."

"Amazingly, while I never got abused for smoking when Bill was alive I seem to attract heaps of it now."

"People don't seem to abuse men, young women or couples for smoking," says Felicity, "but older women out alone seem to be easy targets. Honestly, Bill would turn in his grave if he could see how people treat me now, but I won't allow them to hurt me. Bill left me money so that I could be free -- and that's how I intend to live."

"Actually, the anti-smoking culture is so bad in western countries that I'm seriously considering settling somewhere else," says Felicity. "And Japan would be top of my list if they would accept me!"

"I don't know anyone in Japan, and I only landed there by accident on a stopover," says Felicity, "but I was so impressed by everything Japanese that I'm planning on visiting again soon and flying JAL everywhere."

"I don't know whether they do it to every departing plane, or whether there was something special about the plane I was flying in -- possibly my smiling face pressed up against the window, but hardly likely -- yet I was pleasantly surprised, and so were my fellow travelers, when the maintenance crew at Osaka airport actually lined up and waved at us as the plane taxied down the runway heading for the wide blue yonder."

"You wouldn't see them doing that at LAX or Heathrow," laughed Felicity. "Everyone on board -- except the nervous Japanese businessmen sucking on dummy cigarettes in preparation for facing the anti-smoking west -- was as impressed as I was by the waving maintenance crew."

"Japan must be the last civilized country on the planet that is tolerant of smokers," says Felicity, "and yet its national airline, JAL, was forced by global pressure to adopt western standards in regard to in-flight smoking and the Japanese travelers really hate these restrictions."

"I don't know whether the domestic Japanese airlines are similarly smoke-free," says Felicity, "but nobody can complain about a smoke-free ban on short flights. It's being trapped in the sky for twelve hours or more without the comfort and relief of a cigarette that upsets smokers -- and that’s why the Japanese invented the dummy cigarette!"

"You are supposed to suck on it and get the same satisfaction as a real cigarette," explains Felicity, "but if it works to ease the withdrawal symptoms then I feel that the Japanese must be more addicted to sucking than smoking -- in which case a regular baby pacifier would have been cheaper to buy, but of course its image would not have been as good as a dummy cigarette!"

"Also, to ease the burden on its predominantly smoking customers," explains Felicity, "Osaka airport has plenty of indoor sections where smoking is permitted. At any other airport around the world, smokers are forced outside in the freezing cold or stinking heat to indulge in their habit, and while it is a strange place to meet people I must admit to meeting more interesting people in these inhospitable places than anywhere else!"

"Once upon a time, smokers blended into the general population," sighs Felicity. "Now they stick out like sore thumbs outside buildings all over the world -- huddled together, like outcasts -- with the only thing in common between them often being nothing more than a nicotine addiction."

"I hate to see this western anti-smoking hatred being exported to Japan because it was the only country I've visited so far where I was not the slightest bit harassed for smoking."

"When I sat on a bench outside a busy shopping center to have a puff," says Felicity, "no strangers passing by were inspired by the sight of me smoking in public to do the sort of thing they do in other parts of the world. You know, artificial and very loud coughing designed to mimic a smoker's cough; loud and abusive comments about smoking; and cold, hard, disapproving stares."

"Before I learned that Japan has the lowest incidence of lung cancer and smoking related diseases in the world -- despite having the heaviest smokers in the world -- indicating that the Japanese know something good about smoking that the western world has hushed up, I wondered whether the Japanese government was deliberately withholding health warnings from its people," says Felicity. "So sold was I on the anti-smoking crap that I thought the Japanese government might be too ashamed to go hard on the product while it is reaping vast profits from taxing it, or that it was too gracious to dictate what people should and should not do."

"I am now convinced that Japan's national tolerance towards smoking is actually based on medical science -- it is not a health hazard," says Felicity. "What the rabid anti-smoking fraternity in the west hates is the smell of cigarette smoke and there are no doubt many Japanese who feel the same way but the culture is so civilized and gracious that nobody would dare criticize someone for making a bad smell!"

"I was only in Japan for two days," says Felicity, "but I gained the distinct impression that nobody is a ‘tourist’ in Japan. Instead, they are honored guests."

"Everyone from the shop assistants, the hotel staff, the airline staff, the Japanese public and my fellow travelers," says Felicity, "was gracious, friendly and smiling. And it wasn't fake, either. They were genuinely pleased to serve you, and converse with you."

"The young Japanese student sitting next to me on the flight to Osaka actually initiated a conversation with me," laughs Felicity. "Young western men usually lack the courtesy to acknowledge any woman who isn't in their age group, let alone speak to them, so I was very pleased to have my flight enriched by stimulating conversation."

"Being a widow -- especially a smoking one -- can be a lonely existence," says Felicity, "so I am very grateful for the kind attention I do get. It sort of reminds me of my childhood -- I was a middle child, all of the attention went to big sister and little brother -- and the only person who had any time for me was a disabled neighbor, marginalized by her color and disability."

"You remember those things," adds Felicity, "and you also can't help remembering a Japanese welcome and farewell. The Japanese really know how to make everyone feel special. Including old women who smoke!"

save us from the fanatics!

Leonie is 82, remembers Hitler and the Fascist thugs that set out to change the world according to their fanatic beliefs, and while no longer much of a smoker herself, she defends the right of those who choose to exercise their civil liberty to do so and she's fuming at Belmont City Council's unanimous vote to prohibit smoking anywhere in the Californian city except for single-family detached residences.

"Can you believe the hide of these fanatics!" says Leonie. "They're going to ban smoking on the street, in a park and even in one’s car and back yard! What a nice money-earner that's going to be for the fat cats at Belmont City Council, but what a cruel blow for smokers and their civil liberties."

"I'm old enough to understand the delicate human condition," says Leonie. "To be human means to be flawed, nobody's perfect, and I do my best to follow the golden rule, treat others as I want them to treat me, being respectful of differences and tolerant of flaws."

"But there are three flaws I cannot respect or tolerate -- child abuse, brutality and fanaticism -- and when people possessing one or more of these deadly flaws end up in positions of power or influence over the rest of us I become really angry."

"Our legal system generally takes care of the child abusers and brutes among us, but what about the fanatics?"

"Who is keeping an eye on those among us with fanatical delusions of superiority who aim to change society to their liking -- to stop us taking drugs, smoking, drinking alcohol, owning firearms, chopping trees, committing suicide, having an abortion, driving SUVs, eating fast food, wearing headscarves and generally following any of our myriad human inclinations?"

"The list of their dos and don'ts is endless and generally encompasses everything some of us want to do at some point in our lives, so we're all at risk of being targeted."

"That most of the regulated dos and don'ts of the fanatics are ostensibly for our own good, or the good of society, seem to make them widely acceptable," adds Leonie, "but has everyone forgotten the lunatic prohibition on alcohol in the 1920s? What good did that do? The drinkers went underground, exacerbating crime and drunkeness, and those that gave up drinking merely substituted their cravings with something else. That's when heroin and cocaine crept into our homes."

"Naturally, we'd prefer that our kids didn't do any drugs at all, but we all have cravings of one sort or another -- even for chocolate -- and, knowing that the good people at Belmont City Council have similar cravings, how dare they tell us what we can and cannot do, and how dare they publicly revile people for their human frailties!"

"There are only three hateful crimes that need to be proscribed: child abuse, brutality and fanaticism," says Leonie. "Everything else is a matter of following the golden rule and taking sensible precautions."

"Accidents happen and careless or foolish people will always get fleeced or hurt, and when such misfortunes happen the matter should be a private one between the victim and the perpetrator."

"Our courts and prisons are so clogged with petty matters and petty criminals that gross crimes involving child abuse, brutality and fanaticism often go unnoticed and the perpetrators enjoy untouched lives in society."

"By proposing to criminalize smoking, Belmont City Council is deliberately or otherwise taking the searchlight off real crimes and real criminals and encouraging people to get their kicks with far more dangerous drugs than nicotine."

"After the WWII horrors of Nazi Germany under Hitler when -- for the good of the fatherland -- Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled and other so-called undesirables were publicly reviled and exterminated, the world's watchdogs made a solemn promise to keep the human fanatic monitor on full alert, but somehow they fell asleep on the job when the fanatics were perpetrating similar atrocities in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and other places."

"Why?"

"Is the combined human fanatic monitor so flawed that we can't see these people coming -- in any area of human life -- and stop them before they do too much harm?" asks Leonie. "If we can't rely on the highly paid UN watchdogs to protect the basic human rights and civil liberties of people in the third world then these rights don't exist and everyone, everywhere, is totally at the mercy of fanatics."

"What are we going to get next?" sighs Leonie. "Another Senator Joe McCarthy and a commission to expose smokers in our society?"

"For God's sake America, wake up before it's too late," says Leonie. "Men and women of my generation and the generation before mine gave up their lives to defend freedom and civil liberties -- and most of them smoked, too! -- and you're allowing the evil monsters back into power."

"Whatever happened to the golden rule?"

"Shame on all of you who treat smokers like criminals!"

teenage rebellion smoking

Leah is 42, an only child, a single working mother and a smoker. She belongs in the age group that she believes to be the most intolerant towards smoking -- those born in the 1960s to parents who did not stop at cigarettes to get their kicks -- so it is surprising that she took up the habit.

"My parents didn't smoke," says Leah, "and I probably started smoking as an act of teenage rebellion against them."

"My first boyfriend got me hooked on cigarettes when I was only 14 - thank God it wasn't something else he got me hooked on - and it just goes to show how powerful peer pressure can be."

"He said 'Go on, try it, just take a little puff, it will make you feel great, trust me!' and it actually made me feel awful," laughs Leah, "but I persevered just the same because I wanted him to believe I was cool."

"Most of my anti-smoking friends did have smoking parents," says Leah, "so it’s likely that they rebelled against their parents by denouncing smoking as something that old folks do."

"I suppose that chewing tobacco lost popularity in an earlier similar generation swing," laughs Leah.

It may be no coincidence, then, that the anti-smoking campaign took off shortly after Leah’s generation entered the workforce as lawyers, teachers, advertising copywriters, nurses and doctors in the early 1980s.

"Of course," concedes Leah, "anti-smoking sentiment had been around a long time before the 1980s - my parents went berserk when I took up smoking - but it really became a public issue and came into force in the 1980s."

Leah makes an effort not to smoke in front of her children, yet her habit is causing friction at home. But then, as Leah points out, all children rebel against their parents and if it wasn’t her smoking then it would be something else.

"Smoking at work causes more conflict than anything else," says Leah, "but it's also an issue with guys I’ve gone out with. Sometimes a man will get together with me, thinking he can reform me - or a man will decide to quit within a short time after the relationship starts. Both types of situations leave me feeling uncomfortable."

"I’m glad that my children are not going to be smokers," confides Leah. "It was a cool and rebellious thing to do when I was growing up, but smokers are becoming as vilified as heroin addicts - and once you’ve been hooked by nicotine it is not as easy to give up as heroin. You can’t stop, and it’s an expensive habit, too."

"Every day in the city I’m confronted by deadbeats asking me for a cigarette," sighs Leah. "I feel so sorry for them because they’re often very young."

"I smoke menthol cigarettes and sometimes these guys turn their nose up at the cigarettes I offer them," laughs Leah, "but some of them are so desperate for a drag that they’ll smoke anything - even butts they pick up in the gutter."

"I’ve often wondered what I’d do if I lost my job and couldn’t afford to buy cigarettes," says Leah. "I guess I'd have to quit cold turkey. I’m just wondering if I could do it. Maybe I’ve been smoking for so long now that I can’t quit easily. It scares me that I might end up begging cigarettes on the street!"

"I’ve heard, too," confides Leah, "that a lot of robberies are committed not to buy heroin and other hard drugs, but to buy cigarettes. Isn’t that frightening?"

"My kids are drug-free, or at least I believe they are," adds Leah, "and I didn’t have to lecture them on the evils of drugs either. They just looked at me and decided for themselves that they didn’t want to be like me!"

"Come to think of it," adds Leah, "I think that my smoking habit prevented me from marrying and leading a mainstream life. None of the guys in my life accepted my smoking. It was either ‘cut down’ or ‘quit’ or ‘go outside to smoke’ and that sort of thing. I wasn’t going to put up with being told what I can do and can't do!"

"One guy from work I accepted a lift home with one day when my car was in service dropped me like a hot potato once he discovered I smoked," says Leah. "He actually turned on me all bitter and twisted and said he hopes I die a horrible death from smoking."

"I was shocked that anyone could say such a thing and I was going to report him to management for vilification," relates Leah, "and then I said to hell with it - why bother."

"That guy must be living a horrible life to say something like that," explains Leah, "and given a choice between a happy life with a horrible death or a horrible life with a happy death I know which one I'd prefer."

"I've never met a nasty smoker in my life," says Leah, "and it's true what they say about meeting the nicest of people huddled in the wind and the rain outside non-smoking buildings having a puff."

Leah's rebellious nature spills over in other aspects of her life. Her children are from different fathers and she sees this as a big plus rather than something to be ashamed of.

"For one thing," says Leah, "if one of the guys causes me trouble, the others will rally around me. It’s like having my own private army!"

When asked how the children feel about having different fathers, Leah laughs.

"They are more against me smoking - thanks to being indoctrinated at school - than having a lot of dads," admits Leah. "But it won't be long before some mean spirited teacher poisons their minds in that respect, too."