the luminous blog: Smoking

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Smoking - part deux

Nooooooo - I am not done with SMOKING!

By no stretch of the imagination! Fact is, smokers have come out of the closet about it already and have labeled themselves as handicapped, nothing less, because of their dependence to tobacco! Yes... They sure are missing quite a few vital brain components too, for having such an obtuse habit to kick! Everything to get some small chance at winning their case, though... Because, you see, they have an infinitesimal glimmer of hope that glitters there, in the dark fumes of their own stinking smoke, that maybe, just MAYBE, the Bill of Rights can protect them and get them what they think they crave and need...!
La Charte des droits protège les fumeurs!
Un fumeur qui se fait imposer de ne pas fumer dans son appartement par son proprio peut, en théorie, porter plainte pour discrimination fondée sur le handicap.
There is a world and a half between theory and practice, luckily enough...
À ce jour, aucune plainte concernant un locataire fumeur n’a encore été portée à l’attention de la Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse du Québec, mais la chose est techniquement possible, indique Daniel Carpentier, conseiller juridique à la Commission.
Ahhhhh - the commission defends both the rights of the everyman AND, specifically, those of today's YOUTH. Hmm... In an ideal world, today's youth is put back in its proper place, shuts the hell up, and NEVER EVEN STARTS LIGHTING IT UP - EVER!
Brothers and sisters, I saw evidence, the other day, that "le ridicule ne tue pas" as they say - I saw a chubby slacker riding his near-tricycle around his block, and he was SMOKING! He stopped to cough and, most probably, the nescient creature has no clue whatsoever why he is coughing... Nor will he have any when it keeps getting worse and worse still, with the years...

But let's now get back to the landlords that want no smoking tenants...
«Il est possible que ça soit une forme de discrimination fondée sur le handicap. La cigarette crée une dépendance, c’est écrit sur tous les paquets, et les dépendances sont un handicap au même titre que l’alcool et la toxicomanie», explique Carpentier.
And, as the OTHER Carpentier used to say, "à la semaine prochaine si Dieu Le Veut!"
Gee - of course being dependent upon such noxious and nauseating things can be viewed as a bad "dependency" and makes you, henceforth, sick automatically. To say that it is a "handicap" that big mean landlords, out to protect their and (MAYBE) their other tenants' long term health as well, are being "discriminating" here is beyond ridiculous. Are soldiers out on the field "discriminating" when they destroy bacteriological weapons - BEFORE these weapons can be used to make them sick and die?!? Come on...!

Alas, there is article 5 of the aforementioned Bill of Rights, which is man-made and thus hardly foolproof... Said article is all about respecting privacy. Ha, what a farce. Obtuse attitudes are not "privacy" - they're something else that actually rhymes with it; idiocy!
L’article 5 de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne prévoit également que toute personne ait droit au respect de sa vie privée, rappelle Daniel Carpentier.
Thus, all it takes is one loudmouth that goes against common sense on an entire other level to "shake things up" - the wrong way.
«Un propriétaire qui veut empêcher un locataire de fumer dans son appartement peut voir cette interdiction contestée si quelqu’un veut aller aussi loin.»
Shades of that atheist a-hole who, for close to two decades now, has "contested" the presence of a legitimate religious monument on top a mountain... Contesting is not always done because it is RIGHTFUL to do so, but only because it is "lawful" to do so at the moment, before the earthly flawed law system that is in place...
La Charte interdit toute forme de discrimination fondée sur la race, la couleur, le sexe, la grossesse, l’orientation sexuelle, l’état civil, l’âge, la religion, les convictions politiques, la langue, l’origine ethnique, la condition sociale, le handicap ou l’utilisation d’un moyen pour pallier ce handicap.
To quote the immortal MR. T - "I pity the fool who makes usage of tobacco in order to "palliate to his handicap/dependency" - fool!" (Okay - that was more like paraphrasing, I admit!)
I predict (...) many more wasted and misused funds from the tax payer's pocket that will go into unnecessary court time... May it come from chain-smoking addicts' pockets then!