It was 1945 my mother’s first husband had suddenly died and not only was my mother a widow at the age of 30 but she had two children, my two older sisters. Of course there was family to count on (in those days the nuclear unit was a bit more intact) but nonetheless something else loomed large; the responsibilities of motherhood that at one time seemed joyful now more burdensome, worrisome. My mother had done secretarial work before she was married but times had changed and the once single working woman was a mother. My mothers anxiety seemed to consume her. Raising two daughters (in the 40’s a woman’s place was at the heel of a man, cleaning a house and cooking the meals), so what would people say if she went back to work, if she HAD someone else help with her kids. Finally sensing doom and stagnation my mother went to see her family physician. My mother, when she shared this story, added just how much shame she was feeling for having to ask for help. Her doctor, who continued to be our family physician was a kind man and understanding. He told my mother two things, the first, ‘this too shall pass’ and secondly, ‘take one of these inhale slowly and in a few minutes you will feel calmer. In an hour take another and you will be relaxed.’ He had handed my mother a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes. And from that point until 30 years later she took one then another.
Back in the day cigarettes were as American as Apple Pie, perhaps even more so. All of the white middle class dads portrayed on television would come home to their ‘little lady’ holding a martini glass, a fancy cigarette holder and matches. Comely blond babes would inhale from an elongated silver sliver, blow some smoke and then pounce upon her male prey. Cowboys would wipe off the dust from roping a cow, chasing and Indian, baling some hay and slowly inhale the finest nicotine the American Tobacco industry could manufacture. Great gifts for Christmas stocking stuffers were a pack of Marlboro’s a carton of Kent. The portraits of America, the good kind of America where men were men, women their chattel, men in suits women in aprons was always painted in red, white blue and a little bit of Lucky Strike! There was an insistence by the Tobacco Industry that nothing but sweet success was wrong with their products. If you didn’t believe the Tobacco Industry then you could listen to your politicians, the same politicians who took orders from their puppeteers the Tobacco Industry. If politics was not your thing then go speak to your doctor, you know the guy who can cure you. The Tobacco lobby, never ones to be called stupid, knew that everyone had their price. Be a woman who lost her husband, widowed with two young children and make sure you stick the addiction to her early; and who knows she may reciprocate and pass the poison on to her children. We were told by people we thought were the authority that tobacco was safe, sure and secure.
Climate change is no longer a distant threat, but a real and present danger in the United States, according to U.S. Global Change Research Program, issued Tuesday It details ways that climate change -- caused predominantly by the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases -- is already being felt across the country. Those impacts include increased severity of heat waves and heavier downpours. On the coasts, sea level rise is already contributing to increased flooding during high tides and storms, the report notes. And in the West, conditions are getting hotter and drier, and the snowpack is melting earlier in the year, extending wildfire season. (Huff Post). But then Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) accused Obama of seeing global warming as a fund-raising gimmick chimed in. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). suggested Americans simply care less about the climate than other issues, such as the economy, the Keystone pipeline and jobs, and that the White House should focus on those instead. Many news outlets barely cover climate change and when they do, you often almost wish they hadn’t bothered with it in the first place. My mother was nervous, she wanted to feel better, her doctor prescribed smoking cigarettes, he was told tobacco was good, his elected officials were paid by their lobbyists that nicotine was fine and dandy. What is more American then corporations? The Tobacco corporates told us only Communists hate cigarettes. Now our Oil corporations are telling us that any true blue American, once he has his gun in hand should certainly be pumping some gas. Smoke a cigarette, burn some oil and of course have a great day it was and is the American way.
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