Yoiks, I can only imagine the comments at the old Smokers’ Club (I haven’t a clue if that is even around anymore. It’s been years since I looked.) on this story!
According to an Ohio State University researcher — between absenteeism caused by added health problems and lost productivity due to smoking breaks, smokers cost companies on the average of $5,800 a year and possibly up to $10,000 a year.
Let me do some math on that smoking break thing. Say a smoker, not too heavy of a smoker, takes four smoking breaks during an eight-hour shift. Say each break takes 10 minutes. That’s 40 minutes a day in lost productivity. That’s 200 minutes a week. That’s 10,000 minutes a year.
10,000 minutes = 160 hours a year. Say a smoker makes a relatively modest wage, $15 an hour, that comes up to $2,400 a year in lost productivity in of itself.
Here’s the OSU numbers. Pretty close to what I did in my head:
The OSU researchers’ calculations show low productivity due to excess absenteeism costs employers, on average, $517 a year per smoking employee and working while sick cost $462. Smoking breaks tack on $3,077 and excess healthcare another $2,056.
There is a LOT of data showing smokers increase everyone’s insurance premiums, which is why many employers now add a premiums surcharge for smokers and some companies won’t hire smokers, period. So, I think that $5,800 a year number, while it sounds surprising, is totally plausible.
This is an interesting story that a lot of people are misinterpreting.
Starbucks announced this week that they are banning smoking within 25 feet of their entrance ways. This sparked a lot of heated debate online about how they can’t ban smoking on sidewalks and streets, etc.
Well, not so fast. Basically, all Starbucks is doing is banning smoking within its own outdoor seating areas, regardless of what state laws are. Some states already ban smoking within 25 feet of a business, other have no rules about outdoor smoking. Starbucks is saying, “we don’t care. You’re on our property no smoking.” They can’t actually ban smoking on a sidewalk or street.
This could still cause some headaches for them. I’ve seen restaurants get into knockdown drag-outs trying to convince patrons they can’t smoke on an outside deck. And I’ve seen a brewpub that is fighting with a bar next door because all the bar’s customers go outside to smoke right in front of the brewpub.
Candy-flavoured cigarettes have long been banned, but candy-flavoured cigars are still legal.
The American Cancer Society is pushing to limit the sales of candy-flavoured tobacco products — cigars, chewing tobacco and loose tobacco leaf for water pipes — mostly because it’s well-known that these sweetened products are marketed not-so-subtly to teens. These sugary tobacco products are also suspiciously cheap (as in trying to be the gateway tobacco for kids.).
Honestly, I didn’t realize they made candy-flavoured chewing tobacco. I knew about Swisher Sweet cigars.
The state couldn’t ban candy-flavoured cigars, but they could ban them from convenience and grocery stores and mandate that they could only be sold in tobacco shops.
I have no idea if this will go anywhere, but if it does, New York would be the first state to restrict the sales of these products. New York is one the leading states in fighting tobacco. The state’s tobacco taxes are among the highest in the nation and New York City has the toughest anti-smoking laws in the country (partly because Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a health nut and anti-smoking zealot; I’m not sure I’m 100 % comfortable with all his proposals and tactics — such as trying to ban large sodas.)
I initially began in Second Life to see if I might want to start a music club. I found out that would cost upwards of $400 a month for the “land” (bandwidth), and that would mean raising money and then that would mean looking for advertisers and then … it would become a JOB!
So, other than playing in some dance clubs, I haven’t gotten too involved with Second Life, but one thing I’ve found which is pretty neat. Second Life is pretty good at advertising unusual “sims” (usually an island). I’ve checked out a couple of these sims and found them kind of interesting, but none really affected me until I came across “Imogen and the Pigeons.” The sim was created by Bryn Oh, and she is the author of the poems, as well.
Imogen and the Pigeons is an amazing multi-discipline art/poetry exhibit in Second Life. It’s also a fun little maze and game to find all the poems in the sim. The poems and images are both very powerful and sad. I came to realise of what kind of art could be possible in an interactive platform like Second Life.
When I first showed up at Imogen and the Pigeons, I wasn’t sure how it worked or was supposed to work. You arrive on a beach with a lot of old junk lying around — old mattresses, washing machines, etc. I wandered around and found a statue that played a sad little tune if you clicked on it. No clues about what Imogen and the Pigeons were about.
Me wandering through Imogen and the Pigeons
After a while, I found a flying chair. I kind of flew around in circles for a bit, but still didn’t come any closer to discovering the secret of Imogen and the Pigeons.
A very helpful person then told me to fly the chair up higher, as high as I could. So I took their advice and did it, and sure enough that’s when I saw, curling around a couple of cooling towers, some stairway up into the sky.
I thanked the person for their help, but I wanted to do the sim without cheating. So, I headed up the stairs. This was HARD. I must have fallen and gone “Splat!” a half dozen times. I felt like Lara Croft. (In Second Life, you can fall from a 1,000 feet and go “splat!” but then your avatar simply dusts herself off and is fine. Still, it sucked to keep falling. Also, in Second Life, you can usually “fly,” but in the Imogen and the Pigeons sim, flying had been disabled. No cheating allowed.)
Me climbing up the stairway to the sky
I finally figured out the way up the stairs is by using the arrow keys on your keyboard, rather than the movements arrows within the Second Life screen. By using my keyboard arrows, I was finally to get up the monstrous stairs without falling. You finally come to a bright red platform high above the beach … hundreds of feet up.
You go through a portal at the red platform and enter a receptionist’s office. Here is your first poem, posted on a wall of the office:
The Receptionist
The receptionist looked up
her eyes rezzed so blue,
do you have an appointment?
to which you replied yes I do
Simple enough poem. But, the poems quickly become darker and more sad. Sad, oftentimes broken characters inhabit each room. Always alone, always seemingly isolated from the rest of the world in their dark rooms.
In the next room, you find a man pinning insects to a board. A lot of Oh’s poems are about insects. On the wall is this poem:
Inside the room
lay a mind’s haute couture
with a butterfly board
and pins to cure
He was the type of man
who felt he saw much clearer
from the darkened side
of a one-way mirror
His patients were pieces
within a game
which when molded correctly
would bring him acclaim.
Me and Elliott
After this first room, you enter a creepy hallway with a series of doors . The next room was my favourite. A young boy is drawing a chalk drawing on the floor. As you step nearer, the chalk drawing suddenly comes to life. This poem:
Chalk fingers sat
for hours engrossed
his fingertips tracing
things he longed for most
he would stay with each
but for a day
then at night
wash them away
The Little Boy and his chalk drawing come to life
so they’d not fasten
to his heart
because so many things
do depart
and all his lies
were really dreams
come apart
at the seams
In the next room, a figure is huddled under her blankets. You never get to see her. There is nothing else in the room but a television playing static:
Under a blanket
with holes throughout
nobody sees in
but Juniper looks out
The girl under the blanket
come under with me
and together we’ll hide
hold me in the darkness
there’ll be no outside
where people are cruel
and winters are cold
where I don’t fit in
and everything’s sold
climb inside
we’re two hands in a glove
fingers entwined
because you are my love
See? These are not happy poems. The next room is a sad little girl again lying on a bed (there are beds in all the rooms). In the middle of the room is a boat sailing on the floor:
The girl and the boat
a paper boat
far out to sea
I would float
To breathe the wind
and feel the spray
while my body
slowly decayed
absorbing the chaos
body asunder
closing my eyes
to descend down under
Into the dark
and swaying peace
my tears diffused
upon release
The next room has another poem about insects:
Elliot was shy
and very soft spoken
he loved moths
because they fly like they’re broken.
He dreamed of amber
housing ants suspended
in sienna coffins
tarsus extended.
He would sit on a step
in the middle of the stair
where none would stop
a place neither here nor there.
The next room is another person lying on a bed. This time it’s Imogen, and she is hooked up to IVs. She is ill. Is she dying, I wondered? You can hear pigeons cooing outside a window. This begins a series of poems about Imogen and the maze gets a little tougher.
Imogen sat
quiet on her bed
the books on her mattress
one hundred times read.
Eyes to her friends
huddled out on the wire
cooing softly
it was her one desire
This is sick Imogen, dreaming of joining the pigeons
to join with them
out past her bars
where no one could test her
with Monarchs in jars.
She rose from her bed
tube fallen aside
and determined to join
her pigeons outside.
But will they fly
off to the skies
unless I wear
a clever disguise?
I must approach
like a whisper in moonlight
so they’ll not startle
so they’ll not fright.
And we’ll make a family
warm shoulder to wing
they’ll coo softly
and I’ll learn to sing.
Here, the sim gets tricky. There’s a couple of little clues about needing to pick up a pigeon’s feather to continue on. I picked one up and discovered that while holding a feather, you can walk up the walls. I walked up the wall to a window high above the floor, then I had to walk sideways along a curled path (sort of like a roller coaster). The first time I tried this, I dropped the feather and then I plunged 1,000 feet and went “Splat!” on the beach down below and was forced to start over from the beginning back up the stairs to the sky (Grrrr…!). I figured out not to drop the feather until I was sure I no longer needed it.
Walking straight up
Eventually, you enter a room full of mannequins and Imogen sitting in a corner sewing.
Imogen arrived
upon a scene
of mannequins
and sewing machine
the lights revealed
fabric pigeon grey
dusty and torn
its edges frayed
and from there she sewed
her pigeon dress
that enveloped her body
in a gentle caress.
Here, you enter a tough part of the maze. You have to walk along a ledge and you find Imogen down at the end of the ledge.
She stepped through a window
and onto the ledge
the wind in her hair
and pigeons on edge.
She found on the stones
a loose feather
then gathered up more
and sewed them together
to fashion some wings
for her disguise
to join her flock
within the skies.
After you find Imogen, you can drop down to a lower ledge. There is a rope to another ledge on the other side of an alley. I tiptoed across the rope (it looked hard, but you actually have an inch or so of leeway on each side of the rope.). And if you are successful, you are rewarded with a little Bryn Oh doll. I carried the doll with me through the rest of the sim.
Me and my Bryn Oh doll
The next room is a creepy hair salon with a curved roof.
Imogen mused
that she was more pigeon than swan
as she climbed down the walls
to the Beauty Salon
She entered a room
surrounded by chairs
lowered the curlers
and singed feather to hair
Her disguise now complete
she walked to the ceiling
and saw a vision emerge
in her dream revealing
a future suppressed
like fading notes to a song
that we desperately grasp
yet can not prolong.
You have to pick up another feather and walk up the curved wall to the ceiling, through a hole in a ceiling and into another room.
She climbed up the pole
that rose like a spire
and attempted to join
her pigeons on wire
but startled they flew
so Imogen leapt
spreading her wings
and silently wept
missing her dreams
by seconds and feet
she soared for a moment
then fell to the street
Through a blindingly white room you find another poem.
Static emerged
like cracks in a road
and her minds construct collapsed
which housed her binary code
that was preserved for the day
when it could be rewired
into our human cells
once we were expired
but her memories were a virus
that corrupted the core
of her archived life
preserved at the Rebirth Store
Sure enough, here the maze gets bloody impossible. I think you are supposed to hop down a series of ledges, but I was never able to do it and plunged, “Splat!” 1,000 feet back down to the beach (I felt like Imogen failing to join the pigeons). Here, on the beach where you started your journey through Imogen’s world, there is one final poem:
Zeroes and ones
created a two
in the form of a child
from memories accrued
Imogen and the Whale
through her books and dreams
realities and fever
reborn for Imogen
never again to leave her
and the computer slowed
as the sand did rise
but eternity waited
within her child’s eyes.
Just past this poem is an image of Imogen reaching up to a giant blue whale hovering in midair. That is the end of Imogen and the Pigeons.
Beginning in January 2014, for a 60-year-old smoker, the surcharge could be up to $6,000 a year. That surcharge gets bigger and bigger for older smokers. Ouch. Boy, that’s incentive to quit, especially tacking on the other $2,000 a one-pack-a-day smoker spends just on the cigarettes. Especially considering that the majority of smokers now are low-income.
Now the plan does allow smokers to avoid the surcharge if they agree to join a smoking cessation program; however, that option is not necessarily guaranteed to people attempting to buy individual insurance, according to this article quoted here.
Is this fair? $6,000 is a lot of money. I’m sure it drives the smokers nuts that the law specifically says surcharges for people being overweight are not allowed. I can tell you many insurance companies already charge higher premiums to smokers (ours does, in fact), for a very simple reason. Smokers cost them more money. They get more diseases at a younger age than nonsmokers and cost more to insure and end up raising everyone’s rates as a result.
Here’s a quote from this article about it:
Here’s how the math would work:
Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama’s law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.
But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can’t be used to offset the penalty, the smoker’s total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That’s considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.
Like I said, it seems as if a balance could be found. Put more emphasis on smoking cessation programs, make sure they are available to everyone.
Was kind of perusing Tobacco.org the other day and saw an interesting story that there is still a lot of bickering going on about smoking bans in St. Louis. Man, it’s been at least two or three years this has been going on.
I don’t get too worked up over smoking bans anymore because I tend to see it as a dead debate. There’s very few places left where you can smoke in bars or restaurants — mostly the Deep South, and mostly in smaller towns and cities in the South.
Anyway, in St. Louis, the big debate is over whether they should allow exemptions to an existing smoking ban. Missouri is one of the places in the country still fighting smoking bans. The only reason this story even caught my eye is I remember from the old toxic Topix days a Libertarian guy from St. Louis who was vehemently against smoking bans — Bill Hannegan, and I figured, “Oh, I bet ol’ Bill is in the middle of this spat.”
And sure enough, not only is he in the middle of the spat, this newspaper even did a sidebar about Bill. Hah, an article about this guy I remember from Topix five or six years ago, with his photo. So, this is ol’ Bill Hannegan from the Topix days. You still see Bill Hannegan’s name pop up all over the Internet, commenting on stories about smoking bans.
This article calls Bill “perhaps the staunchest defender of smoking rights in the region.” I read that and thought, “Christ, he might be one of the staunchest defender of smoking rights in the whole country, from how often I’ve seen him involved in stories about smoking bans.” It’s nice to see who the person is behind all those hundreds of comments I’ve seen over the years from him.
Bill, as much as I almost never agreed with him, and frankly got offended when he claimed there is no proof secondhand smoke is harmful and he kept comparing smoking bans to Nazism (Sorry, Bill, you cannot with a straight face compare having to go outside to smoke to the murder of 20 million people in the name of ethnic cleansing), usually managed to keep it pretty civil on those boards despite being the target of a lot of personal attacks, unlike this scary-ass Tea Party nut named Conferederate76 or HarleyRider76 (don’t care if I never see that guy again online). You could say Bill is obsessed with smoking bans, but it’s probably kinder to say he is very driven and passionate about it. Like I said, I will probably never agree with him.
(Speaking of Topix, I recommend staying off it. The links are full of malware and the threads downright nasty. There was this epic thread about the smoking ban in Ohio that began way back in November 2006. It got downright vicious, just nasty, threats, etc. It looks like that thread finally petered out in July 2012 after 75,000 comments — most of which came from probably fewer than a couple of dozen commenters.)
I remember watching the Odd Couple when I was a kid. It was one of my favourite shows.
Jack Klugman had a long life, but he had myriad health problems the last 30 years, mostly caused by his heavy cigar and cigarette smoking. In fact, in both the Odd Couple and a number of other characters he played, he was usually seen chomping on a cigar. Later, he spoke out strongly against smoking being depicted on TV and in movies.
In the 1980s, he was forced to retire from acting because he got throat cancer from his smoking. He was first diagnosed with cancer of the larynx way back in 1974, and ended up suffering multiple bouts of cancer over the next 20 years.
According to his obituary:
“In 1974, Klugman was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. Like Oscar, his most notable character, he always had a cigarette in his mouth. “I saw John Garfield smoke. He was my idol, so I smoked. I even smoked like him,” Klugman explained. With surgery and some treatment, he was able to continue acting, though he refused to give up smoking. In 1989, he underwent surgery again to remove the cancer, but this time his right vocal cord had to be removed, which left him without the ability to speak. Eventually, he regained it, though in a small, raspy voice.”
He gave an interview in the 1990s about smoking, saying:
“The only really stupid thing I ever did in my life was to start smoking,” he said in 1996. He said seeing people smoking on television and films “disgusts me, it makes me so angry – kids are watching.”
Jack would be glad to know smoking is gone from TV, and nearly gone from movies now.
I never interacted that much with Bill because I took a hiatus from HuffPost about the same time he showed up, but I know Haruko got to know him better than I did.
I think something should be said about Bill.
I seem to remember Bill had a different avatar when he showed up. Some generic cartoon of a man. But, a long time ago, he went to an old photo of a grumpy-looking John Cleese from his “Ministry of Silly Walks” days. And he stuck with that avatar. It fit him perfectly.
We heard through the grapevine that Bill Loney apparently died a few weeks ago, apparently after a long battle with emphysema. He last posted on Huffington Post in August. He was one of the HuffPost regulars, on the site almost every day, battling trolls and sometimes battling people that mostly agreed with him. Some people loved him, others just hated him. I think some of the people who disliked him simply didn’t understand him. Yeah, he could be a grouch, but he was a lovable grouch who cared and didn’t suffer fools lightly. I can tell you Haruko adored him and got along with him great. Bill was always kind and respectful to Haruko on HP.
Bill had hinted that he had health problems; he had made comments to the effect that he was on some kind of disability, which is why he was able to spend hours on HP every day. Finally, several months ago, he told Haruko directly he was gravely ill with emphysema. On some thread about marijuana laws. That’s how we knew what was wrong with him. Haruko certainly felt it was a profound moment they shared online.
Bill could be ornery and combative, like I said, he would fight with anyone he thought was wrong. He had a very dry and sometimes bust-up hilarious sense of humour. It didn’t always show through, but when it did, he was funny. Bill was also very bright and articulate and did a masterful job of breaking down inferior arguments, especially if it was an ignorant troll. Sometimes, he got too angry and caught up in feuds (even with fellow liberals, he had some epic battles with a couple of other regular posters); but I did too which is why I stopped posting on HP.
Perhaps Bill’s health problems made him that much grouchier. I don’t know. Like I said, I think he simply felt very strongly about progressive issues and got sincerely angry to see falsehoods and dishonesty about liberals being posted online.
Bill was on HP for about four years. He had become an institution at HP (Holy crap, he made 74,000 comments in four years), very much like Hume Skeptic and other longtime posters that have moved on, either because of life circumstances or because of changes at the site. I don’t think it’s widely known that he had died because HP has changed a lot in recent months and isn’t nearly as cozy as it used to be. HP will be lesser without him.
I totally understand not giving a damn about sports, and I totally understand a sports team being a big part of one’s life. I know a guy who just goes crazy if his team gets in the baseball postseason; you literally cannot even speak to him about his team. He throws chairs when his team loses, he refuses to watch them in a bar because there might be people cheering for the other team.
I find that a little nuts. But, one team that has always meant a lot to me through good times and bad are the San Francisco 49ers.
I grew up in Fresno, about three hours from San Francisco. We got all the Niners games on TV as a kid, most people in Fresno were either 49ers or Raiders fans when I grew up there.
Maybe because they won their first Super Bowl the year my dad died. It was a few months after he died that they won. See, dad actually hated the 49ers. He was a big Rams fan. I asked him one time why he hated them so much and he said it was because San Francisco was full of queers and liberals (seriously, this is how his mind worked). I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t believe you would hate a sports team over politics (or the sexual orientation of some of its residents … never mind the fact that L.A. has its own rather large gay community..?)
Yeah, Jim Plunkett actually played for the 49ers. Look at the crowd!
I think that was when I began cheering for the 49ers, to spite dad. I always cheered for the teams that he cheered for until then. The first year I remember getting excited about the 49ers was 1976. They got off to a hot start — 6-1 — and looked a sure playoff team after three straight losing seasons. Their quarterback was Jim Plunkett (that’s right, Plunkett played a year or two for the Niners), but then the team finished 2-5, ended up 8-6, still a winning record, but out of the playoffs.
What followed was an atrocious stretch of football. The 49ers became the worst team in the NFL, going 4-28 at one stretch. They became a joke, a laughingstock.
My dad died in July 1981. I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about it, Mom slipped off into a dark hole of depression that she didn’t pull out of for years. I didn’t talk to my friends at school about it. I just sort of internalized it all.
The 49ers didn’t start out anything special that season; they got off to a 1-2 start, then won a couple games in a row to go to 3-2. I didn’t start taking the 49ers seriously again until their next game when they destroyed the Dallas Cowboys 45-14. The Cowboys were the most cocky, obnoxious team in the NFL; they were the most dominant team in the NFC and had been for 10 years, winning two Super Bowls and going to three others since 1971, and the 49ers had just annihilated them. It was probably the team’s biggest win in a decade.
I started to believe in them again, and started looking forward to the next week’s 49ers game. They rattled off a bunch of mostly close, exciting wins over the rest of the season and went into the playoffs at 13-3. It had been their best season since 1972, and of course, their new star, Joe Montana, was the toast of the entire NFL. He was doing things no quarterback had ever done in the NFL. The entire offence centered around him. The 49ers had virtually no running game.
The 49ers easily won their first playoff game against the Giants and then faced the hated, cocky Cowboys again. I remember Butch Johnson boldly predicting a Cowboys win before the game. Wait a minute, the 49ers killed them last time, where did he get off? I remember thinking.
It was a very tense, back and forth game. Montana actually didn’t play well; I think he threw three interceptions, but it came down to the final drive and of course, everyone knows “The Catch.” I was watching it at my brothers’ house. I couldn’t believe it when the 49ers blew the kickoff and kicked it out of bounds and gave the Cowboys the ball at the 40, with almost a minute left. Oh, here we go. The 49ers never win, they’ve never won anything, here comes the choke. But, the defence held and the Niners were off to the Super Bowl. I couldn’t believe it. The 49ers NEVER won. They never won anything, they had never won a single championship, nor even played in championship game in their entire existence.
The next week was almost an anti-climax. The 49ers steamrolled the Bengals 20-0 in the first half, but then let them back in the game in the second half. The Niners held on a goal-line stand nursing a 26-14 lead and that was it. The 49ers were world champions.
And for a while, I forgot about my dad’s death. It didn’t sting so much, at least that year. The 49ers helped me get through that year.
I’ve witnessed almost all the highlights and lowlights of the 49ers over the past 30 years. They are all seared into my memory, even after all these years. Ronnie Lott severing a finger on a tackle — yeah, I actually saw that. Steve Young getting knocked completely out on a tackle. The wars with the Giants and Cowboys. Jim Everett curling up in a little ball because he was afraid of getting sacked … only no 49er was within 5 yards of him. I saw it all.
* The 1983 season. The 49ers made it back to the NFC championship after a down year, got steamrolled early by the Redskins, but Montana brought them back to make it close at the end. The 49ers got robbed by the refs, who made a terrible call late in the fourth quarter, calling Ronnie Lott for holding when a Washington receiver ran right into him. That call cost the 49ers a trip to the Super Bowl.
* The 1984 season, in which they went 15-1, but were actually underdogs going into the Super Bowl against an unstoppable phenom Dan Marino, who had thrown for 5,000 yards and 48 TDs. Well, the Dolphins had no defence, and the 49ers did and Marino was helpless as San Francisco won easily. What I remember about that game is Montana actually had 60 yards rushing.
* The 1989 Super Bowl against Cincinnati. I was living way out in the boonies of far Northern California and had no TV. There was no cable where I lived. So, on a bitterly cold and snowy day, I drove out to a nearby golf course, which thankfully had the game on in their bar. I spent the day at the golf course bar with about four or five other people eating free mini-tacos watching as Montana again brought the Niners back and won with a TD pass to John Taylor with 30 seconds left. It was the first Super Bowl decided by a touchdown in the final two minutes.
1988 was a really weird year for the Niners. They were actually up and down all year, looked awful at times, went back and forth between Montana and Steve Young. One game they only scored 3 points. They won one game on a 50-yard run by Young in the final seconds and won another game on an 80-yard pass by Montana against the Giants in the final seconds. Roger Craig had an incredible 50-yard run that same season that helped win a game. Finally, they rattled off five straight wins near the end of the year to barely make the playoffs, then they completely dominated a 14-2 team in Chicago in the NFC title game.
* The 1990 Super Bowl against Denver. Probably the most dominant team ever, at least the most dominant 49ers team. I’ll never forget the NFC championship game, watching it over at my boss’s house. The Niners had beaten the Rams, who were actually pretty good at the time, once that year with a pair of 90-yard touchdown catches by John Taylor.
My boss was a big Rams fan and gave me all kinds of shit all year long about the Niners. That was the infamous “phantom sack” game with Rams quarterback Jim Everett. His entire career is defined by that one play. Everett had been sacked by the Niners four or five times already and late in the game, he went back to pass and simply curled up in a fetal position with no 49ers within five yards of him. Everett never got over that and in fact punched out Jim Rome for calling him “Chrissie Everett” on TV a couple of years later. The Super Bowl was actually pretty boring as San Francisco won 55-10.
What followed were a couple of frustrating seasons. The 49ers were the most dominant team in 1990 and seemed sure to go to another Super Bowl, but they actually got beat by Jeff Hostetler (Jeff Hostetler! WTF?) and the Giants. The 49ers dominated most of the game, but couldn’t score and had a lead of only 13-6 in the fourth quarter. Finally, Montana took one of the most vicious hits I’ve ever seen, getting hit from behind by Leonard Marshall and fumbling the ball. It was the last time Joe played for the 49ers. He left the game with a concussion and the 49ers lost when Roger Craig fumbled late in the game and the Giants recovered, drove down the field and won with a field goal.
After that came the big controversy over Montana vs. Young. Montana, who had reconstructive surgery on his elbow (I actually saw the game in which he hurt his elbow, it was in 1989 or 1990, it swelled up to the size of a grapefruit), was traded to Kansas City and Steve Young became the quarterback.
* In 1993, it appeared the Niners were headed to another Super Bowl, they had the best record in football, but got upset at home by the Cowboys. They just couldn’t stop them from scoring. The Cowboys finally had their revenge for 1981.
* 1994. The 49ers got their revenge back with a pair of incredible wins against the Cowboys, who had become the dominant team in the NFC again and again were really obnoxious and cocky. They got behind the Cowboys early in the regular season game, but by running Steve Young, they turned the tide. I remember what really turned it was an unsportsmanlike late hit penalty against the Cowboy for drilling Young in the head after he was down. The 49ers came back later and beat the Cowboys in the NFC championship, getting up 21-0 on a bunch of turnovers, then 31-14 when Young hit Jerry Rice on a huge touchdown pass at the end of the half. They held on at Dallas tried to rally, winning 38-28, then again, another anti-climatic Super Bowl against San Diego, winning 49-26.
That began a long, gradual decline by the 49ers. Their owner Eddie DeBartolo, got in all kinds of legal trouble for trying to open up a casino in New Orleans and got busted trying to bribe the governor of Louisiana. The league took the team away from Eddie and handed it to his sister Denise York. Two years later, Denise and her husband John could have given the team back to DeBartolo, but chose to keep it. The Yorks promptly ran the team straight into the ground.
The 49ers were still good most years, but they weren’t consistently good year in and year out and they weren’t good enough to get to the Super Bowl. They won a playoff game against Green Bay one year on a 40 yard pass in the final seconds from Young to Terrell Owens (what I remember about that play is earlier on the drive, Jerry Rice had an obvious fumble, but that was one of the years they had gotten rid of replay because it didn’t work well when they first tried it. With replay, Green Bay wins the game.). But, then Owens turned into a jackass after that year. Biggest primadonna in the history of sport, I swear. The 49ers seemed to hit rock bottom when Steve Young got completely knocked out, a hit that ended his career.
Jeff Garcia had a couple of good years for the Niners. I always thought he was kind of underrated. One of his problems was he was tiny for a quarterback, only weighed about 180 pounds. He had one incredible game in the 2002 playoffs, bringing the team back from 38-14 to beat the Giants 39-38. The Giants had a chance for a game winning field goal, flubbed the snap, then actually got a pass off downfield to Jeremy Shockey. The 49ers, who didn’t know what to do, tackled Shockey while the ball was in the air, but the refs didn’t call pass interference (I think they literally didn’t know the rules on that bizarre play themselves). Giants fans are still pissed about that play.
Then came a long slowwww slide into irrelevance. The 49ers became just plain bad. The Yorks were inept owners, they were playing in a crummy stadium, and they kept hiring bad coaches and GMs. Dennis Erickson, Mike Nolan, Mike Singletary, all bad, bad coaches. People were literally begging the Yorks to please sell the team. The head of Cisco offered $1 billion for the 49ers to try and save the team from the Yorks. The 49ers went 46-82 over eight BAD years. It was hard to watch. There didn’t seem to be any hope with the Yorks owning the team.
Singletary was the worst of the bad coaches, bad play-calling, bad clock management, switching quarterbacks all the time. The nadir came one season in which the 49ers could have won a game against the Cardinals. They had time for a couple of plays, down 24-29 and decide to run the ball up the middle from the 4-yard-line. They gain two yards, the clock runs out, they lose. What were they thinking? It turns out Singletary didn’t realise they were on the 4. He thought they were on the 1-yard-line. If San Francisco had won that game, they would have actually made the postseason. Instead, the Cardinals won the division and nearly won the Super Bowl.
The Yorks finally removed John York from decision-making duties and their son Jed was made president of the team. Oh, great, promoting their son, I thought. But, it turns out he is a really good executive, and the 49ers have been making all the right moves for three years — hiring Jim Harbaugh, getting a new stadium in Santa Clara, letting the football people actually run the football team.
I wasn’t sure if this latest incarnation of the 49ers was any good until their incredible playoff win over the Saints last year. The two teams combined for four touchdowns in the last five minutes of the game. I’ve never been a huge Alex Smith fan, but that was an outstanding game by him; by far the highlight of his 49ers career.
I also wasn’t sure what to think when Harbaugh switched from Smith to Colin Kaepernick in midseason. My brother was a big Kaepernick fan, but I thought Smith, who somehow survived Nolan and Singletary to stick with the team through some very bleak times, was getting screwed. It turns out Harbaugh knew what he was doing, obviously he had seen Kaepernick in practise, and knew his upside was too high to ignore. I wish Smith well, whereever he ends up next year, probably the Jets or the Chiefs. He deserves a starting job somewhere.
But, for now, the 49ers are back. Back in the Super Bowl after an 18-year hiatus through some pretty dark seasons.
Yesterday I mentioned the “lung cancer gene.” This is interesting stuff to me, and exciting for a potential cure to lung cancer, the No. 1 cancer killer.
One of the most exasperating arguments I’ve ever had with smokers, both in real life and online, is “if smoking causes lung cancer than why don’t all smokers get lung cancer?”
It’s a weak excuse to keep smoking. I remember having that very argument with my mom 30 years ago when my dad died of lung cancer. But, they’re right in that only about 10 percent of smokers ever develop lung cancer. This lung cancer gene mutation could explain why and many other things.
Here’s how it works, keep in mind that 15 percent of the people who get lung cancer (and 20 percent of women who get lung cancer), never smoked a cigarette in their lives. Why do some nonsmokers get lung cancer and most smokers don’t?
It’s been long known that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer by literally screwing up the DNA of the cells in the smoker’s lungs. Why do 10 percent of smokers have their DNA messed up and not all smokers?
In 2008, it was announced that there appeared to be a genetic mutation behind lung cancer. If you have this genetic mutation, you are at increased risk to lung cancer even if you are a non-smoker. I’ve read that your risk is something like 30 to 80 percent higher than a nonsmoker without the gene.
If you have this genetic mutation and you smoke, you are at extreme risk for lung cancer. One article I read long ago (can’t find it now), suggested that your odds of getting lung cancer are 50-50.
If you do not have this mutation, smoke ’em if you got ’em, because you will likely NEVER develop lung cancer … however, this gene mutation has no effect on your chances of getting COPD or heart disease or other kinds of cancer from smoking. So, really, you’re just dodging one out of a potentially large number of bullets.
If you do not have this mutation and do not smoke, your chances of ever getting lung cancer are astronomically low. Unless you’re breathing radioactive isotopes, you don’t even need to worry about it. You’re probably more at risk for being hit by lightning.
This gene might also have something to do with why marijuana smokers do not appear to be at increased risk for lung cancer while cigarette smokers are.
This is where the genetic issue gets even trippier. Not only does there appear to be a gene that makes certain people more susceptible to lung cancer, there also appears to be a gene that also makes some people more susceptible to addiction to nicotine. That could explain why some people can quit smoking while others cannot. It really has nothing to do with willpower. Some extremely strong-willed people simply cannot kick the nicotine, while others can do it and never look back. It might be genetic. What’s really weird are studies suggesting that the same gene mutation might be responsible for both increasing the risk of lung cancer and the susceptibility to nicotine addiction. Trippy stuff.
How people evolved with these genetic markers triggered by tobacco is beyond me. Tobacco in its current form didn’t even exist until perhaps 150 to 200 years ago. What the North American Indians smoked thousands of years ago is nothing like the tobacco grown today. It’s a mystery.
Anyway, the other exciting part of this is perhaps one day lung cancer will be treated via gene therapy. Already, in this day and age, if you want to pay the money, you can have a gene test done to see if you have this gene mutation. The down side to such a test is maybe some people will say, “hooray, I can smoke all I want now…” which would be a dumb response to such a test. Like I said earlier, you could still lose years off your life through COPD and heart disease by smoking.
Another exciting development of this discovery is scientists are working on a drug to block the gene mutation before it ever develops into cancer.
