The idle mind can fugue wonderfully, chain together disparate memories, create skeins to marvel at. I'll inaccurately and incompletely reconstruct over my cup ("tea, Earl Grey, hot") what I've been thinking over the past few days.
A few days back was the first anniversary of the death of New Mexico friend Bruce Watson. I had thought death by misadventure (probably despondent, playing with firearms), but Memory Alpha now says suicide.
That got me further investigating the deaths of favorite characters, where I cross-connected to Babylon 5 characters I've enjoyed. I'm pleased that the excellent Walter Koenig, the frequently miscast (IMHO) Gary Cole, the stunning Clayton Rohner (from just the one episode, Too Short a Season), and the very talented and sexy Patricia Tallman are still with us. But I was saddened to discover that Ward Costello and Andreas Katsulas (and others I might re-find) are gone.
Costello died last year of stroke-related complications, at age 89. That's completely understandable; evolution has no further use for us once we're beyond prime child-bearing years (men get a "break", extended time to procreate, but paradoxically it would seem that women actually have better construction, last somewhat longer). I hope he lived a full life, left satisfied.
Andreas Katsulas is however another story Katsulas, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in early 2005. He lost his battle with the disease on February 13, 2006, at the age of 59. No more G'Kar, no more Commander Tomalak, only a life cut short....
That reminded me that my foster brother the doctor. After my parents had passed, I reached out to him, tried to establish bonds. But he was never close to me, he wasn't even warm toward his own children. I used to say that he had received the wire mother, but only a few minutes of web research convinces me that the cloth ones weren't in the end actually any better.
Whatever, he was like Katsulas a heavy smoker. He knew better, but perhaps was unable to break the habit. Googling for nicotine and heroin addiction suggests what I was taught long, long ago, that it's harder to break a nicotine addiction than a heroin one [for one thing, you can't buy a pack of heroin at the grocery store, for another, individual (USA) states don't have a pecuniary warping of morality over the collection of huge taxes from the sale of heroin]. He died three years ago at age 79, at a hospice and in great pain from lung cancer.
And then there's a lover of decades ago, one of my Big Mistakes. I wish her well in Minneapolis, hope she's happy, and desperately wish that she might give up smoking. The last time I saw her was years ago in California, and the premature aging, the lines showed in her face. I've seen that kind of face before, in my Aunt Thelma who was also a heavy smoker; she passed quietly, but not before having years of wracking pain caused by constriction of peripheral blood vessels, and subsequent amputation of (I believe all of) her toes.
All this, above, intersected in my mind with the poor showing that BP is making in the Gulf, the slow-motion tragedy that will affect us all for decades. Tony Hayward does not bear ultimate and solo responsibility for that; such a dubious honor belongs to the Board of Directors of British Petroleum.
These two trains of thought collided (no survivors), and I began thinking about tobacco as poison, a legal poison produced by great (I mean "large" and not "laudable") corporations run by boards of directors. Perhaps fifty years ago such powerful men and women could have precariously thought themselves to have clean hands. But there can be absolutely no doubt any more; tobacco causes cancer, and brings about early death.
I don't understand how such things can have a good night's sleep, knowing that they are directly responsible for the killing of millions of their fellow humans.
Let me be clear about this. Rare is the product that doesn't have some side-effect, some danger. Two quick examples are economical food that will probably involve "easy" (read "cheap") pest management, easy production, and easy distribution; along with the food you may get herbicides, pesticides, and other "added ingredients" that don't necessarily add health to the consumer.
And the international travel that's part of knitting us together into one humanity involves jet airliners; they're rapid and very safe travel, but the environmental cost of the fuel is relatively high (this is a huge topic, it's very difficult to compare plane, train, car, whatever, so this is definitely IMHO), and very occasionally things can go horribly wrong.
However, we can choose to buy prepackaged food, and choose to fly in aircraft. There are benefits and risks, and most of all, there's choice. Tobacco does not work this way. The only consumer "benefit" is the temporary surcease of addiction cravings, the cost is an ugly and early death, and once you're hooked there's little choice.
But perhaps there's a chance for wisdom here. Corporations can learn, can change, just as individuals can. There's no reason why R J Reynolds, Philip Morris, Lorillard, and a host of others can't begin to turn away from this evil. It will take their recognition of the direct link (perhaps a private recognition, but whatever), then abandoning the seeking of "replacements" (no more advertising, no more "freebies", no more expansion into the Third World), then movement of corporate goals toward other products (easy to imagine, just switch to making products that are good for people), then finally the abandonment of tobacco (presumably because all those addicted have died off).
The only sure way to end nicotine addiction is to have all those who are addicted die, and no more take up the habit.
This could be done, perhaps When Pigs Fly, but perhaps sooner.
The final thread that makes up this skein is an article I ran into over the weekend, wherein Warren Buffett gives My philanthropic pledge. A very, very rich man who thinks of the rest of humanity is a rara avis indeed, someone to admire and emulate. I already try to share of myself, but alas my gifts are considerably smaller, giving of myself to friends, helping the bum on the street, giving blood frequently (that never-met strangers might live), that sort of thing.
So perhaps there's hope after all, that the scourge of tobacco will one day be merely a footnote in history. And Andreas Katsulas et al. will have suitable memorials, that no more will pass as they did.
