Letter to the editor

A satirical response to bans

Alan Wong (“Banning smoking is progressive,” Sept. 27) makes a counterintuitive argument about the proposal to ban smoking.

One might have thought sticking up for individual rights would be the progressive side of the debate rather than banning things that some people personally don’t like.

Wong is right that second-hand smoking is dangerous — he takes on the old canard that smoke (when outside) floats upwards: How many times have we seen innocent, young non-smokers surrounded by chain-smoking midgets at their feet, rendering them helpless to break free from the smog around them?

What good is the solace of the few, isolated remaining smoking areas when packs of crazed smokers pursue law-abiding DT journalists pushing their Virginian weed in their face?

My only wish is that Mr. Wong had taken his argument further! Why do we only care about smoking? A New York Times article (“Obesity Spreads to Friends, Study Concludes,” July 25, 2007) tells us that having fat friends can induce obesity even in those of us who are fighting it.

Where is the crusade to liquidate those people endangering our health so cruelly?

Unlike smokers, we even currently allow fat people to spread their virus indoors.

What would parents think if they came to campus and saw “heavy-boned” students waddling around campus without thought for the health of the rest of us?

I agree with Mr. Wong: “Banning fat people is progressive.”

Phillip K. Wilcox

Graduate student, political science, international relations