How ugly with eCig war become?

I’m wondering these days if we’re destined to have a “war” of sorts between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Jenny McCarthy.

The latter, of course, is the Playboy centerfold from the Southwest Side turned actress/model/activist /talk show host (for now) who seems to have found herself a new cause.

SMOKING, PARTICULARLY THAT of so-called Electronic Cigarettes. They’re a device that allow people to get their nicotine fix without generating the smoke that causes the stink that makes cigarette smoking so repulsive to anyone who has to be near an actual smoker.

During the past week, I have seen a commercial keep cropping up on television in which McCarthy touts the “blu” brand of e-Cigarettes. She claims she can now smoke without causing everybody about her to give her the “stinkeye.”

Her ad ends with her using a variation on what appears to be blu’s tag line; she’s, “taking back my freedom” to smoke in public.

As though the people who don’t want to have to cope with the health hazard of being exposed to smoking are the oppressive tyrants for trying to deny her some unalienable right to rot her lungs out with tobacco products.

I’M KIND OF offended at her perception of the issue in that fashion. But I know she’s not alone – there are too many people who think they have the right to force themselves on us – as though a bully thinks it is the “American Way” for them to bully other people.

Now what does any of this have to do with our less-than-beloved mayor?

Will he get into a brawl w/ McCarthy?

McCarthy’s commercial was what first popped into my mind when I read the news reports about the City Council’s latest cause – Aldermen Edward Burke and Will Burns will be pushing for an ordinance that will more strictly regulate the eCigs.

Based on the perception that young people are able to purchase them legally, and are using them as a way of developing a tobacco habit. As though this is the entryway to cigarette smoking.

UNDER THE ORDINANCE, e-Cigs would be regarded as identical to “tobacco products.” That would make them the same as cigarettes, and anybody using them to inhale nicotine would have to behave in the same way they do when the light up a traditional cigarette.

That means having to take the ugly habit outside – even though proponents of e-Cigs argue that their devices only generate a vapor that is odorless; rather than the smoke of a cigarette.

There’d also be regulations against selling eCigs anywhere within a 500-foot radius of a school building. That compares to current ordinances that prohibit traditional cigarettes from being sold within 100 feet of a school.

The measure, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, is to be introduced this week before the City Council, which also is considering a significant increase in the taxes assessed by city government on tobacco products.

ALL IN ALL, it is not a mindset sympathetic to people who have developed a nicotine addiction.

Seeing as though Chicago-area celebrity McCarthy (I’m really not sure how to accurately describe what the star of the “Santa Baby” films that we’ll get to see in upcoming weeks has become professionally) is now the public face of e-Cigs, will we get the sight of McCarthy at City Hall – prepared to tell off Emanuel (who has said he supports the proposed ordinance)?

Will she use the same vehemence that she has turned to in her claims that certain vaccines cause kids to become autistic to say that Emanuel should take his ordinance and stuff it?

Soon to make annual TV reappearance

Will Emanuel turn to his blunt-spoken way with words that he often used on political opponents of Barack Obama back when he was White House chief of staff to try to put McCarthy in her place?

I CAN’T ENVISION McCarthy butting out of a fight in her own home town. Nor could I dream of a situation where Emanuel would show some tact – even if he did manage to avoid offending the French when they spoke of what parts of Chicago (including McCarthy’s old Sout’ Side neighborhood) are best avoided.

All I know is that the fight, if and when it does occur, has the potential to get even uglier than a “Sox vs. Cubs” brawl.

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Some people are way too touchy!

Where’s the Tylenol?

I feel like I need to reach for a bottle, after learning of the things that get some people all worked up.

WHETHER IT’S JENNY McCarthy, or the bomber who took out the Boston Marathon with one of his explosive devices. The degree to which some people are upset makes me wonder if they’re just determined to be miserable.

As if they’d be upset with themselves if there wasn’t something (anything) for them to get all upset about.

I think I’m more bothered with the people who have nothing better to worry about than the cover of Rolling Stone magazine – which quite often does serious reporting about issues of great significance to our society.

In the upcoming issue, they’re publishing a story about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – one of the suspects in the explosion in Boston that killed a few participants in the marathon; while also injuring many dozens of others.

I HAVEN’T READ the story yet, although it seems the magazine is trying to write a serious piece of reporting that shows just how an individual can sink to such a contemptible level.

Because it’s the big story, it is the “cover.” Which means Tsarnaev gets his picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

That has the kind of people who spend way too much of their time on the Internet making hostile comments. They don’t want him being “glorified,” even though I don’t see how this is glorification.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsarnaev himself were to view this as demonification of his persona. I doubt he’s going to be pleased with the image that will be presented of himself.

YET THE OVERLY touchy amongst us want to complain. And they even got at least two significant business interests – the CVS and Walgreens drug-store chains – to say they won’t carry the magazine’s upcoming issue.

Personally, I don’t buy magazines at either store (their selections aren’t that impressive -- I just don't care about "Shape" magazine). But I’m appalled by both actions.

In the case of CVS, they say their roots as a New England-based company make them sensitive to Boston’s feelings on this matter. So now, Rolling Stone can claim they were “banned in Boston.” Maybe sales elsewhere will compensate for the loss, because such a status makes this appear to be a big deal that it really isn't.

I suspect the people who do wind up reading the story will find themselves disappointed. Which is why I wish the Chicago-area-based Walgreens had not made such a decision. I’d always like to think Chicago interests are more common-sense than the rest of the country.

APPARENTLY, THEY’RE NOT always such.

Then, there’s the case of McCarthy – who earlier this week got herself a bigger media platform than the weekly advice column she writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. She’s going to be on Barbara Walters’ television creation – The View.

She’s going to be a regular hostess. But while most of us think of her as nothing more than the Mother McAuley girl who turned a Playboy spread into fame as a not-quite actress but definitely a pop-star, she has in recent years come up with the theory that her son’s autism was caused by vaccinations.

That has the medical community now upset that McCarthy would get a permanent place on a prominent daytime TV show. Even though I’d like to think that real people are too busy working during the day to actually watch The View, it seems they think Jenny is now going to be using the airwaves to spew her theories on the matter.

PERSONALLY, I THINK the people who actually watch the program would be bored to death if she actually did become the single-note clown that they’re predicting she will be. She'd get fired if she actually tried to use the program for an autism crusade.

Do I see the fate of the Republic being threatened by McCarthy’s new job? I can’t!

I’m actually more frightened by all the people who felt compelled to pounce on this issue right when it happened at the beginning of the week. Talk about having way too much free time on their hands.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: No, I don’t really see any resemblance to Jim Morrison. Then again, I’m the type of person who never really thought one-time Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin bore any resemblance to Tina Fey. I just don’t see it.

 

In either case!