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Terry’s Tidbits - By Terry Gray

VENTILATING

Okay, get ready to raise your hands in answer to this question:  have you ever walked into a room and said, “It sure is stuffy in here,” and proceeded to open windows?  If you don’t have any hands, then please raise something; we have all done this.

Do you have an exhaust fan above your range?  Most of these fans filter the smoke from range-top cooking and send it back into the room.  The filters are nothing more than little pieces of wire mesh that are the pits to clean.  Has anyone measured the toxins emitted from cooking fires?  And what do we have in our bathrooms to exhaust methane gas?  These little ceiling exhaust fans are primarily to remove the odor and do little else.

Now let’s get really stupid.  We don’t like the way our room smells, so we spray air fresheners around and fool ourselves into thinking the air is clean.  All we’ve done is mask whatever is causing the odor in the first place.  Then, for those truly lazy people, we have the air fresheners that plug into an electrical outlet.  These things mask the cause of the odor AND use electricity.  I kind of like the plug-in type air fresheners that spray intermittently.  They do a world of good for a healthy person’s heart and alertness.  They sound like a mad snake or a black-market cigarette dealer signaling you from a dark alley.  I’m ready to fight.

I was in the Back Door Lounge in the Mid-City Mall a couple of days ago, where John Dant, the owner, voluntarily installed 3 separate air filtration units a few months ago.  These units are designed to remove all kinds of toxins including tobacco smoke toxins.  I thought I was in the mountains, surrounded by clear mineral springs and tweeting birdies.  Well, not quite, but there were no clouds of smoke hanging below the ceiling.  Of course, there wouldn’t be smoke clouds anyway, because the Back Door Lounge has a large exhaust fan, just like in our bathrooms, that ejects ALL smoke outside.  The filter units are for anything that escapes the exhaust fan.

“Even without…ventilation, concerns about contact with the ‘poisons’ in tobacco smoke are obviously greatly exaggerated.  It would be extremely difficult for any of the elements in secondary smoke to reach levels that the EPA of OSHA normally considered to be of concern.  Such levels, called Threshold Limit Values or Permissible Exposure Limits would never even be approached in real world situations.” 

Michael McFadden, Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains, 2003.

Tobacco smoke in most environments, even without ventilation and filtration, is within acceptable limits as defined by the EPA and OSHA.  It takes a butt load of zealot antis to blow the whole scenario out of whack with lies and propaganda.

It seems that the worst case scenario is always cited by the antis and then proclaimed to be the norm.  “Second hand smoke kills people.”  If you stick you noses where they don’t belong, like directly over the stream of unfiltered cigarette smoke, you will be poisoned.  Now do this every day, 8 hours a day for 50 years and the accumulative poison will probably get to you.  However, you are more likely to become injured by the smoker because you are in his way as you try your best to get sick.

Humorously true, cigarette smoke emits cholesterol.  Yes, cholesterol is bad but we need some of it and the daily recommended intake of cholesterol is 600 milligrams.  One cigarette emits 40 micrograms of cholesterol.  It would take 600 years of breathing second hand smoke on a daily basis to get the cholesterol that we need.  With that in mind it kind of makes one wonder just how much of the bad stuff we really do get through breathing second hand smoke.    

KILLING IN LOUISVILLE

Officer Mattingly was involved in a police shooting a few years ago.  That seems to be a very important piece of information to the media.  I don’t think it matters though.  If a person, any person has to shoot someone everyday then so be it.  But…

It seems that Louisville, under the leadership of Jerry Abramson and the Louisville Police Department under the leadership of Chief White has a problem.  I won’t even go into the financial ruin that Mayor Jerry is leading us into.  This has to do with cops killing people and walking away.

We went through this a year ago when a Louisville Police officer shot a handcuffed man 12 times at close range.  Now a cop has shot a 19 year old 3 times in the back.  The cop is nick-named Mad-dog.  The media reported that Mad-dog feared for his life.  Let a civilian use that excuse.

Now the black civil rights community is screaming civil rights violations and racial prejudice.  Under the leadership of the Reverend Coleman, what else could they scream?  I don’t think that this was racially motivated.  I think that Mad-dog was scared and mad.  He was out of control.  An unarmed 19 year old got the best of him.  I think that Mad-dog would have killed the man regardless of color, age or gender.  His ego was hurt, and he wasn’t going to put up with it.

The media have been very nice to the victim; it has only been slightly mentioned that he was in the middle of a drug sting. (In a few years, the drug will be tobacco.)  Testimonials to the goodness of the man have been splashed across our television screens.  Mad-dog on the other hand is ever increasingly being portrayed as a rogue killer.  He is a killer.

I think what we are looking at here is the mentality of Homeland Security.  Cops are gaining more and more control through the fear tactics associated with the Patriot Act.  Their license has been expanded, and we have accepted it as the price we must pay for security.  If you are not familiar with what Homeland Security and the Patriot Act have done to our rights, then shame on you; you might want to read up.  The association between local killer-cop and the national squashing of our constitutional rights is not an association one would immediately grasp, unless one is on top of the issue of national security.

So now the Louisville Police department will investigate its own and in this case probably vilify Mad-dog.  But he will just be a scapegoat used as an escape for the cops.  The useless and powerless police review board will twiddle its thumbs and lovingly verbalize what Mayor Jerry tells them to say.  Reverend Coleman will lead his little protest.  The family of the victim will get paid off.  Everyone will be happy except Mad-dog, Coleman, the victim and me.

FATHER MILLER

Those of you wanting to keep Father Miller in jail are mistaken.  I don’t want to support this man until he dies.  Let him out under house arrest to the church.  Let them be responsible for him.

LG&E

“Hmmm, it’s getting cold; let’s raise the price of heating oil.”  I think that if the city of Louisville is going to condone and support monopolies, then it should have a neutral panel to control the price.  When LG&E raises its price, the city of Louisville makes more money.  Where is the incentive to keep prices down?  It isn’t like consumers have a choice.  I don’t believe in price controls on business unless the government allows a monopoly.  But then the controls should not be in the hands of those profiting from price increases.

LG&E lets customers donate money toward helping those that can’t afford their heating bills and LG&E matches the donations dollar-for-dollar.  Whatever happened to rewarding independence?  Why do I have to be poor to reap the rewards?  I would like to pay only half of my bill and have LG&E match my payment to equal the full amount.  I’d like to donate money to me.  Why is it that when I can afford to pay my bill that it is expected that I pay someone else’s too?

I believe in charities.  Voluntarily giving one’s money to help someone else is great and it sure beats Uncle Sam forcibly snatching away my money in the name of charity. 

Why aren’t these people paying their bills through LG&E’s monthly averaging?  LG&E lets customers pay the same amount every month so that in the summer when heating oil isn’t being used, customers are making an investment in their costs for the winter.  I guess in the summer months poor people like to have a little spending money and rely on the rest of us to pay their bills in the winter.

PETE ROSE

Can anyone think of a better incentive to win a ball game than to bet that you are going to win?  It’s never been said that Pete Rose bet against the Reds; he is a bad guy just because he bet.  It sounds like the baseball commission is a lump of pompous jerks.  Hell, its American to bet.  What if Rose had never put any money on a game or utilized organized gambling but was heard to mutter to himself, “I bet we lose tonight?”

COURT AND TRIAL COSTS

I don’t understand.  “This trial is going to cost taxpayers 1 million dollars.”  How so?  We are already paying. Judges are salaried, prosecutors are salaried, public defenders are salaried, coroners are salaried, cops are salaried, jails and courthouses are waiting for action, clerks are salaried.  Computers, papers, ink pens, gavels, janitors, bailiffs, court reporters, desks, chairs…..  We already pay for these things.

CITY COUNCIL

The democrats fought like starving kids trying to get a single piece of candy.  I guess when one takes a good look at the Democrats and their quest for power this skirmish could be expected.  The following was unexpected however in the race for Metro Council President:

          “She said the caucus would have to decide if it wants to sanction Melton, the caucus vice

chairman; Bentley; and Johnson for voting for Downard.” (Barbara Shanklin).

And this:

“"We're black. We're white. We're urban. We're suburban. We're a mess," said Mary Woolridge,
D-3rd District, who became increasingly upset with her colleagues.”

The Democrats now want to consider sanctioning metro council members that didn’t vote for Democrats?  See, one moves out of the ranks of ordinary citizen to the elite of government and they have to back their club or else.  This ain’t no club, you morons.  This is my government, my freedom and you people are merely representatives.

I kind of thought that government was past this racial thing with blacks and whites working together to make our world better.  I also thought that merger was supposed to work out all of those urban suburban differences.

Now I want to thank Ms. Woolridge for pointing out to us all that the Democrats are a mess.  It isn’t often you hear that.  Maybe Ms. Woolridge will be sanctioned next.

Congratulations to Councilman Downard, but I hope he doesn’t wear an expensive watch when he is walking hand in hand with the mayor.  

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