Opinion
LangleyAdvance
| Thursday, January 24, 2013 |
A8
Our View
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Butt out today, butt out forever You know a hundred reasons to quit smoking already, but for National NonSmoking Week, here’s another. Lung cancer migrates. It can spread, into the brain, into the glands, and into the bones. If you sign up for lung cancer, you are spinning the roulette wheel of cancer. Will you simply get a painful, wheezing death as the cancer ravages your lungs? Or will you get seizures, loss of vision, and violent mood swings as it carves its way through your brain, through your very sense of self? Perhaps, if you are particularly unlucky, it will take root in your bones, giving you one of the most painful experiences known to humankind. There is a more positive reason to quit smoking, too: everyone is on your side. Everyone. Those who’ve never smoked, and those who quit years ago will applaud your decision. The B.C. government will be happy with you, and will even give you free medications to help you quit, through the smoking cessation program. Bars and pubs in B.C. will be happy that you’re not nipping out the door so often for a smoke, letting in that cold air. Ditto your significant other, who will be able to avoid either allowing you to smoke inside, or banishing you to the garage or deck. Your bank account will be particularly pleased, and you will be pleased in turn when you see how much more money is there at the end of a month. It adds up, even if it’s only a couple of packs a week. Your doctor will give you a big grin. Try for a fist-bump, the doc will probably go for it. Chefs everywhere will be happier, because you will be able to better taste their food. A few years from now, you’ll have mostly forgotten why you started smoking the first place. You don’t wheeze going up a couple flights of stairs any more, you can’t stand the smell of tobacco smoke, and much of the spectre of an early death has been lifted from you, and from your loved ones. C’mon, butt out. We’re rooting for you. – M.C.
Your View
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Opinion
Liberal radio ad explains it all Painful truth
ently for the BC Jobs Plan, the website of which it half-heartedly plugs, before letting you know that it’s paid for by your provincial government. You could have fooled me. Matthew Claxton The Liberals have been getting slagged for mclaxton@langleyadvance.com months for their happy-happy-joy-joy BC Jobs TV ads. The NDP’s Dix has flat out said that if he wins, he’ll ban this type of blatantly parThere’s a new radio ad coming at you tisan advertising using the limitless barrel of through the ether, zipping about as electrogovernment money – the Liberals in Ontario magnetic waves. When it hits an antenna, it have apparently already done this. resolves into sound, then into concentrated I asked the government for some information political horse hooey. about the whys, wherefores, and costs of this This is an ad that is in no way about the lovely campaign of scare mongering. I did not BC Liberals and the NDP. Nope, nothing to get a lot of solid answers. do with the down-in-the-polls government of I was told that who wrote it Premier Christy Clark, and with no will not be released – although relation whatsoever to still-ahead I did not get previous Freedom of Information NDP leader Adrian Dix. requests have revealed that the a lot of solid But if it isn’t about them, what is government was apparently worit about? answers… ried that focus groups showed Dubbed “Dominoes” it’s a 30people thought there weren’t a second warning about the dangers lot of jobs out there! Oddly, the of… something. young and unemployed seemed to hold this “Unstable government policies have hurt view more strongly. people around the world,” says our narrator, You know what’s a good way to make people his voice conveying the seriousness of his mesless worried about jobs? Creating jobs instead sage. “Big government, careless spending, and quick fixes have caused economies to collapse, of talking about it ad nauseum! But the ministry did say that visits to the BC affecting families, businesses, and communJobs Plan website are way up since the ads ities worldwide.” started running! Which is useless for people Whoa! This is a warning of immediate looking for work, since those without a job danger! Where are we going with this? What are directed to a completely different site, countries? What governments? Are we talking the level of “collapse” you see in Zimbabwe or Work BC. Yes, we have a site called BC Jobs North Korea, or a savage recession like the one Plan that does not contain any listings for, you know, jobs. in Greece or Spain? It couldn’t be… here!?! As for how much the radio ads cost, I was Who knows? Having thrown in the scare, told this: the ad is moving on, to sunny music and an “This ad buy is not complete at this time upbeat message. and is subject to change, so we do not release “But uncertainty stops at British Columbia,” this information until the ad has been comsays the ad. “We’re standing strong, by conpleted.” Translation: a sack of cash so big you trolling government spending, keeping taxes could use it to beat a walrus to death. low, and investing in skills training.” I hope Dix is serious about banning this Ah, so clearly this is a Liberal political ad, form of sound pollution, because I do not warning us in no uncertain terms not to kick want to be re-running this column about NDP them out this May. government ads four or five years from now. But there’s one final twist! The ad is appar-
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