If you live in the Windy City or have spent any time there in recent years, you’ve probably noticed that it’s a smoke-free city now. Thank Alderman Ed Smith for cleaning the air and protecting your lungs, whether you like the smoking ban or not. Approve or disapprove, that’s not really the point. Ed Smith knows what’s best for you and you should be kissing his ass for saving your life, and if you’re a smoker, for not letting you kill others with your toxic cigarette smoke.
Speaking of toxic fumes, how about that ban on spray paint cans in Chicago? Your barbecue or fence might be rusty, but Smith has bigger concerns, like preventing hoodlums from spraying graffiti on buildings and overpasses. Kudos to Ed Smith for helping ban spray paint and forcing you to travel outside of the city to a Home Depot that trusts you’ll use it properly.
Enjoy indulging in a little delicacy known as “foie gras?” Well, Ed Smith doesn’t think you should be eating goose liver because as he told reporters when he threatened to resign as Chicago Health Committee Chairman, “My professionalism, my manhood, my integrity is at stake … I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat meat. I don’t eat duck or anything else.”
While we’re on the topic of tasty birds, Smith doesn’t believe Chicago citizens should have the right to own chickens as pets or for harvesting their eggs. Why anyone would want to own a chicken for a pet is beyond me, but that’s not the point. Smith has his reasons for supporting the ban on chickens, and once again, you shouldn’t question his authority and sound judgment.
If you enjoy the famous taste of Chicago deep dish pizza, it might just be that the extra burst of flavor comes from those evil trans fats, and Smith would rather sacrifice the quality and taste of a national treasure if it means saving your arteries from clogging, or whatever trans fats do that’s so scary.
“People are getting the message that health is important,” Smith said when asked about Chicago potentially banning trans fats. ”These kinds of measures are important. When these things begin to pass around the country, it has the tendency to have a ripple effect.”
Imagine how many tourists attending the Olympic Games in Chicago would be disappointed if the city’s pizza joints were forced to change the recipes for their famous pizzas? Well, Smith won’t support an effort to win an Olympic bid for his city unless an Olympic-sized swimming pool is first constructed at a predominantly black (draw your own conclusions) high school in his ward (28).
“If they don’t build an Olympic-sized swimming pool, children on the West Side will not be able to participate in the Olympics. They won’t have an opportunity to practice,” Smith said. ”Children coming from Russia and Norway are practicing right now in Olympic pools. All of the medals will go elsewhere.” One can only assume that the “Tiger Woods” of swimming will quickly rise out of Chicago if Smith’s demand for a pool is granted.
On Tuesday, March 4, Smith announced his latest attempt to save his city and “protectorate” from harming themselves by proposing a ban on small plastic bags that one would ordinarily find at convenience stores.
Smith believes those little plastic bags that the majority of Americans use to store food products are the trigger mechanism for the ”most destructive force” in Chicago neighborhoods. He elaborated, “We need to use every measure that we possibly can to stop it because it is destroying our kids. It’s destroying our community. It’s destroying our race of people. It’s ridiculous.”
Of course, Smith was referring to the “dime bags” that freelance pharmaceutical salesmen use to keep their products fresh for clients, but c’mon, he’s talking about banning plastic bags that countless moms depend on to pack peanuts inside for their kids to take to school — not crack cocaine.
Ed Smith isn’t really a Nazi, but he seems to be taking a page from Hitler and company when it comes to abusing his power in a position of authority to prevent citizens from engaging in activities and possessing materials that he has deemed inappropriate.
1 response so far ↓
thegreatgeno // March 7, 2008 at 12:11 am
Some of those things do seem petty and unnecessary. You seem to have some legitimate complaints.
However, foi gras is inhumane. It pretty much involves torture of geese. And most cities don’t allow farm animals in city limits. So I don’t think those two issues are an abuse of power too much.
Interestingly, Scotland actually took legislation to limit plastic bags, but they had an amazing plastic bag litter problem that I don’t really think applies to the U.S.
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