Bill Sniffin: Columns and Articles

Thursday, November 22, 2007

748 Cough, cough have another cigarette

Smokers are the new pariahs.
– Title of article of tobacco users

    After traveling around the country in recent months, it certainly is true that smokers are becoming an endangered species.
    It was hard to find smokers in the part of Texas we were at last week – north of Dallas at the suburb called Allen.
    But two weeks earlier we were in western Iowa and found a whole bunch of smokers who are still hanging on.
    Met my old pal Dan at a little bar in a little town. The smoke was heavy in the air. Dan took a long pull on his Marlboro, coughed violently, and stared at me with his bloodshot eyes that shouted out: “Smokers have rights, too, by God!”
    Cough, cough.
    “You know if a person wants to kill himself by one drag at a time, he should be given that right,” Dan said, betraying his libertarian and contrarian roots. “Look around. These are decent, honest God-fearing folks. They have earned the right to smoke.”
    After that evening my clothes stunk and even stunk up the interior of the car as we drove back to the West the next day.
    Whew, the fresh air felt pretty good. When we got back home some interesting news was making the rounds. A poll showed a majority of people in Wyoming would like to see all smoking banned.
In Wyoming? The Equality State? Don’t smokers have rights, too, as my friend Dan (who is a lawyer, too) would say?
    Some enlightened places like Laramie and Cheyenne have become smoke-free in recent years. Jackson has talked about it. Casper voted on it a few years ago and turned it down.
    The increased numbers of smokefree bars and restaurants is truly staggering in our state these days.
As a matter of information, this writer become intimately familiar with smoking statistics when our PR company developed the ads that called to mind the safety issues of smoking. That effort ended some time ago but it left an indelible impression with some of these statistics:
    • There are 45 million hard-core smokers in the USA.
    • Second hand smoke is very destructive.
    • The ritual of tobacco use is a big, big deal.
    To me, smoking cigarettes is like playing Russian Roulette. Instead of one of six bullets killing you, it might be cigarette #6,453 that will kill you or maybe, if you are lucky, it will be cigarette #23, 212. Either way it gets you.
    Most physicians say smoking does not just give you lung cancer but kills your heart, your circulation and can make you prone for other cancers, too.
    Smoking for so long just looked so cool. And even now, when I walk by a person lighting up a Marlboro, well, that initial whiff of second hand smoke smells pretty darned good.
    And it should. Businessmen and their chemists spent four centuries and billions of dollars perfecting the formula. It is so addictive it has been compared to heroin. Drug users and alcoholics will say it is often easier to kick their drug addictions or alcohol desires than it is to kick smoking.
    So am I a non-smoker? Well, I happen to love cigars. It’s great to smoke them in the great outdoors. What is this all about? It is almost like the cleaner the air the more I want to pollute it?
    You will find cigars on my boat and in my favorite vest that I wear when going hiking in the woods. But I have not had a cigar during my walks in the woods for a year. Now about that boat and cigars, well?
    There is a lot of smoke in my past. I give a speech to newspaper groups where talking about what it was like starting out in the newspaper business in 1964. That was a long time ago.
    We all smoked incessantly. Not just cigarettes but pipes and cigars, too. All the meetings we attended including everyone smoking. This was not that long after World War II – those men who were running things had learned to smoke during those earlier trying times.
    Times have sure changed. Readers of this column know that I also like old cars. Biggest oddity, though, when you get in one there are lots of ashtrays but NO cup holders!
New cars do not even have ashtrays. That is a good sign.
    And Wyoming. Will it ever go smokefree as a state? The trends would say yes but then again, we can be pretty darned independent to our own detriment.

Monday, November 19, 2007

747 What`s in a name?

    Names match careers - In our little town, a barber named Jim Trimmer recently died. He had been doing haircuts in Lander for over 40 years.
    Having a barber named Trimmer seemed like an unusual coincidence, but it did not stop at that.
    We also had an accountant named Jerry Record.
    We had a psychologist named Dr. Brian Miracle.
    There is our orthodontist named Dr. Brent Bills.
    Our local Episcopal minister was Rev. Bill Cross.
    Our mailman who walked his route and was a local favorite was named Walker Mann.
    We have a greenhouse operated by Charlie Sprout.
    And finally, our local newspaper guy was named Bill Sniffin.
    Perhaps names do follow people’s choice of careers.
    In the Wyoming radio business, we had a Worland station KENB formerly owned by Ken Brown, KERM in Torrington by Kerm Kath and KTAK in Riverton, which was founded by T. A. Kehl. Wonder if Tony ever filed for a radio station with the ID of KEHL for one of his stations?

    Wyoming names in the news - Some Wyoming folks were in the news this past week.
    A researcher from the University of Wyoming, Jennifer Mercer, was featured for two days with Ann Curry on the NBC Today show, which was being filmed in Antarctica.
    Ms. Mercer, a native of Spearfish, S. D. is a research scientist at the Atmospheric Science Dept. at the Laramie campus. She was interviewed about research that had been done about the hole in the ozone layer.
The Today Show program was called the Ends of the Earth and also featured reports from the Arctic and from the Equator.
    In Cheyenne, the super-popular primetime TV show Extreme Home Makeover Edition featured the Dan Miller family.
    Their kids were having health problems because of radon gas the program included a scene of their house getting blown to bits from 300 sticks of dynamite.
    They received a new home courtesy of lots of folks with Carter Brothers of Cheyenne being the main contractor.

    Name for bent trees – I finally found out what those bent trees were called that abound on top of the mountain above Centennial, west of Laramie.
    Called “Krumholtz,’ which is German for bent wood.
    Seems when the mercury dips so low and the wind blows so hard, well, the only way trees can survive is to cluster themselves and only have limbs headed off in one direction – not into the wind, by the way. The trees tend to look like flags.
    Evie Elmendorf and her husband Mike McFaul of the Mountain View Historical Hotel in Centennial provided me this information.

    Magazine names – One of the most creative names for a magazine to me was a publication in New York called I AM. It was a magazine for Italian Americans.
    When I was in Omaha recently, I picked up a local book called ONE. What does that mean? Well, Omaha, NE spells out as O, NE.
    And finally, last week, I picked up a small publication called “ALL Allen,” which was the local magazine for, what else, Allen, Texas.

    Cough, cough. – Today, young people in our schools are being taught to cough into their elbows rather than into their hands.
    Theory is that this will cut down on the germs being transferred from person-to-person through hand contact.
    Now, I see parents and adults doing this all the time.
    Looks funny to me.
    But it works.

    If you live in Wyoming – Number four in our series: You live in Wyoming if a member of the local town deer herd ate your jack-o-lantern.

    Fattest in country – Wyoming folks are ranked 23rd fattest in the country. Not too bad, but Colorado is ranked number one for being least fat.
    Which brings me to the thought that a Texas U. study showed that the average male walks 900 miles per year and also drinks 200 gallons of beer in a 12-month period.
    This averages out to about 4.1 miles per gallon.
    Also bought a birthday card for my nephew who fits the above description. The card said that a man’s life could be measured in how he considers his mid-section.
    First there is the six-pack.
    Then there is the twelve pack.
    And finally, there is the Keg.

    Definitions – The Washington Post holds an annual contest for something they call their neologism contest which means adding oddball definitions to common words. Three stood in reference to items appearing in this column:
    Coffee – that person upon whom one coughs.
    Flabbergasted – when you are appalled at how much weight you have gained.
    Abdicate – when you give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Friday, November 16, 2007

746 Where are Wyoming`s big thinkers?

It could be stated that Wyoming people have endured 25 years since the last great boom lit up the state’s economy.

It was the mid-1980s when oil prices crashed, nationwide demand for energy plummeted, interest rates soared and, overall, dreams hatched during an energy boom turned to nightmares in Wyoming.

Today, we are in the fifth year of the next big boom, folks. And it is a time for optimism. This is a time for the dreamers to dream. A time for big thinkers. A time of innovation.

Lawmakers have met in Cheyenne in recent years with budget surpluses nearing $1 billion a pop. The next session in February will be different with a much smaller surplus as severance taxes have been down and our government grows. But as Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the other day, the outlook is still very, very rosy.

We know where all this new money is coming from – severance taxes on minerals, especially natural gas. Measured in mcfs, the output for Wyoming has increased immensely in this past five years.

The time for innovation is when you have money to do things. And future-thinking leaders have been doing some great things in recent years. For example:

• Over a billion dollars has been budgeted and spent for new school facilities in our state.

• The Hathaway program will provide any qualified student in Wyoming with a college education with a $500 million endowment.

• Over $100 million has gone into endowed chairs at the University of Wyoming and the community colleges. A Department of Energy has been created at the university.

• More than $124 million has been sent to our communities in the business ready community program, paving the way for creating an infrastructure that will survive any future bust.

• The NCAR super computer project in Cheyenne will be huge.

• A wildlife trust fund has been established to guarantee an income flow for projects involving our game and fish, both hunting and non-hunting.

• The state is financing new prisons and remodeling old prisons.

• Money has been allocated to deal with substance abuse, alcohol and tobacco abuse. Plus new facilities are being built for our addicts.

• Long overdue maintenance projects of state buildings and facilities have been funded and are underway.

The above list is impressive but there are still projects left to accomplish and also new schemes to ponder.

This is the time for dreamers. It is a time for big ideas. Here are a couple of them that have been mentioned:

Why not consider building an energy reservation here in Wyoming that could incorporate coal-to-gas technology, besides the one on the drawing board in Carbon County? It could possibly incorporate nuclear power and/or a natural gas-fired power plant, too. Perhaps a new refinery needs to be built. Such a reservation could be located at some spot probably located in a square cornered by Douglas, Buffalo, Newcastle and Lusk.

A second grand idea might be to get the state involved in the ownership of energy projects or at least as a partner. This could significantly lower the costs of power to our own citizens plus give us the upper hand in creating local development surrounding such a project.

Meanwhile, we have other opportunities such as:

•And how can we preserve our pristine environment in the face of unprecedented growth? Can we have our cake and eat it, too?

• Tourism continues to boom but we need good roads. Some new four-lane highways make a lot of sense. As an airline advocate, I have long supported the idea of the state becoming more innovative when it comes to providing commercial air expansion.

• Gov. Freudenthal wants some more reservoirs, which makes a lot of sense in a state where the climate is described as semi-arid. And despite recent rains, we have had drought five of the last six years.

So, where are our big thinkers? Now is when they need to come forward. This is not a time to piddle around.

We know the governor and legislative leaders have often pondered the creation of some kind of think tank that would try to come up with great plans for Wyoming’s future. The 1970s-vintage Wyoming Futures Project was a good model but it was knocked in the head by the bust of the 1980s. It is now time to do a new one.

Over the past few years, the late Sen. Craig Thomas traveled the state with his Wyoming: 2020 meetings, which were an attempt to look into the future. Some good information was gathered.

And finally, 2008 is an election year. What great ideas do our candidates have to put forth that can answer the big questions about Wyoming’s future?

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

745 Dox, Pox, Rox and Sox

    My mind was wandering as I was wandering around the country this past week. For example:

    Doctors’ recruitment – Let’s hope the legislature can some up with a way to treat doctors better or we could see a worsening health care crisis here in Wyoming.
    Luring new doctors to replace retiring doctors could become a critical pastime in our state if nothing is done about it.
    Three years ago, the voters in Wyoming narrowly defeated a measure, which would have helped the situation. That vote makes legislators gun shy to deal with it in the near future.
    For example, a friend’s son is a doctor who wanted to come back to Wyoming but went to Colorado because that state’s laws allowed them to make $100,000 more. Actually, it cost this person $100,000 less for malpractice insurance.
    Down in Texas the legislature enacted new malpractice laws. Latest report is the waiting list by established physicians to get a license to practice in that state? Would you believe it contains 2,500, according to the New York Times? Wow – 2,500 new doctors to a state.
    Doing nothing is not a good situation for medical care for the people of our state.

    A pox on car thieves – Latest scam in Denver and Salt Lake City Airports are car thief rings that steal your car while you leave it parked at motels near airports.
    In our attempts to save having to pay the high prices of airport parking, a lot of Wyoming folks stay in airport area motels and then shuttle back and forth. In the past year, there have been lots of cases where nice vehicles were stolen.
Now that is an inconvenience!

    Rockies meltdown – One of my favorite teams has always been the Boston Red Sox (after the Colorado Rockies, of course). You could see the value of spending $150 million a year on a baseball team payroll by the Sox versus $50 million by the Rox in the recently completed World Series.
    The Rockies will be back and will be favorites in the National League next year but who can compete against the mighty Sox or the soon to be revitalized New York Yankees?
    I watched the World Series in Colorado at my daughter’s house in Montrose. Folks in that state were irate about the way Rockies management sold home tickets to the Denver games. By using the Internet instead of selling them locally, it allowed Red Sox fans from all over the country to buy tickets and fill the stadium.
Perhaps this is just one of many things the Rockies management will learn from this Series besides the need to have key hitting in an event like this.
    When you watched those first two games in Boston, you could not find a Rockies fan in the stands. In Denver, the grandstands were filled with faithful from the Red Sox Nation.

    TV scam – My 83-year old mother told me about a scam by a TV advertiser. She wanted me to pass it along.
    An outfit was offering a set of brushes cheap with just $7.99 shipping and handling. If you ordered right now they would send you another set free.
    Sure enough, she got two sets of brushes and TWO shipping fees of $7.99 each.
“Plus, they are pretty lousy brushes, “she said. “I sold them for a buck apiece at my garage sale.” By the time the costs were added up, they whole order cost her over $25.

    You live in Wyoming - Number three in our series: You live in Wyoming if you have hit a deer on the highway or at least know someone who has in the last year.

    More about Wyoming – A writer using the name Tom Payne wrote the following about our state in a blog that I picked up. Here goes:
    “It does take a long time and a string of winters together, to know what the Northern Rockies are about. The weather is a law not a suggestion. It`s not for dilettantes and lightweights.
    “But once it becomes home, it stays that way no matter where life lands you later on. Like Larry McMurtry said, ‘I just live here. I`m not from here. ‘
    “I`m from Wyoming and our kids, long since adults, feel the same way. It`s hard to explain and it`s not a rational conclusion. It`s a hard place. Hard to make a decent living and hard to endure the weather, sometimes.
    “You have to be comfortable keeping your own counsel; there`s a lot of space, and a lot of quiet. Americans tend to be very uncomfortable with silence. A winter snowed in without cable TV will let you know if you`re suited or not. Suits me fine.”