DogGone

A couple of days ago, I'm in a coffee shop on Montana. You know the one. I'm having a scone and coffee near the door at a table next to that counter holding the cream and milks, sweeteners, condiments, straws and napkins. The stream of dogs is unrelenting, but what can you expect in a city that enforces only those laws that affect squeaky wheels.

The entitled have no second thoughts about turning others' protections to their benefit. Case in point: you could open a wildly successful store here selling nothing but counterfeit service-dog outfits.

So, just another day in paradise.

Then this happened, over the top even by Westside standards. A woman enters, wearing expensive workout clothes, apparently aspirational, with a small pooch that also looks like it has missed a few days at the doggie dojo. The woman drags her little darling over to the food-laden counter, grabs a handful of napkins, and proceeds to wipe the dog's ass. Then she reaches up and throws the toilet paper into the hole between the honey and the half and half.

There are good reasons for the regulations prohibiting animals, other than service animals, in places that stock and serve food: hygiene, allergies, disease, noise, bites, fights, the rights of other patrons among them. Service dogs are excepted because they are a necessary aid to people with certain disabilities. They are also well-trained: they don't bark, fight, climb on the furniture, or lick the tables (there is one local mutt that drags his ass around the floor every day while his "master" gets his order; I wonder what level of fecal matter Mythbusters would find on the Sugar in the Raw at that location).

The regulations are reasonable. They should be enforced.

2012: Prop 29

I'm of two minds about Prop 29, the tobacco tax initiative.

Here's what's wrong with the ballot initiative process. More cancer research: great idea. Higher taxes: great idea. But: limiting the tax revenue generated by this measure to cancer research, anti-smoking programs and tobacco law enforcement is a bad idea; the money belongs in the general fund.

The whole point of representative government is to assure that tax revenues are allocated fairly across all needs and services and interests. Past initiatives have already made hash of the California budget process; do we want to make it worse?

Cancer research is vitally important, but is relatively well-funded; other diseases that are equally costly to society get far fewer dollars. Even limiting ourselves to a discussion of what to do about the harm caused by tobacco, we have to take account of the fact that Prop 29 does nothing to mitigate the huge medical costs already resulting from past and current smoking, and that's the point: We elect representatives to make those decisions; maybe anti-smoking programs are already well-enough funded -- they certainly appear to be -- but medical costs are under-addressed (they certainly appear to be); an informed legislature should make those choices.

Also: a $1 tax is insufficient, given the costs of tobacco to society; a referendum, if successful, will almost certainly close the door on higher taxes on tobacco products in the future.

Plus, this decision will be made by the tiny percentage of voters that bothers to turn out tomorrow, nothing like a majority.

Explanation of Prop 29 in the official CA state voter guide.

If you missed Meatless Monday, doesn't mean you can't do a meatless Tuesday on your own.

"In 2009, a landmark National Cancer Institute study of 500,000 Americans between the ages of 50 and 71 found that people who eat a quarter-pound of red meat or processed meat every day were 30 percent more likely to die in the 10 years of the study than those who ate 5 ounces of red meat or less per week. Compare that to research about vegetarian Seventh-Day Adventists, many of whom live significantly longer than the average American." -- Death by Hamburger? by Kiera Butler (Mother Jones 2010-06-21).