October 11 - And The Winner Is....Georgina Lovell!  Budding anti-tobacco author and dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist.  Georgina elliptically orbits the fringes of anti-tobacco activism in British Columbia, whispering her tales of dastardly tobacco company perfidy to whomever she can snag.  When her audience proved too sparse and restless, she self-published a book with a title as lengthy as the crimes she accuses the tobacco industry of committing.  As a published author, albeit without any pertinent credentials or track record, Georgina has attracted the attention of a hand full of reporters whose gullibility is surpassed only by their hatred of smoking.

Her mini-fame provides Georgina access to the area's public schools where she dispenses anti-smoking clichés colored with her own dour, yet intense, ramblings, detailing the labyrinth of crimes and deceit spun by the tobacco industry. 

Accompanying Georgina on her lectures to the children is a half gallon glass container, half filled with a black, glutinous liquid, representing, she says, the amount of tar a pack-a-day smoker inhales over a lifetime of smoking.  In reality her tar is molasses.   As one mother in BC said, "I'm glad my kids are all grown.  She's one scary lady."

Georgina may be frightening to grade school kids but the response she elicits from junior high and above can be imaged by those who remember their teen years.  Picture poor Georgina, an apparent fright wig atop her head, gripping a jar of molasses with her podgy hands, the nails bitten to the quick, as she enters a room full of critical teenagers.  Instead of righteous indignation, snickers of derision greet her sermons.

For wasting her money publishing a tome no one will read and for proving, as if it ever needed more proof, that anti-smokers are dorks, Georgina Lovell is a gooey Jackass Of The Week.

August 30 - And the winner is....Joe Eszterhas!  Hollywood screenwriter and abject penitent.

A talented writer for high gloss trash, Eszterhas is best known for Basic Instinct, a 1992 movie that unleashed hordes of panty less, rich, gorgeous, bisexual ice-pick murderesses upon the world.  At least that's what he implies in a weepy condemnation of celluloid smoking printed by The New York Times.  The prod for his public confession was a bout with throat cancer.  Although this form of cancer is more associated with heavy drinking, which Eszterhas admits he indulged in for decades, the first vultures that snared him while he was down were anti-tobacco goons from the ban-smoking-in-movies division.

Their shtick was to draw out the megalomania that is never deeply submerged in the huge egos of those who work "in the industry".  Eszterhas is a tough cookie but after the goons did their number on him he was reborn as a tobacco prohibitionist.  His glamorous portrayal of smokers ignited multitudes of  nonsmokers to take up the evil vice!  Countless dead victims are laid out at his door!  The power of his mighty pen has slaughtered a generation!

I don't think smoking is every person's right anymore. I think smoking should be as illegal as heroin. I'm no longer such a bad boy. I go to church on Sunday.  

On his road to Damascus, Eszterhas is dazzled by the anti-tobacco light and is aglow with a fervor that dims his wits and betrays his common sense.  Braying that smoking in movies leads to promiscuous smoking by the masses, Eszterhas delivers all kinds of censors the premise they need to control all on-screen content.  Drinking, drugging, smoking, violence, crime, sex, all must be banned from the silver screen.  Eszterhas' penance leads the way.

For confusing himself with movie-goers' volition and for stabbing the industry that made him rich in the back, Joe Eszterhas is an excessive, over-the-top Jackass Of The Week.

July 12 - And the winner is....Bruce Mirken!  Pro-marijuana lobbyist, gay rights activist and prissy anti-smoker.

Last Sunday the San Francisco Chronicle let Bruce hold forth on the horrors of life in Washington DC.  After 45 years in San Francisco, DC is quite a shock to a transplant with refined sensibilities.  The city lacks "diversity", Bruce complains.  Not only are there just black and white people who live there but the whites have "excruciatingly" gentrified the nice part of town and wear suits and ties.  Sartorially, DC is bust.  Nary a nose or nipple ring on view and no green, purple or blue hair to brighten the scene.  All the gay people are in the closet and the residents don't even have congressional representation.

There's more.  The city doesn't have a decent Mexican restaurant and, worst of all:

They add to the insult by letting people smoke in restaurants.

Poor, dim Bruce.  Working for an organization that wants to decriminalize marijuana, he complains about smoking a legal product on private property and wishes it were illegal just like it is back home.  Deploring the closeting of gays because of bigotry he seeks to keep smokers out of sight and outside.

For not understanding that choice means more than just the right to smoke pot and be gay and for inadvertently making Washington sound good to oppressed Californians, Bruce Mirken is a dopey Jackass Of The Week.

Like too many states, Michigan seeks to solve its fiscal woes by jumping on the bash-smokers bandwagon.  Raising the cigarette tax may be the last resort, instead of cutting spending, for a scoundrel politician but since many of the state's Republicans, who control both houses, took the pledge not to raise taxes, a bit of ethics and logic shuffling must take place before it can be put over on the voters.  Taking the cue from a society where a spade must never be called a spade, Rep. Ehardt discovers he can have his cake and eat it too:

"I don't think the cigarette tax is a tax increase. It's a smoking cessation plan."

Instead of solving the budget deficit, Rep. Ehart endorses a state-imposed social engineering scheme that, by his own words, will result not only in a revenue increase of zero, but an elimination of the current cigarette tax revenue.  Is he serious, or is he, God forbid, less than sincere?

For following a herd of lemmings off the budgetary cliff and for perverting the language more than the usual political mauling of meaning, Stephen Ehardt is a hopeless Jackass Of The Week. 

June 14 - And the winner is....William S. Ohlemeyer!  Tobacco company lawyer and time warp victim.

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal was kicking around the idea of suing "Big Foods" with some of the likely players should those potentially colossal lawsuits come to fruition.  On the one side were operatives of the tort rackets and on the other was Ohlemeyer, associate general counsel who oversees litigation for Philip Morris, the nations largest cigarette maker and a major player in the food industry.

The shakedown artists, although admitting differences between food and cigarettes, pointed out crucial similarities such as predatory marketing practices, especially to children, as well as the custom of the food industry to dispute negative claims about the properties of certain ingredients.

Ohlemeyer then weighed in, stating that he is skeptical that suits against food makers could succeed given the legal and factual hurdles that would have to be overcome.

"The courts have shown remarkable hostility to class actions and health-care reimbursement lawsuits" in tobacco cases, something that would probably be the same for food-related claims.

Huh?  Has Ohlemeyer been dozing in a bowling alley deep in the Catskills for the past decade?  His tobacco company has been taken to the cleaners to the tune of hundred of billions of dollars to reimburse health-care spending by the states and faces billions more in a Florida class action suit.

For wearing a smiley face t-shirt whilst whistling past the graveyard and for slipping into Rip Van Winkle mode when intense focus is called for, Ohlemeyer is a wishful Jackass Of The Week.

June 7 - And the winner is....Andie MacDowell!  Actress and angst-ridden lipstick spokesflack.

As breathlessly reported by CNN, MacDowell is "totally ashamed of being a smoker."  She rambles on describing her descent into a maelstrom of nicotine addiction and the vortex of shame that greeted her on the other side:

"It's bizarre to start smoking as a woman of 40, but cigarettes were absolutely fabulous. I was terrified that people would find out that I was a closet smoker.  I have responsibilities, I have a certain persona to uphold in society because of who I am.  As a spokesman for L'Oreal, I did not want to set a bad example. There were tears and dramas." 

Too bad those tears and dramas weren't acted out in the high style of Joan Crawford or Bette Davis, two genuine, immortal icons who defined true style, never were without a cigarette and who would be completely baffled by, if not contemptuous of Andie MacDowell's weepy confessional.

For missing the opportunity to smoke with pride and catapult herself from second-tier actress to first class smoking diva with an attitude, Andie MacDowell is a off target Jackass Of The Week. To paraphrase a famous L'Oreal commercial, "You smoke, and you're not worth it."

May 17 - And the winner is......Stephen Easley!   Alamogordo Commissioner and poster boy for good health.

Alamogordo New Mexico breaths a bit easier now that a smoking ban was voted down by the city council.  Erroneously described by its author and the press as banning smoking in public places, the bill would actually have prohibited smoking in private property such as work places, bars and restaurants.  The vote was close and Easley and his fellow prohibitionists may take the measure to the voters.

Commissioner Steve's law sought to provide the same, wholesome environment to the common folk, who pay the bills, that has done wonders with him and transformed him into the magnificent specimen of robust health he is today.  His spur to write his humanitarian smoking ban bill were some adolescents, who don't pay the bills,  but who still feel entitled to run the city along their lines.

Same old, tired story but Easley provided one novel twist that elevates him to anti-smoking stardom.  In addition to banning smoking everywhere, the property owners would have been required to "disable the ashtrays."  The theory being that one out of control ashtray could bring chaos to a smoke-free bar?  That roving gangs of disgruntled ashtrays will stuff cigarettes into the mouths of conscientious, law-abiding office workers?  That one un-disabled ashtray may instigate a coup d'état at City Hall?

For anthropomorphizing a glass object and for worrying about other people's health while ignoring his own, Stephen Easley is an oblivious Jackass Of The Week.

May 3 - And the winner is......Tom Condon!  Hartford Courant columnist and cheap public scold.

Before focusing his attention on the pressing problem of eradicating ice cream vendors and their tinkling music from Hartford, old lady Condon waxed apoplectic over a tobacco company rescuing a local theater company from insolvency.  Blood Money, screeched Condon, in his 23-paragraph demand that the theater company take the high road and return the filthy lucre.  Veering mindlessly between obtuseness and obviousness he rehashes the stale clichés fed him by anti-tobacco pressure groups and dabbles in the coy racism "progressive" anti-smokers embrace.

And, the big cigarette companies continue to pitch their poison to African Americans.  How's that for a lynching?

For damning a cash-strapped theatrical company for taking money from an American corporation without offering to take up the slack himself, Tom Condon is a piker of a Jackass Of The Week.

February 1 -  And the winner is...... John G. Rowland! Connecticut governor and tax cut apostate.

Facing budgetary woes, Rowland joins the unimaginative by calling for a huge cigarette tax increase.  To voters who put him in office based on his pledge to eliminate the income tax and who cheered his successful effort to thwart a previous tobacco tax hike, Rowland says:

"I don't really consider that a tax increase.   A tax increase to me is something that is imposed on everyone."

Calling the cigarette tax voluntary because, after all, one can choose not to smoke, Rowland opens the door to all sorts of possibilities.  Since it is voluntary, sort of like a charity to care for the simpleminded, smokers can then deduct the tobacco tax from their state income tax.  The gas tax, also voluntary, since no one really has to drive, can be deducted as well.  With so many voluntary taxes to deduct, Rowland's promise to junk the income tax may finally be fulfilled.

For hiding his failures behind words that are senseless and for joining the parade of mediocrities mindlessly mugging the smokers, John G. Rowland is trite Jackass Of The Week.

January 25 -   And the winner is......Tony Knowles! Alaska governor and loopy demagogue.

Taking time out from running his state, Knowles addressed a body of his intellectual peers at a local high school.  His "State of the Child" address was long on vitriol and short on smarts as he vilified the industry that is providing $800-million dollars to the state treasury.  Much of that will go towards his goal of saving the children with more and more state services.  A million here for foster parents, a half million there to collect medical histories of children, on and on go the list of services without which Alaska's children would be doomed.  Shifting gears, the Gov then inserts foot in mouth:

"You don't know just how effective those tobacco executives are in getting you hooked," Knowles told the students. "The record is clear: They lie, conspire, and they pedal a drug that is poisonous and addictive. I think the least we can do for that is put them out of business."

The least you can do, Governor Knowles, is explain just how your fabulous new services will be funded if the $800-million is erased from your treasury.  No tobacco industry, no new services.

For exemplifying illogic in front of children and for biting that hand that feeds him, Tony Knowles is a confusing Jackass Of The Week.

January 18 -  And the winner is..... .Loni Anderson!  Faded sit-com diva and crusading lunatic.

Best known, to those who can remember back that far, as a classy dame in the 1970's "WKRP in Cincinnati", life subsequently for Loni has not been kind.  Cancelled TV shows, aborted comebacks and a messy divorce from Burt Reynolds have taken their toll.  Seeking solace in her native Minnesota, Loni hits St. Paul to launch her new career as anti-tobacco spokes-shill.  Her pitch?  Hit the teenagers where it counts, their looks and equipment.

"We try to tell them about the stuff that can happen to them right now. It is destroying the collagen in your skin. So you get wrinkles earlier. And it causes impotence."

Although an impotent teenage boy is as hard to find as Beverly Hills women of Loni's age without at least one facelift, she plunges deeper into lunacy by asserting that her smoking parents are responsible for asthma only now developing in both herself and sister.  How impotent old Dad managed to father two daughters is left to the imagination.

For shredding her dignity parroting sheer nonsense while dissing her folks before slack-jawed teenagers, Loni Anderson is a washed up Jackass Of The Week.

January 11 -  And the winner is...... Beth Winship! Teen adviser and anti-tobacco sob sister.

In her advice column this week Beth contemplated teen iniquity with aplomb but waxed apoplectic over the evil weed.  A teenager confesses to breaking into the parental liquor cabinet while mummy and daddy are out.  Hoisting a few, the wanton brat also puffs away on daddy's smokes.  Although seeing nothing much wrong with these activities -- "It's not like I'm an alcoholic or addicted to cigarettes" -- a few friends do take a dim view and Beth's correspondent seeks moral guidance.

Hip and non-judgmental, Beth recommends that the teen examine the conscience and do what feels best.  On the matter of smoking, however, our Beth metamorphoses into Cotton Mather and lays down the law:

"Do, however, stop smoking the cigarettes! Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs. Please don't smoke - not even once in a while! That is exactly how kids get hooked."

For brushing aside theft, parental betrayal and underage, solitary tippling, while marshalling the heavy artillery against a pastime that hasn't hurt one teenager, Beth is a off-course teen mentor.