In the July issue of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter has taken it upon himself to fight the Bloomberg administration's smoking ban via editor's letter. (You may remember this anti-smoking ban editor's letter as it also appeared in February and December, and would have likely appeared in between were it not so rudely interrupted by the war in Iraq and brief uncontrollable outbursts of 1920s Hollywood nostalgia.) "With the enormous financial and service problems the city faces," Carter writes, "and with the tourists staying away in droves because of terrorism and SARS...why does [Bloomberg] squander valuable political currency by pushing a law banning smoking in all bars and restaurants?...New York likes leaders, not hall monitors."

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I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this month's editor's letter, as I no longer have the Graydon smiling/Graydon frowning Annie Leibowitz shots to provide emotional direction, but I'm intellectually inclined to agree with him, having been cruelly forced out of doors with the vermin simply because I want to enjoy a cigarette with my martini. If one can't do self-destructive things to one's body in New York, then what's the point of living here?
[Vanity Fair, July 2003]