From dirt to dust.
I have completely neglected my blog posts this month, and though some might see my justification for it as a cheap excuse, I’m willing to throw to my readers to gauge their long-term support over these snags. “Snags” is probably an understatement, but for the past few weeks I have been preoccupied with preparations for a new job in Afghanistan, most likely at a US Air Force base there. I left my temporary home in Biloxi earlier last week, and I have been typing this document on a plane to Florida as my week of orientation begins, to be followed by the arduous flight halfway across the globe.
Though I am thrilled about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this new job, it does place my blog in limbo. I remain committed to discovering new landscapes and exploring the built environment, but my focus has remained doggedly within US boundaries. I put “American” in the blog with a clear purpose in mind; I had to narrow the scope to some degree. But I will not likely spend much time on American soil for the next year, and this distance from home leads me to question how much time I’ll be able to spend on American Dirt. Yet I still have dozens of potential topics for posting, enough to sustain the blog during this sojourn. Unfortunately, the demands of the new job will give me even less time than I have had throughout October, and my Internet connectivity might be meager by Western standards. I will continue American Dirt, but the rate of posting for the months ahead may be more akin to this October (2 or 3 posts a month) rather than the prolific months of 2009.
Friends and supporters have helped my ambivalence about how to continue: many encourage me to blog about Afghanistan, regardless of my initial goals with American Dirt. And since most of my time will be spent on US bases there (probably Bagram AFB), it wouldn’t entirely deviate from my thematic focus to feature articles and analyses—the built environment will remain fundamentally American. However, I fear the blog could tread dangerously close to a series of real-time journal entries, which has never been my intention or desire. I’m also a bit constrained by conflicts of interest and national security, regarding how much I can elaborate upon what I see there.
Thus, I intend to find balance in this transition from Dirt to Dust. The thematic core of American Dirt will occupy much of my blogging activity at this URL over the next year, with articles and observations very much akin to what I have featured in the past. But I will occasionally deviate with Dust—a term I use to describe any Afghan observations, most of which will likely dominate with photos until I determine the propriety of writing full analytical pieces. I choose the word “Dust” not just because of its good alliterative qualities when paired with dirt, but because dust ostensibly is a prevailing part of the Afghan way of life: a gossamer powder, not unlike talcum, which settles onto everything (hopefully not the innards of my computer).
Stay tuned in the months ahead, for although the posting frequency may be a bit sparse, I should more than compensate through an unconventional approach at reconciling landscapes both domestic and foreign.
And thanks, as always, for your readership and support.
Though I am thrilled about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this new job, it does place my blog in limbo. I remain committed to discovering new landscapes and exploring the built environment, but my focus has remained doggedly within US boundaries. I put “American” in the blog with a clear purpose in mind; I had to narrow the scope to some degree. But I will not likely spend much time on American soil for the next year, and this distance from home leads me to question how much time I’ll be able to spend on American Dirt. Yet I still have dozens of potential topics for posting, enough to sustain the blog during this sojourn. Unfortunately, the demands of the new job will give me even less time than I have had throughout October, and my Internet connectivity might be meager by Western standards. I will continue American Dirt, but the rate of posting for the months ahead may be more akin to this October (2 or 3 posts a month) rather than the prolific months of 2009.
Friends and supporters have helped my ambivalence about how to continue: many encourage me to blog about Afghanistan, regardless of my initial goals with American Dirt. And since most of my time will be spent on US bases there (probably Bagram AFB), it wouldn’t entirely deviate from my thematic focus to feature articles and analyses—the built environment will remain fundamentally American. However, I fear the blog could tread dangerously close to a series of real-time journal entries, which has never been my intention or desire. I’m also a bit constrained by conflicts of interest and national security, regarding how much I can elaborate upon what I see there.
Thus, I intend to find balance in this transition from Dirt to Dust. The thematic core of American Dirt will occupy much of my blogging activity at this URL over the next year, with articles and observations very much akin to what I have featured in the past. But I will occasionally deviate with Dust—a term I use to describe any Afghan observations, most of which will likely dominate with photos until I determine the propriety of writing full analytical pieces. I choose the word “Dust” not just because of its good alliterative qualities when paired with dirt, but because dust ostensibly is a prevailing part of the Afghan way of life: a gossamer powder, not unlike talcum, which settles onto everything (hopefully not the innards of my computer).
Stay tuned in the months ahead, for although the posting frequency may be a bit sparse, I should more than compensate through an unconventional approach at reconciling landscapes both domestic and foreign.
And thanks, as always, for your readership and support.
From dirt to dust.
I have completely neglected my blog posts this month, and though some might see my justification for it as a cheap excuse, I’m willing to throw to my readers to gauge their long-term support over these snags. “Snags” is probably an understatement, but for the past few weeks I have been preoccupied with preparations for a new job in Afghanistan, most likely at a US Air Force base there. I left my temporary home in Biloxi earlier last week, and I have been typing this document on a plane to Florida as my week of orientation begins, to be followed by the arduous flight halfway across the globe.
Though I am thrilled about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this new job, it does place my blog in limbo. I remain committed to discovering new landscapes and exploring the built environment, but my focus has remained doggedly within US boundaries. I put “American” in the blog with a clear purpose in mind; I had to narrow the scope to some degree. But I will not likely spend much time on American soil for the next year, and this distance from home leads me to question how much time I’ll be able to spend on American Dirt. Yet I still have dozens of potential topics for posting, enough to sustain the blog during this sojourn. Unfortunately, the demands of the new job will give me even less time than I have had throughout October, and my Internet connectivity might be meager by Western standards. I will continue American Dirt, but the rate of posting for the months ahead may be more akin to this October (2 or 3 posts a month) rather than the prolific months of 2009.
Friends and supporters have helped my ambivalence about how to continue: many encourage me to blog about Afghanistan, regardless of my initial goals with American Dirt. And since most of my time will be spent on US bases there (probably Bagram AFB), it wouldn’t entirely deviate from my thematic focus to feature articles and analyses—the built environment will remain fundamentally American. However, I fear the blog could tread dangerously close to a series of real-time journal entries, which has never been my intention or desire. I’m also a bit constrained by conflicts of interest and national security, regarding how much I can elaborate upon what I see there.
Thus, I intend to find balance in this transition from Dirt to Dust. The thematic core of American Dirt will occupy much of my blogging activity at this URL over the next year, with articles and observations very much akin to what I have featured in the past. But I will occasionally deviate with Dust—a term I use to describe any Afghan observations, most of which will likely dominate with photos until I determine the propriety of writing full analytical pieces. I choose the word “Dust” not just because of its good alliterative qualities when paired with dirt, but because dust ostensibly is a prevailing part of the Afghan way of life: a gossamer powder, not unlike talcum, which settles onto everything (hopefully not the innards of my computer).
Stay tuned in the months ahead, for although the posting frequency may be a bit sparse, I should more than compensate through an unconventional approach at reconciling landscapes both domestic and foreign.
And thanks, as always, for your readership and support.
Though I am thrilled about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead in this new job, it does place my blog in limbo. I remain committed to discovering new landscapes and exploring the built environment, but my focus has remained doggedly within US boundaries. I put “American” in the blog with a clear purpose in mind; I had to narrow the scope to some degree. But I will not likely spend much time on American soil for the next year, and this distance from home leads me to question how much time I’ll be able to spend on American Dirt. Yet I still have dozens of potential topics for posting, enough to sustain the blog during this sojourn. Unfortunately, the demands of the new job will give me even less time than I have had throughout October, and my Internet connectivity might be meager by Western standards. I will continue American Dirt, but the rate of posting for the months ahead may be more akin to this October (2 or 3 posts a month) rather than the prolific months of 2009.
Friends and supporters have helped my ambivalence about how to continue: many encourage me to blog about Afghanistan, regardless of my initial goals with American Dirt. And since most of my time will be spent on US bases there (probably Bagram AFB), it wouldn’t entirely deviate from my thematic focus to feature articles and analyses—the built environment will remain fundamentally American. However, I fear the blog could tread dangerously close to a series of real-time journal entries, which has never been my intention or desire. I’m also a bit constrained by conflicts of interest and national security, regarding how much I can elaborate upon what I see there.
Thus, I intend to find balance in this transition from Dirt to Dust. The thematic core of American Dirt will occupy much of my blogging activity at this URL over the next year, with articles and observations very much akin to what I have featured in the past. But I will occasionally deviate with Dust—a term I use to describe any Afghan observations, most of which will likely dominate with photos until I determine the propriety of writing full analytical pieces. I choose the word “Dust” not just because of its good alliterative qualities when paired with dirt, but because dust ostensibly is a prevailing part of the Afghan way of life: a gossamer powder, not unlike talcum, which settles onto everything (hopefully not the innards of my computer).
Stay tuned in the months ahead, for although the posting frequency may be a bit sparse, I should more than compensate through an unconventional approach at reconciling landscapes both domestic and foreign.
And thanks, as always, for your readership and support.
How do you want your hair to look on your wedding day?
Here are some of the latest trends and ideas from our friends at Brides.com...
http://www.brides.com/wedding-dresses-style/wedding-hair/2010/10/new-wedding-hairstyles-fall-2011#slide=1
http://www.brides.com/wedding-dresses-style/wedding-hair/2010/10/new-wedding-hairstyles-fall-2011#slide=1
Dividing the loyalties at the bumper.
While I continue to sift through articles and scholarship on neighborhood associations in my free time, I’ve come to realize I’ve let the posts lag a bit too much. So I offer a quick rumination on a topic I love but haven’t featured much: license plates. Some states doggedly adhere to a certain design over the years; Minnesota and Delaware come to mind for offering the same appearance for the standard plate for as long as I can remember. Other states refresh their plate design routinely: Ohio, Indiana, and Mississippi generally feature a new look every two to three years. In addition, some states only offer a few specialty plates; again, Minnesota and Delaware seem particularly consistent in this regard. They may offer plates for veterans and environmentalists, but the variety is relatively limited. Indiana and Mississippi, again, offer so many designs that it’s hard even to identify the standard.
But now I must provide a quick snapshot from a license plate I have only seen twice—once in New Orleans and once (here below) in Gulfport. Chances are slim that it’s from the same car, but it’s hard to imagine there are too many other examples of these out there:
This strikes me as among the strangest specialty plates that a state can offer: one featuring a university (Louisiana State) that differs from the parent state featured on the plate (Mississippi)! I can certainly understand states offering plates for alums from the key university in state, but why would a state offer plates with the logo and motto of one of the most prominent rivals? While I’m sure this isn’t the only example—the Plateshack website above features a Delaware specialty with the West Virginia University logo—this is the only example I have seen in person. Louisiana and Mississippi share a border of more than two hundred miles, much of it focused upon the nation’s most prominent river. Their shared cultural ties to the Deep South are unquestioned. And it probably is more common for a Louisiana State University alum to live in Mississippi than, say, Vermont. But the Academic Common Market from the Southern Regional Education Board reveals a significant number of reciprocal agreements for academic programs between the two states: thus, a resident of Mississippi can enroll in certain departments at LSU and still only pay in-state tuition.
It may be bold to say that this spirit of cooperation extends to Departments of Motor Vehicles, but Mississippi most likely does not owe Louisiana enough to feature the Pelican State’s pre-eminent state university on the back of cars licensed and registered in the Magnolia State. But clearly it happens, and I’m sure a keen eye would find a car that features the opposite—a Mississippi university on a Louisiana plate. The culture of license plates’ design and content seems to be shifting away from centralized, authoritarian control across the country, as increasingly more flexible, diverse plate designs add to the aesthetic palette, even in comparatively staid plate states like Minnesota. A simple search for Department of Motor Vehicles yields privately owned sites like these, suggesting that the private sector passively allows some mild outsourcing of this branch of government. We may eventually get to the point where the combined culture of (increasingly popular) vanity plates and specialized designs work to eliminate the significance of a state’s original or flagship plate. If states continue to feature content from their neighbors just as Mississippi has, it could over time erode the significance of identifying cars by their parent state. I know this is a complete stretch, but it may even become meaningless altogether to list the state name on a car—the plate number and the design could be enough. As long as the plates retain a high degree of individuality it would hardly seem to disrupt the cultural order: after all, what better place for Americans to announce to the world their emotions, vocations, and ideals than on their bumpers?
But now I must provide a quick snapshot from a license plate I have only seen twice—once in New Orleans and once (here below) in Gulfport. Chances are slim that it’s from the same car, but it’s hard to imagine there are too many other examples of these out there:
This strikes me as among the strangest specialty plates that a state can offer: one featuring a university (Louisiana State) that differs from the parent state featured on the plate (Mississippi)! I can certainly understand states offering plates for alums from the key university in state, but why would a state offer plates with the logo and motto of one of the most prominent rivals? While I’m sure this isn’t the only example—the Plateshack website above features a Delaware specialty with the West Virginia University logo—this is the only example I have seen in person. Louisiana and Mississippi share a border of more than two hundred miles, much of it focused upon the nation’s most prominent river. Their shared cultural ties to the Deep South are unquestioned. And it probably is more common for a Louisiana State University alum to live in Mississippi than, say, Vermont. But the Academic Common Market from the Southern Regional Education Board reveals a significant number of reciprocal agreements for academic programs between the two states: thus, a resident of Mississippi can enroll in certain departments at LSU and still only pay in-state tuition.It may be bold to say that this spirit of cooperation extends to Departments of Motor Vehicles, but Mississippi most likely does not owe Louisiana enough to feature the Pelican State’s pre-eminent state university on the back of cars licensed and registered in the Magnolia State. But clearly it happens, and I’m sure a keen eye would find a car that features the opposite—a Mississippi university on a Louisiana plate. The culture of license plates’ design and content seems to be shifting away from centralized, authoritarian control across the country, as increasingly more flexible, diverse plate designs add to the aesthetic palette, even in comparatively staid plate states like Minnesota. A simple search for Department of Motor Vehicles yields privately owned sites like these, suggesting that the private sector passively allows some mild outsourcing of this branch of government. We may eventually get to the point where the combined culture of (increasingly popular) vanity plates and specialized designs work to eliminate the significance of a state’s original or flagship plate. If states continue to feature content from their neighbors just as Mississippi has, it could over time erode the significance of identifying cars by their parent state. I know this is a complete stretch, but it may even become meaningless altogether to list the state name on a car—the plate number and the design could be enough. As long as the plates retain a high degree of individuality it would hardly seem to disrupt the cultural order: after all, what better place for Americans to announce to the world their emotions, vocations, and ideals than on their bumpers?
Dividing the loyalties at the bumper.
While I continue to sift through articles and scholarship on neighborhood associations in my free time, I’ve come to realize I’ve let the posts lag a bit too much. So I offer a quick rumination on a topic I love but haven’t featured much: license plates. Some states doggedly adhere to a certain design over the years; Minnesota and Delaware come to mind for offering the same appearance for the standard plate for as long as I can remember. Other states refresh their plate design routinely: Ohio, Indiana, and Mississippi generally feature a new look every two to three years. In addition, some states only offer a few specialty plates; again, Minnesota and Delaware seem particularly consistent in this regard. They may offer plates for veterans and environmentalists, but the variety is relatively limited. Indiana and Mississippi, again, offer so many designs that it’s hard even to identify the standard.
But now I must provide a quick snapshot from a license plate I have only seen twice—once in New Orleans and once (here below) in Gulfport. Chances are slim that it’s from the same car, but it’s hard to imagine there are too many other examples of these out there:
This strikes me as among the strangest specialty plates that a state can offer: one featuring a university (Louisiana State) that differs from the parent state featured on the plate (Mississippi)! I can certainly understand states offering plates for alums from the key university in state, but why would a state offer plates with the logo and motto of one of the most prominent rivals? While I’m sure this isn’t the only example—the Plateshack website above features a Delaware specialty with the West Virginia University logo—this is the only example I have seen in person. Louisiana and Mississippi share a border of more than two hundred miles, much of it focused upon the nation’s most prominent river. Their shared cultural ties to the Deep South are unquestioned. And it probably is more common for a Louisiana State University alum to live in Mississippi than, say, Vermont. But the Academic Common Market from the Southern Regional Education Board reveals a significant number of reciprocal agreements for academic programs between the two states: thus, a resident of Mississippi can enroll in certain departments at LSU and still only pay in-state tuition.
It may be bold to say that this spirit of cooperation extends to Departments of Motor Vehicles, but Mississippi most likely does not owe Louisiana enough to feature the Pelican State’s pre-eminent state university on the back of cars licensed and registered in the Magnolia State. But clearly it happens, and I’m sure a keen eye would find a car that features the opposite—a Mississippi university on a Louisiana plate. The culture of license plates’ design and content seems to be shifting away from centralized, authoritarian control across the country, as increasingly more flexible, diverse plate designs add to the aesthetic palette, even in comparatively staid plate states like Minnesota. A simple search for Department of Motor Vehicles yields privately owned sites like these, suggesting that the private sector passively allows some mild outsourcing of this branch of government. We may eventually get to the point where the combined culture of (increasingly popular) vanity plates and specialized designs work to eliminate the significance of a state’s original or flagship plate. If states continue to feature content from their neighbors just as Mississippi has, it could over time erode the significance of identifying cars by their parent state. I know this is a complete stretch, but it may even become meaningless altogether to list the state name on a car—the plate number and the design could be enough. As long as the plates retain a high degree of individuality it would hardly seem to disrupt the cultural order: after all, what better place for Americans to announce to the world their emotions, vocations, and ideals than on their bumpers?
But now I must provide a quick snapshot from a license plate I have only seen twice—once in New Orleans and once (here below) in Gulfport. Chances are slim that it’s from the same car, but it’s hard to imagine there are too many other examples of these out there:
This strikes me as among the strangest specialty plates that a state can offer: one featuring a university (Louisiana State) that differs from the parent state featured on the plate (Mississippi)! I can certainly understand states offering plates for alums from the key university in state, but why would a state offer plates with the logo and motto of one of the most prominent rivals? While I’m sure this isn’t the only example—the Plateshack website above features a Delaware specialty with the West Virginia University logo—this is the only example I have seen in person. Louisiana and Mississippi share a border of more than two hundred miles, much of it focused upon the nation’s most prominent river. Their shared cultural ties to the Deep South are unquestioned. And it probably is more common for a Louisiana State University alum to live in Mississippi than, say, Vermont. But the Academic Common Market from the Southern Regional Education Board reveals a significant number of reciprocal agreements for academic programs between the two states: thus, a resident of Mississippi can enroll in certain departments at LSU and still only pay in-state tuition.It may be bold to say that this spirit of cooperation extends to Departments of Motor Vehicles, but Mississippi most likely does not owe Louisiana enough to feature the Pelican State’s pre-eminent state university on the back of cars licensed and registered in the Magnolia State. But clearly it happens, and I’m sure a keen eye would find a car that features the opposite—a Mississippi university on a Louisiana plate. The culture of license plates’ design and content seems to be shifting away from centralized, authoritarian control across the country, as increasingly more flexible, diverse plate designs add to the aesthetic palette, even in comparatively staid plate states like Minnesota. A simple search for Department of Motor Vehicles yields privately owned sites like these, suggesting that the private sector passively allows some mild outsourcing of this branch of government. We may eventually get to the point where the combined culture of (increasingly popular) vanity plates and specialized designs work to eliminate the significance of a state’s original or flagship plate. If states continue to feature content from their neighbors just as Mississippi has, it could over time erode the significance of identifying cars by their parent state. I know this is a complete stretch, but it may even become meaningless altogether to list the state name on a car—the plate number and the design could be enough. As long as the plates retain a high degree of individuality it would hardly seem to disrupt the cultural order: after all, what better place for Americans to announce to the world their emotions, vocations, and ideals than on their bumpers?
Midpoint assessment (spatially).
A few weeks prior, I managed to achieve what would have seemed to me unthinkable when I started this blog 15 months ago: a blog entry featuring my 25th state. Upon featuring an article on airport security in Roanoke, Virginia, I had officially covered half of the US states. Obviously, from looking at the spread of articles, some of these states figure more prominently in the blog than others; it is clear that I have spent a good amount of the past two years in Indiana and Louisiana. And, of course, the fact that these articles explore half the states hardly means I have come even close to covering half of the country’s land area. The nation’s 3,141 counties (or county equivalents) offer at least a somewhat more pointillistic way of surveying the land, and I have only covered about 2.2% of them. And, as anyone scanning the featured states in my blog can quickly see, the West remains virtually completely untapped. Featuring more Western landscapes remains a goal of mine, but my familiarity with the region leaves something to be desired; I haven’t visited California in 13 years.
But leave it to me to sell myself short, even as I try to promote the blog. The intense work load is unlikely to let up soon, which prevents me from posting as frequently as I’d like, as well as devoting time to get the word out. But that hasn’t stopped me from enrolling my blog in Google Analytics to learn the stats regarding my blog's viewership. Unfortunately my subscription has been spotty since I first enrolled in December 2009; I unwittingly terminated my enrollment in April of 2010 when I changed the blog’s template. I finally realized the error of my ways in early August of this year, but the three months in which my Google Analytics tracker was down will remain a mystery. Nonetheless, here are the most critical observations at this point in covering 50% of the states (if hardly 50% of America):
- My most popular blog articles have surprised me, since they usually aren’t among the most commented upon. The persistent success of Indianapolis’ Greenwood Park Mall is my third most viewed site; the unusual skyline of Houston is the second most viewed, and the study of the flag of Maryland (and vexillology in general) is my most frequently viewed page.
- For a blog titled American Dirt, it comes as no surprise that English is by far the preferred language of my viewers, and that the overwhelming majority of visitors to my site come from the United States, followed by Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. More surprising is that Malaysia, Philippines, and Switzerland feature into the top 10. And alas, the world’s most populous country, China, has not viewed my site at all in the past two months. Brits actually spend a longer time on average on my site than Americans, by more than thirty seconds.
- Even as the geographic scope of my blog has expanded (it initially nearly always featured articles in Indiana), the majority of sites used to reach me are Indianapolis-derived blogs: UrbanIndy.com and Urbanophile.Com are the top two.
Diversification has long been a goal, as well, of course, with expansion. But the former may even be more important for ensuring long-term support. Even as my posts will likely be sparse for the foreseeable future, I hope—however slowly—to improve both of these two characteristics. Thanks again for reading, stay tuned for more, and, as always, I welcome your comments--and will be happy to respond.
But leave it to me to sell myself short, even as I try to promote the blog. The intense work load is unlikely to let up soon, which prevents me from posting as frequently as I’d like, as well as devoting time to get the word out. But that hasn’t stopped me from enrolling my blog in Google Analytics to learn the stats regarding my blog's viewership. Unfortunately my subscription has been spotty since I first enrolled in December 2009; I unwittingly terminated my enrollment in April of 2010 when I changed the blog’s template. I finally realized the error of my ways in early August of this year, but the three months in which my Google Analytics tracker was down will remain a mystery. Nonetheless, here are the most critical observations at this point in covering 50% of the states (if hardly 50% of America):
- My most popular blog articles have surprised me, since they usually aren’t among the most commented upon. The persistent success of Indianapolis’ Greenwood Park Mall is my third most viewed site; the unusual skyline of Houston is the second most viewed, and the study of the flag of Maryland (and vexillology in general) is my most frequently viewed page.
- For a blog titled American Dirt, it comes as no surprise that English is by far the preferred language of my viewers, and that the overwhelming majority of visitors to my site come from the United States, followed by Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. More surprising is that Malaysia, Philippines, and Switzerland feature into the top 10. And alas, the world’s most populous country, China, has not viewed my site at all in the past two months. Brits actually spend a longer time on average on my site than Americans, by more than thirty seconds.
- Even as the geographic scope of my blog has expanded (it initially nearly always featured articles in Indiana), the majority of sites used to reach me are Indianapolis-derived blogs: UrbanIndy.com and Urbanophile.Com are the top two.
Diversification has long been a goal, as well, of course, with expansion. But the former may even be more important for ensuring long-term support. Even as my posts will likely be sparse for the foreseeable future, I hope—however slowly—to improve both of these two characteristics. Thanks again for reading, stay tuned for more, and, as always, I welcome your comments--and will be happy to respond.
Midpoint assessment (spatially).
A few weeks prior, I managed to achieve what would have seemed to me unthinkable when I started this blog 15 months ago: a blog entry featuring my 25th state. Upon featuring an article on airport security in Roanoke, Virginia, I had officially covered half of the US states. Obviously, from looking at the spread of articles, some of these states figure more prominently in the blog than others; it is clear that I have spent a good amount of the past two years in Indiana and Louisiana. And, of course, the fact that these articles explore half the states hardly means I have come even close to covering half of the country’s land area. The nation’s 3,141 counties (or county equivalents) offer at least a somewhat more pointillistic way of surveying the land, and I have only covered about 2.2% of them. And, as anyone scanning the featured states in my blog can quickly see, the West remains virtually completely untapped. Featuring more Western landscapes remains a goal of mine, but my familiarity with the region leaves something to be desired; I haven’t visited California in 13 years.
But leave it to me to sell myself short, even as I try to promote the blog. The intense work load is unlikely to let up soon, which prevents me from posting as frequently as I’d like, as well as devoting time to get the word out. But that hasn’t stopped me from enrolling my blog in Google Analytics to learn the stats regarding my blog's viewership. Unfortunately my subscription has been spotty since I first enrolled in December 2009; I unwittingly terminated my enrollment in April of 2010 when I changed the blog’s template. I finally realized the error of my ways in early August of this year, but the three months in which my Google Analytics tracker was down will remain a mystery. Nonetheless, here are the most critical observations at this point in covering 50% of the states (if hardly 50% of America):
- My most popular blog articles have surprised me, since they usually aren’t among the most commented upon. The persistent success of Indianapolis’ Greenwood Park Mall is my third most viewed site; the unusual skyline of Houston is the second most viewed, and the study of the flag of Maryland (and vexillology in general) is my most frequently viewed page.
- For a blog titled American Dirt, it comes as no surprise that English is by far the preferred language of my viewers, and that the overwhelming majority of visitors to my site come from the United States, followed by Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. More surprising is that Malaysia, Philippines, and Switzerland feature into the top 10. And alas, the world’s most populous country, China, has not viewed my site at all in the past two months. Brits actually spend a longer time on average on my site than Americans, by more than thirty seconds.
- Even as the geographic scope of my blog has expanded (it initially nearly always featured articles in Indiana), the majority of sites used to reach me are Indianapolis-derived blogs: UrbanIndy.com and Urbanophile.Com are the top two.
Diversification has long been a goal, as well, of course, with expansion. But the former may even be more important for ensuring long-term support. Even as my posts will likely be sparse for the foreseeable future, I hope—however slowly—to improve both of these two characteristics. Thanks again for reading, stay tuned for more, and, as always, I welcome your comments--and will be happy to respond.
But leave it to me to sell myself short, even as I try to promote the blog. The intense work load is unlikely to let up soon, which prevents me from posting as frequently as I’d like, as well as devoting time to get the word out. But that hasn’t stopped me from enrolling my blog in Google Analytics to learn the stats regarding my blog's viewership. Unfortunately my subscription has been spotty since I first enrolled in December 2009; I unwittingly terminated my enrollment in April of 2010 when I changed the blog’s template. I finally realized the error of my ways in early August of this year, but the three months in which my Google Analytics tracker was down will remain a mystery. Nonetheless, here are the most critical observations at this point in covering 50% of the states (if hardly 50% of America):
- My most popular blog articles have surprised me, since they usually aren’t among the most commented upon. The persistent success of Indianapolis’ Greenwood Park Mall is my third most viewed site; the unusual skyline of Houston is the second most viewed, and the study of the flag of Maryland (and vexillology in general) is my most frequently viewed page.
- For a blog titled American Dirt, it comes as no surprise that English is by far the preferred language of my viewers, and that the overwhelming majority of visitors to my site come from the United States, followed by Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. More surprising is that Malaysia, Philippines, and Switzerland feature into the top 10. And alas, the world’s most populous country, China, has not viewed my site at all in the past two months. Brits actually spend a longer time on average on my site than Americans, by more than thirty seconds.
- Even as the geographic scope of my blog has expanded (it initially nearly always featured articles in Indiana), the majority of sites used to reach me are Indianapolis-derived blogs: UrbanIndy.com and Urbanophile.Com are the top two.
Diversification has long been a goal, as well, of course, with expansion. But the former may even be more important for ensuring long-term support. Even as my posts will likely be sparse for the foreseeable future, I hope—however slowly—to improve both of these two characteristics. Thanks again for reading, stay tuned for more, and, as always, I welcome your comments--and will be happy to respond.
Butts in the loo.
In many ways, this study serves as a companion piece to the previous blog entry. Both articles explore a social phenomenon that has swept the nation, largely manifested through increasingly palpable policy justified by the goal of providing for the common defense or promoting the general welfare. The previous post, scrutinizing passenger screening at airports to prevent terrorist attacks (the common defense), examined how the laborious and increasingly invasive security procedures not only inconvenience passengers but the airports themselves, depriving the Roanoke Municipal Airport of an entire gate. And this article looks at a potential “pushback”—perhaps the funniest I can find—against the increasingly mainstream indoor smoking bans (the general welfare).
Though it may seem trite to assert that anti-smoking ordinances have taken the nation by storm, the fact remains that the laws in place today in virtually every state would have been unthinkable even thirty years ago. The Atlantic magazine recently chronicled some of the earliest bans, from the global Papal fiat of 1624 that banned tobacco because it prompted sneezing—which in turn resembled an orgasm—to the American temperance movement of the turn of the 20th century, in which crusades to abolish smoking (some successful) accompanied that of the more high-profile pursuit of alcohol prohibition. Adolf Hitler ostensibly labeled tobacco “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man”, recalling how early settlers of the Americas foisted intoxicating liquors upon a genetically unprepared indigenous population. Anti-tobacco sentiment was embraced by the Nazi party. Few, if any, of these initiatives flourished to achieve widespread, long-term enforcement; successive governments repealed all of them.
Even though the US was long the cradle of the global tobacco market, it has also largely set the standards for the contemporary wave of anti-smoking legislation. Though several jurisdictions passed laws in the 1970s restricting smoking in restaurants to separate sections, the City of San Luis Obispo, California, first implemented a ban in all public places, including restaurants and bars—the first in the nation, and, purportedly, the world. What began as sundry municipal ordinances in the early 1990s expanded to a statewide anti-smoking campaign in 1995, which saw the first workplace smoking ban. Opposition from the tobacco industry pushed the ban’s effect on bars and nightclubs until January 1, 1998. Other states followed with their own bans (at varying levels of severity), to the point that, as of 2010, only 11 states have not enacted a ban—and the majority of these states still allow municipalities to create their own laws prohibiting smoking. Other countries have followed suit, and some—with a less decentralized system of governance than the US—have enacted California-style indoor smoking bans for restaurants, bars, and pubs across the entire national boundaries in a single fiat. Meanwhile, San Louis Obispo recently escalated its own smoking ban to include restrictions on city parking garages and lots, streets, sidewalks, stadia, playgrounds, and parks. The City isn’t quite the pioneer this time around; over twenty other cities in California preceded it in banning smoking in these new locations.
However, one institution has proven doggedly immune to this sweeping attack on the culture of cigarettes: casinos. Several states’ laws have stalled in the legislature because of appeals from the gaming lobby. Nine states that passed widespread smoking bans years ago have exempted casinos. Other states have exempted the hospitality industry altogether, while regulating most other workplaces. Even states with otherwise generally uncontested bans, such as New Jersey, have allowed smoking to continue in the robust gaming parlors of Atlantic City: after the Council passed a ban in 2008, it quickly rescinded it due to the casinos’ pressure, allowing smoking to remain on 25% of the floors. Other states that have not exempted casinos from the smoking bans have witnessed an impact: the Illinois Casino Gaming Association has experienced an over 30% drop in revenues from February 2007 to the same point in 2009, while comparable casinos in Northwest Indiana have only experienced single-digit declines amidst a punishing economy. Although hardly the only factor influencing Illinois casinos (the regulatory climate for gaming in the state is much stricter overall), casino operators easily predicted that plunge in revenues; many of them estimate that 70% of casino patrons smoke.
Regardless of the viability of those estimates, a quick trip to a casino not affected by anti-smoking legislation suggests that they milk what survives of the smoking culture for all it’s worth. Mississippi, for example, has no statewide ban (though over 20 municipalities in the state ban smoking in all workplaces). Casinos are not subject to any laws outside of municipal bans, and no city in the state with casinos would ever dare regulate them, for fear of driving them out of town. The smoke-friendliness of a Mississippi casino hotel is manifest within moments of walking through its doors: aside form the ashtrays at nearly every slot machine or poker table, smokers can criss-cross the parking garages, hallways and the main lobby without repercussions, cigarette in hand. Most casino hotels offer a bounty of smoker-friendly overnight accommodations, and even the elevators—where smoking is banned virtually everywhere else in the United States—apparently permit smoking.
But nothing shows smoker friendliness like a public restroom.
The men’s room at this Mississippi casino (to be left anonymous) even allows the more coordinated gentleman to have a smoke while taking a leak. Notice the ashtray to the upper left of the urinal.
And just in case he isn’t so great puffing and pissing simultaneously, it has a grooved spot to store the cigarette.
I particularly like the fact that the casino restroom accommodates the youthful or more vertically challenged smoker as well.
But my favorite element of all: the toilets let the men smoke during number two as well.
I’m not sure this ashtray acknowledges multitasking talent or a remarkable defiance of basic hygiene. Although it has become increasingly common knowledge that men wash after restroom use far less than women, thus perhaps explaining why men may be less fazed by putting a cigarette to their lips while nature is calling than women would, something tells me that this casino accommodates female smokers in their respective restroom as well. At this casino, even an institution like Starbucks remains remarkably tolerant of smoking.
Though the sign still proves that they prohibit smoking in the store’s premises within this casino, the establishment is completely open to the adjoining lobby where people may smoke freely. In fact, I have witnessed in another casino that people can stand one inch outside the premises or scoot a café chair to the hallway, while letting the smoke waft into the Starbucks. Virtually everywhere else in America, Starbucks has long been vehemently anti-smoking; they have increasingly started to impose smoking bans on their outdoor patios. Starbucks' regulatory rights do not extend into the hallways of a casino, but the java giant would hate to sacrifice its ability to supply caffeine to late-night denizens of the already notoriously windowless casinos. A huge number of Mississippi casinos have Starbucks in them.
Even as casinos are proving to be one of the biggest indoor environments that advocate for their right to accommodate smokers, more and more are falling prey to the bans. Iowa’s governor Chet Culver has recently considered expanding the state’s ban so that casinos are no longer exempt, and the Atlantic City moratorium on the casino smoking ban still falls under increased consideration. But if the gaming industry can continue to argue that its success depends on remaining a bastion for smokers, it is unlikely that too many more states will impose bans while the economy remains weak and casinos provide abundant jobs. Their infrastructure's subtlest details support smoking.
At the beginning of this essay, I compared this casino initiative to an earlier blog post in which another sweeping policy—that of heightened national security in airports—manifests itself with increasingly restrictive results, just as is the case in the relation between smoking bans and gaming. The similarities stop there though. The Transportation Security Administration and all of its rigorous screening standards have arisen, almost cumulatively, as a direct response to the terrorist attacks on September 11. Airport security was relatively unobtrusive prior to this event, which provoked a spike in regulating how people could board airplanes. Though some could argue that the intensity of smoking bans has spiked as well within the past five years, no single discernible cataclysm spawned it. It has arisen gradually over decades and with widely varying results across jurisdictions, while the federal government has implemented airport security standards with great uniformity. These striking differences may explain why one of the two initiatives has elicited far more chatter of controversy. While privacy advocates have objected to the intrusiveness of screening technology and airlines have said that the hassle detracts patrons from flying, the implementation of airport security has hardly divided the nation enough to arouse “breakaway” airport authorities; that would be illegal. By and large the public has voluntarily ceded this responsibility to the federal government. Conversely, smoking bans remain profoundly fragmented spatially and have suffered rejections in a number of municipalities where leaders have attempted them; the likelihood of the United States seeing a national ban akin to Ireland seems faint. In fact, by some metrics, it’s too late—Ireland passed the ban in 2004 as a national policy. Despite one of the most aggressively anti-smoking cultures in the world, the American public would never tolerate such a top-down approach for smoking, even as top-down was largely accepted as the ideal solution for airport security.
No doubt I’m engaging in some pretty vicious rhetorical gymnastics to analogize these two phenomena, but perhaps the crucial way of viewing them through the same lens involves their relation to the mundane. Even for the most frequent of fliers, air travel deviates from normal rhythms far more than, say, using the restroom. It is generally easier to shift public opinion in non-routine matters than those experienced by everyone. Smoking may hardly be a universally shared experience, but to the habitual smoker, it is as much a part of the day as a trip to the toilet when you get out of bed. I’m not trying to be an apologist for smoking/gaming nor a critic, but removing ashtrays from casinos has clearly generated more flak than installing body scanners in airports. Now only these questions remain: how did the public react when smoking was banned from flights, or what would happen if airports introduced gaming, as is the case in smoker-friendly Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam?
Though it may seem trite to assert that anti-smoking ordinances have taken the nation by storm, the fact remains that the laws in place today in virtually every state would have been unthinkable even thirty years ago. The Atlantic magazine recently chronicled some of the earliest bans, from the global Papal fiat of 1624 that banned tobacco because it prompted sneezing—which in turn resembled an orgasm—to the American temperance movement of the turn of the 20th century, in which crusades to abolish smoking (some successful) accompanied that of the more high-profile pursuit of alcohol prohibition. Adolf Hitler ostensibly labeled tobacco “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man”, recalling how early settlers of the Americas foisted intoxicating liquors upon a genetically unprepared indigenous population. Anti-tobacco sentiment was embraced by the Nazi party. Few, if any, of these initiatives flourished to achieve widespread, long-term enforcement; successive governments repealed all of them.
Even though the US was long the cradle of the global tobacco market, it has also largely set the standards for the contemporary wave of anti-smoking legislation. Though several jurisdictions passed laws in the 1970s restricting smoking in restaurants to separate sections, the City of San Luis Obispo, California, first implemented a ban in all public places, including restaurants and bars—the first in the nation, and, purportedly, the world. What began as sundry municipal ordinances in the early 1990s expanded to a statewide anti-smoking campaign in 1995, which saw the first workplace smoking ban. Opposition from the tobacco industry pushed the ban’s effect on bars and nightclubs until January 1, 1998. Other states followed with their own bans (at varying levels of severity), to the point that, as of 2010, only 11 states have not enacted a ban—and the majority of these states still allow municipalities to create their own laws prohibiting smoking. Other countries have followed suit, and some—with a less decentralized system of governance than the US—have enacted California-style indoor smoking bans for restaurants, bars, and pubs across the entire national boundaries in a single fiat. Meanwhile, San Louis Obispo recently escalated its own smoking ban to include restrictions on city parking garages and lots, streets, sidewalks, stadia, playgrounds, and parks. The City isn’t quite the pioneer this time around; over twenty other cities in California preceded it in banning smoking in these new locations.
However, one institution has proven doggedly immune to this sweeping attack on the culture of cigarettes: casinos. Several states’ laws have stalled in the legislature because of appeals from the gaming lobby. Nine states that passed widespread smoking bans years ago have exempted casinos. Other states have exempted the hospitality industry altogether, while regulating most other workplaces. Even states with otherwise generally uncontested bans, such as New Jersey, have allowed smoking to continue in the robust gaming parlors of Atlantic City: after the Council passed a ban in 2008, it quickly rescinded it due to the casinos’ pressure, allowing smoking to remain on 25% of the floors. Other states that have not exempted casinos from the smoking bans have witnessed an impact: the Illinois Casino Gaming Association has experienced an over 30% drop in revenues from February 2007 to the same point in 2009, while comparable casinos in Northwest Indiana have only experienced single-digit declines amidst a punishing economy. Although hardly the only factor influencing Illinois casinos (the regulatory climate for gaming in the state is much stricter overall), casino operators easily predicted that plunge in revenues; many of them estimate that 70% of casino patrons smoke.
Regardless of the viability of those estimates, a quick trip to a casino not affected by anti-smoking legislation suggests that they milk what survives of the smoking culture for all it’s worth. Mississippi, for example, has no statewide ban (though over 20 municipalities in the state ban smoking in all workplaces). Casinos are not subject to any laws outside of municipal bans, and no city in the state with casinos would ever dare regulate them, for fear of driving them out of town. The smoke-friendliness of a Mississippi casino hotel is manifest within moments of walking through its doors: aside form the ashtrays at nearly every slot machine or poker table, smokers can criss-cross the parking garages, hallways and the main lobby without repercussions, cigarette in hand. Most casino hotels offer a bounty of smoker-friendly overnight accommodations, and even the elevators—where smoking is banned virtually everywhere else in the United States—apparently permit smoking.
But nothing shows smoker friendliness like a public restroom.
The men’s room at this Mississippi casino (to be left anonymous) even allows the more coordinated gentleman to have a smoke while taking a leak. Notice the ashtray to the upper left of the urinal.
And just in case he isn’t so great puffing and pissing simultaneously, it has a grooved spot to store the cigarette.
I particularly like the fact that the casino restroom accommodates the youthful or more vertically challenged smoker as well.
But my favorite element of all: the toilets let the men smoke during number two as well.
I’m not sure this ashtray acknowledges multitasking talent or a remarkable defiance of basic hygiene. Although it has become increasingly common knowledge that men wash after restroom use far less than women, thus perhaps explaining why men may be less fazed by putting a cigarette to their lips while nature is calling than women would, something tells me that this casino accommodates female smokers in their respective restroom as well. At this casino, even an institution like Starbucks remains remarkably tolerant of smoking.
Though the sign still proves that they prohibit smoking in the store’s premises within this casino, the establishment is completely open to the adjoining lobby where people may smoke freely. In fact, I have witnessed in another casino that people can stand one inch outside the premises or scoot a café chair to the hallway, while letting the smoke waft into the Starbucks. Virtually everywhere else in America, Starbucks has long been vehemently anti-smoking; they have increasingly started to impose smoking bans on their outdoor patios. Starbucks' regulatory rights do not extend into the hallways of a casino, but the java giant would hate to sacrifice its ability to supply caffeine to late-night denizens of the already notoriously windowless casinos. A huge number of Mississippi casinos have Starbucks in them.
Even as casinos are proving to be one of the biggest indoor environments that advocate for their right to accommodate smokers, more and more are falling prey to the bans. Iowa’s governor Chet Culver has recently considered expanding the state’s ban so that casinos are no longer exempt, and the Atlantic City moratorium on the casino smoking ban still falls under increased consideration. But if the gaming industry can continue to argue that its success depends on remaining a bastion for smokers, it is unlikely that too many more states will impose bans while the economy remains weak and casinos provide abundant jobs. Their infrastructure's subtlest details support smoking.
At the beginning of this essay, I compared this casino initiative to an earlier blog post in which another sweeping policy—that of heightened national security in airports—manifests itself with increasingly restrictive results, just as is the case in the relation between smoking bans and gaming. The similarities stop there though. The Transportation Security Administration and all of its rigorous screening standards have arisen, almost cumulatively, as a direct response to the terrorist attacks on September 11. Airport security was relatively unobtrusive prior to this event, which provoked a spike in regulating how people could board airplanes. Though some could argue that the intensity of smoking bans has spiked as well within the past five years, no single discernible cataclysm spawned it. It has arisen gradually over decades and with widely varying results across jurisdictions, while the federal government has implemented airport security standards with great uniformity. These striking differences may explain why one of the two initiatives has elicited far more chatter of controversy. While privacy advocates have objected to the intrusiveness of screening technology and airlines have said that the hassle detracts patrons from flying, the implementation of airport security has hardly divided the nation enough to arouse “breakaway” airport authorities; that would be illegal. By and large the public has voluntarily ceded this responsibility to the federal government. Conversely, smoking bans remain profoundly fragmented spatially and have suffered rejections in a number of municipalities where leaders have attempted them; the likelihood of the United States seeing a national ban akin to Ireland seems faint. In fact, by some metrics, it’s too late—Ireland passed the ban in 2004 as a national policy. Despite one of the most aggressively anti-smoking cultures in the world, the American public would never tolerate such a top-down approach for smoking, even as top-down was largely accepted as the ideal solution for airport security.
No doubt I’m engaging in some pretty vicious rhetorical gymnastics to analogize these two phenomena, but perhaps the crucial way of viewing them through the same lens involves their relation to the mundane. Even for the most frequent of fliers, air travel deviates from normal rhythms far more than, say, using the restroom. It is generally easier to shift public opinion in non-routine matters than those experienced by everyone. Smoking may hardly be a universally shared experience, but to the habitual smoker, it is as much a part of the day as a trip to the toilet when you get out of bed. I’m not trying to be an apologist for smoking/gaming nor a critic, but removing ashtrays from casinos has clearly generated more flak than installing body scanners in airports. Now only these questions remain: how did the public react when smoking was banned from flights, or what would happen if airports introduced gaming, as is the case in smoker-friendly Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam?
Butts in the loo.
In many ways, this study serves as a companion piece to the previous blog entry. Both articles explore a social phenomenon that has swept the nation, largely manifested through increasingly palpable policy justified by the goal of providing for the common defense or promoting the general welfare. The previous post, scrutinizing passenger screening at airports to prevent terrorist attacks (the common defense), examined how the laborious and increasingly invasive security procedures not only inconvenience passengers but the airports themselves, depriving the Roanoke Municipal Airport of an entire gate. And this article looks at a potential “pushback”—perhaps the funniest I can find—against the increasingly mainstream indoor smoking bans (the general welfare).
Though it may seem trite to assert that anti-smoking ordinances have taken the nation by storm, the fact remains that the laws in place today in virtually every state would have been unthinkable even thirty years ago. The Atlantic magazine recently chronicled some of the earliest bans, from the global Papal fiat of 1624 that banned tobacco because it prompted sneezing—which in turn resembled an orgasm—to the American temperance movement of the turn of the 20th century, in which crusades to abolish smoking (some successful) accompanied that of the more high-profile pursuit of alcohol prohibition. Adolf Hitler ostensibly labeled tobacco “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man”, recalling how early settlers of the Americas foisted intoxicating liquors upon a genetically unprepared indigenous population. Anti-tobacco sentiment was embraced by the Nazi party. Few, if any, of these initiatives flourished to achieve widespread, long-term enforcement; successive governments repealed all of them.
Even though the US was long the cradle of the global tobacco market, it has also largely set the standards for the contemporary wave of anti-smoking legislation. Though several jurisdictions passed laws in the 1970s restricting smoking in restaurants to separate sections, the City of San Luis Obispo, California, first implemented a ban in all public places, including restaurants and bars—the first in the nation, and, purportedly, the world. What began as sundry municipal ordinances in the early 1990s expanded to a statewide anti-smoking campaign in 1995, which saw the first workplace smoking ban. Opposition from the tobacco industry pushed the ban’s effect on bars and nightclubs until January 1, 1998. Other states followed with their own bans (at varying levels of severity), to the point that, as of 2010, only 11 states have not enacted a ban—and the majority of these states still allow municipalities to create their own laws prohibiting smoking. Other countries have followed suit, and some—with a less decentralized system of governance than the US—have enacted California-style indoor smoking bans for restaurants, bars, and pubs across the entire national boundaries in a single fiat. Meanwhile, San Louis Obispo recently escalated its own smoking ban to include restrictions on city parking garages and lots, streets, sidewalks, stadia, playgrounds, and parks. The City isn’t quite the pioneer this time around; over twenty other cities in California preceded it in banning smoking in these new locations.
However, one institution has proven doggedly immune to this sweeping attack on the culture of cigarettes: casinos. Several states’ laws have stalled in the legislature because of appeals from the gaming lobby. Nine states that passed widespread smoking bans years ago have exempted casinos. Other states have exempted the hospitality industry altogether, while regulating most other workplaces. Even states with otherwise generally uncontested bans, such as New Jersey, have allowed smoking to continue in the robust gaming parlors of Atlantic City: after the Council passed a ban in 2008, it quickly rescinded it due to the casinos’ pressure, allowing smoking to remain on 25% of the floors. Other states that have not exempted casinos from the smoking bans have witnessed an impact: the Illinois Casino Gaming Association has experienced an over 30% drop in revenues from February 2007 to the same point in 2009, while comparable casinos in Northwest Indiana have only experienced single-digit declines amidst a punishing economy. Although hardly the only factor influencing Illinois casinos (the regulatory climate for gaming in the state is much stricter overall), casino operators easily predicted that plunge in revenues; many of them estimate that 70% of casino patrons smoke.
Regardless of the viability of those estimates, a quick trip to a casino not affected by anti-smoking legislation suggests that they milk what survives of the smoking culture for all it’s worth. Mississippi, for example, has no statewide ban (though over 20 municipalities in the state ban smoking in all workplaces). Casinos are not subject to any laws outside of municipal bans, and no city in the state with casinos would ever dare regulate them, for fear of driving them out of town. The smoke-friendliness of a Mississippi casino hotel is manifest within moments of walking through its doors: aside form the ashtrays at nearly every slot machine or poker table, smokers can criss-cross the parking garages, hallways and the main lobby without repercussions, cigarette in hand. Most casino hotels offer a bounty of smoker-friendly overnight accommodations, and even the elevators—where smoking is banned virtually everywhere else in the United States—apparently permit smoking.
But nothing shows smoker friendliness like a public restroom.
The men’s room at this Mississippi casino (to be left anonymous) even allows the more coordinated gentleman to have a smoke while taking a leak. Notice the ashtray to the upper left of the urinal.
And just in case he isn’t so great puffing and pissing simultaneously, it has a grooved spot to store the cigarette.
I particularly like the fact that the casino restroom accommodates the youthful or more vertically challenged smoker as well.
But my favorite element of all: the toilets let the men smoke during number two as well.
I’m not sure this ashtray acknowledges multitasking talent or a remarkable defiance of basic hygiene. Although it has become increasingly common knowledge that men wash after restroom use far less than women, thus perhaps explaining why men may be less fazed by putting a cigarette to their lips while nature is calling than women would, something tells me that this casino accommodates female smokers in their respective restroom as well. At this casino, even an institution like Starbucks remains remarkably tolerant of smoking.
Though the sign still proves that they prohibit smoking in the store’s premises within this casino, the establishment is completely open to the adjoining lobby where people may smoke freely. In fact, I have witnessed in another casino that people can stand one inch outside the premises or scoot a café chair to the hallway, while letting the smoke waft into the Starbucks. Virtually everywhere else in America, Starbucks has long been vehemently anti-smoking; they have increasingly started to impose smoking bans on their outdoor patios. Starbucks' regulatory rights do not extend into the hallways of a casino, but the java giant would hate to sacrifice its ability to supply caffeine to late-night denizens of the already notoriously windowless casinos. A huge number of Mississippi casinos have Starbucks in them.
Even as casinos are proving to be one of the biggest indoor environments that advocate for their right to accommodate smokers, more and more are falling prey to the bans. Iowa’s governor Chet Culver has recently considered expanding the state’s ban so that casinos are no longer exempt, and the Atlantic City moratorium on the casino smoking ban still falls under increased consideration. But if the gaming industry can continue to argue that its success depends on remaining a bastion for smokers, it is unlikely that too many more states will impose bans while the economy remains weak and casinos provide abundant jobs. Their infrastructure's subtlest details support smoking.
At the beginning of this essay, I compared this casino initiative to an earlier blog post in which another sweeping policy—that of heightened national security in airports—manifests itself with increasingly restrictive results, just as is the case in the relation between smoking bans and gaming. The similarities stop there though. The Transportation Security Administration and all of its rigorous screening standards have arisen, almost cumulatively, as a direct response to the terrorist attacks on September 11. Airport security was relatively unobtrusive prior to this event, which provoked a spike in regulating how people could board airplanes. Though some could argue that the intensity of smoking bans has spiked as well within the past five years, no single discernible cataclysm spawned it. It has arisen gradually over decades and with widely varying results across jurisdictions, while the federal government has implemented airport security standards with great uniformity. These striking differences may explain why one of the two initiatives has elicited far more chatter of controversy. While privacy advocates have objected to the intrusiveness of screening technology and airlines have said that the hassle detracts patrons from flying, the implementation of airport security has hardly divided the nation enough to arouse “breakaway” airport authorities; that would be illegal. By and large the public has voluntarily ceded this responsibility to the federal government. Conversely, smoking bans remain profoundly fragmented spatially and have suffered rejections in a number of municipalities where leaders have attempted them; the likelihood of the United States seeing a national ban akin to Ireland seems faint. In fact, by some metrics, it’s too late—Ireland passed the ban in 2004 as a national policy. Despite one of the most aggressively anti-smoking cultures in the world, the American public would never tolerate such a top-down approach for smoking, even as top-down was largely accepted as the ideal solution for airport security.
No doubt I’m engaging in some pretty vicious rhetorical gymnastics to analogize these two phenomena, but perhaps the crucial way of viewing them through the same lens involves their relation to the mundane. Even for the most frequent of fliers, air travel deviates from normal rhythms far more than, say, using the restroom. It is generally easier to shift public opinion in non-routine matters than those experienced by everyone. Smoking may hardly be a universally shared experience, but to the habitual smoker, it is as much a part of the day as a trip to the toilet when you get out of bed. I’m not trying to be an apologist for smoking/gaming nor a critic, but removing ashtrays from casinos has clearly generated more flak than installing body scanners in airports. Now only these questions remain: how did the public react when smoking was banned from flights, or what would happen if airports introduced gaming, as is the case in smoker-friendly Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam?
Though it may seem trite to assert that anti-smoking ordinances have taken the nation by storm, the fact remains that the laws in place today in virtually every state would have been unthinkable even thirty years ago. The Atlantic magazine recently chronicled some of the earliest bans, from the global Papal fiat of 1624 that banned tobacco because it prompted sneezing—which in turn resembled an orgasm—to the American temperance movement of the turn of the 20th century, in which crusades to abolish smoking (some successful) accompanied that of the more high-profile pursuit of alcohol prohibition. Adolf Hitler ostensibly labeled tobacco “the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man”, recalling how early settlers of the Americas foisted intoxicating liquors upon a genetically unprepared indigenous population. Anti-tobacco sentiment was embraced by the Nazi party. Few, if any, of these initiatives flourished to achieve widespread, long-term enforcement; successive governments repealed all of them.
Even though the US was long the cradle of the global tobacco market, it has also largely set the standards for the contemporary wave of anti-smoking legislation. Though several jurisdictions passed laws in the 1970s restricting smoking in restaurants to separate sections, the City of San Luis Obispo, California, first implemented a ban in all public places, including restaurants and bars—the first in the nation, and, purportedly, the world. What began as sundry municipal ordinances in the early 1990s expanded to a statewide anti-smoking campaign in 1995, which saw the first workplace smoking ban. Opposition from the tobacco industry pushed the ban’s effect on bars and nightclubs until January 1, 1998. Other states followed with their own bans (at varying levels of severity), to the point that, as of 2010, only 11 states have not enacted a ban—and the majority of these states still allow municipalities to create their own laws prohibiting smoking. Other countries have followed suit, and some—with a less decentralized system of governance than the US—have enacted California-style indoor smoking bans for restaurants, bars, and pubs across the entire national boundaries in a single fiat. Meanwhile, San Louis Obispo recently escalated its own smoking ban to include restrictions on city parking garages and lots, streets, sidewalks, stadia, playgrounds, and parks. The City isn’t quite the pioneer this time around; over twenty other cities in California preceded it in banning smoking in these new locations.
However, one institution has proven doggedly immune to this sweeping attack on the culture of cigarettes: casinos. Several states’ laws have stalled in the legislature because of appeals from the gaming lobby. Nine states that passed widespread smoking bans years ago have exempted casinos. Other states have exempted the hospitality industry altogether, while regulating most other workplaces. Even states with otherwise generally uncontested bans, such as New Jersey, have allowed smoking to continue in the robust gaming parlors of Atlantic City: after the Council passed a ban in 2008, it quickly rescinded it due to the casinos’ pressure, allowing smoking to remain on 25% of the floors. Other states that have not exempted casinos from the smoking bans have witnessed an impact: the Illinois Casino Gaming Association has experienced an over 30% drop in revenues from February 2007 to the same point in 2009, while comparable casinos in Northwest Indiana have only experienced single-digit declines amidst a punishing economy. Although hardly the only factor influencing Illinois casinos (the regulatory climate for gaming in the state is much stricter overall), casino operators easily predicted that plunge in revenues; many of them estimate that 70% of casino patrons smoke.
Regardless of the viability of those estimates, a quick trip to a casino not affected by anti-smoking legislation suggests that they milk what survives of the smoking culture for all it’s worth. Mississippi, for example, has no statewide ban (though over 20 municipalities in the state ban smoking in all workplaces). Casinos are not subject to any laws outside of municipal bans, and no city in the state with casinos would ever dare regulate them, for fear of driving them out of town. The smoke-friendliness of a Mississippi casino hotel is manifest within moments of walking through its doors: aside form the ashtrays at nearly every slot machine or poker table, smokers can criss-cross the parking garages, hallways and the main lobby without repercussions, cigarette in hand. Most casino hotels offer a bounty of smoker-friendly overnight accommodations, and even the elevators—where smoking is banned virtually everywhere else in the United States—apparently permit smoking.
But nothing shows smoker friendliness like a public restroom.
The men’s room at this Mississippi casino (to be left anonymous) even allows the more coordinated gentleman to have a smoke while taking a leak. Notice the ashtray to the upper left of the urinal.
And just in case he isn’t so great puffing and pissing simultaneously, it has a grooved spot to store the cigarette.
I particularly like the fact that the casino restroom accommodates the youthful or more vertically challenged smoker as well.
But my favorite element of all: the toilets let the men smoke during number two as well.
I’m not sure this ashtray acknowledges multitasking talent or a remarkable defiance of basic hygiene. Although it has become increasingly common knowledge that men wash after restroom use far less than women, thus perhaps explaining why men may be less fazed by putting a cigarette to their lips while nature is calling than women would, something tells me that this casino accommodates female smokers in their respective restroom as well. At this casino, even an institution like Starbucks remains remarkably tolerant of smoking.
Though the sign still proves that they prohibit smoking in the store’s premises within this casino, the establishment is completely open to the adjoining lobby where people may smoke freely. In fact, I have witnessed in another casino that people can stand one inch outside the premises or scoot a café chair to the hallway, while letting the smoke waft into the Starbucks. Virtually everywhere else in America, Starbucks has long been vehemently anti-smoking; they have increasingly started to impose smoking bans on their outdoor patios. Starbucks' regulatory rights do not extend into the hallways of a casino, but the java giant would hate to sacrifice its ability to supply caffeine to late-night denizens of the already notoriously windowless casinos. A huge number of Mississippi casinos have Starbucks in them.
Even as casinos are proving to be one of the biggest indoor environments that advocate for their right to accommodate smokers, more and more are falling prey to the bans. Iowa’s governor Chet Culver has recently considered expanding the state’s ban so that casinos are no longer exempt, and the Atlantic City moratorium on the casino smoking ban still falls under increased consideration. But if the gaming industry can continue to argue that its success depends on remaining a bastion for smokers, it is unlikely that too many more states will impose bans while the economy remains weak and casinos provide abundant jobs. Their infrastructure's subtlest details support smoking.
At the beginning of this essay, I compared this casino initiative to an earlier blog post in which another sweeping policy—that of heightened national security in airports—manifests itself with increasingly restrictive results, just as is the case in the relation between smoking bans and gaming. The similarities stop there though. The Transportation Security Administration and all of its rigorous screening standards have arisen, almost cumulatively, as a direct response to the terrorist attacks on September 11. Airport security was relatively unobtrusive prior to this event, which provoked a spike in regulating how people could board airplanes. Though some could argue that the intensity of smoking bans has spiked as well within the past five years, no single discernible cataclysm spawned it. It has arisen gradually over decades and with widely varying results across jurisdictions, while the federal government has implemented airport security standards with great uniformity. These striking differences may explain why one of the two initiatives has elicited far more chatter of controversy. While privacy advocates have objected to the intrusiveness of screening technology and airlines have said that the hassle detracts patrons from flying, the implementation of airport security has hardly divided the nation enough to arouse “breakaway” airport authorities; that would be illegal. By and large the public has voluntarily ceded this responsibility to the federal government. Conversely, smoking bans remain profoundly fragmented spatially and have suffered rejections in a number of municipalities where leaders have attempted them; the likelihood of the United States seeing a national ban akin to Ireland seems faint. In fact, by some metrics, it’s too late—Ireland passed the ban in 2004 as a national policy. Despite one of the most aggressively anti-smoking cultures in the world, the American public would never tolerate such a top-down approach for smoking, even as top-down was largely accepted as the ideal solution for airport security.
No doubt I’m engaging in some pretty vicious rhetorical gymnastics to analogize these two phenomena, but perhaps the crucial way of viewing them through the same lens involves their relation to the mundane. Even for the most frequent of fliers, air travel deviates from normal rhythms far more than, say, using the restroom. It is generally easier to shift public opinion in non-routine matters than those experienced by everyone. Smoking may hardly be a universally shared experience, but to the habitual smoker, it is as much a part of the day as a trip to the toilet when you get out of bed. I’m not trying to be an apologist for smoking/gaming nor a critic, but removing ashtrays from casinos has clearly generated more flak than installing body scanners in airports. Now only these questions remain: how did the public react when smoking was banned from flights, or what would happen if airports introduced gaming, as is the case in smoker-friendly Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam?
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