[Rhodes22-list] Nuts! - Political

[Brad Haslett]

This is no way to start a birthday - reading nonsense like this.  I love
Vancouver, as well as Seattle and Portland (home of Powells, best bookstore
in America), but I couldn't live in any of the three - way too much
silliness.  Here's the latest from Vancouver.  Brad

-------------------------------

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Blowing smoke   [Mark Steyn <ma%69%6cb%6f%78@%73te%79%6eon%6cine.c%6f%6d>]

Okay, Muslim foot-baths in Kansas City airport, gender-segregated swimming
sessions at French municipal pools, banning pork from Aussie hospital menus,
no eating donuts for Belgian cops during Ramadan, no seeing-eye dogs or
alcohol in Minneapolis taxi cabs, fine, fine, fine. Must be sensitive and
all that.

But this<http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=e8396556-5079-4cb5-bfe6-648e95d565d3>is
an amazing victory. In Vancouver, infidels can't smoke but Muslims
can:

Vancouver's hookah-parlour owners are celebrating after winning an exemption
Thursday from a proposed new bylaw that will ban smoking on most sidewalks
in commercial districts, in bus shelters and even in taxis passing through
Vancouver.

In giving the bylaw unanimous approval-in-principle, Vancouver city council
members bowed to arguments that hookah lounges provide an important cultural
space for the city's Muslims and granted them a temporary exemption...

[Emad Yacoub] said hookah lounges are essential for immigrants from
hookah-smoking cultures, because it helps them deal with the depression
common for newcomers and gives them places like they have at home.

Where do the rest of us go to deal with depression? As Jay Currie asks, "What
about my culture? <http://jaycurrie.info-syn.com/and-what-about-my-culture/>
"

By creating a special exemption for Muslims - who do seem to be the only
immigrant group actively demanding these sorts of "cultural accommodations"
we are basically declaring our Muslim citizens worthy of special treatment
and, at the same time, unworthy of the health concerns which are purported
to be the basis of general smoking bans.

The state, in other words, is prepared to treat Muslims as free-born adults
who can weigh the "cultural value" (ie, the pleasures) of smoking against
the health risks. But not the rest of us.

09/27 07:04 AM<http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDFiZTdlYTg4ZTZkNzcwMDljNGQ1ZDdjYzRmNjFhYzE=>