News Article: Why Does the South Have Such Low Credit Scores?

[CrimsonJazz]

Not to be contrarian fat guy because I LARGELY agree with all of your post except a nuance quibble on the first sentence. I would put diet and tobacco in the same category of "this is something outside of your body that you are making a choice to put in your body" (e.g. not internal like say genetics). And ANYTHING done to excess INCLUDING sex can be bad for you (can't wait for the illustrious 92tide to suggest I'm making an equivalency between the two, LOL!).

That said - if it's a choice between 30 pounds overweight and tobacco use having a more derelict effect on your health - it's really not even close that tobacco use is MANY TIMES more lethal. However - with each pound you add, the math between the two gets much smaller and closer together.

But don't take me to be diminishing the risk of bubble butt-edness, either. I actually used to say the same until med school printed out the data.



Let me conclude with one observation I've noticed:

- overweight people who don't smoke tend to project on the smokers the lethality
- smokers project how much more dangerous they think being overweight is

But it's real close to saying, "Okay, is strychnine or arsenic more likely to kill you younger?"

Almost a rhetorical question...."You ever notice how many people are BOTH fat AND smoke?"

All true and just for the record, my first sentence was actually based on a comment that a doctor once said to me. (And I realize that doctors are people, too, and can absolutely be wrong.) He told me a smoker who eats right and exercises regularly is going to be in better general health than a non-smoker who never exercises and has a trash diet. (He also told me he smoked all the way through medical school, so there's that. I think he was trying to reach me when lecturing me that I needed to quit and assuming I would think he didn't know just how hard quitting was. I dunno.) Nice guy, though. I think he'd be happy to know that I finally did quit.

 

[92tide]

Not to be contrarian fat guy because I LARGELY agree with all of your post except a nuance quibble on the first sentence. I would put diet and tobacco in the same category of "this is something outside of your body that you are making a choice to put in your body" (e.g. not internal like say genetics). And ANYTHING done to excess INCLUDING sex can be bad for you (can't wait for the illustrious 92tide to suggest I'm making an equivalency between the two, LOL!).

That said - if it's a choice between 30 pounds overweight and tobacco use having a more derelict effect on your health - it's really not even close that tobacco use is MANY TIMES more lethal. However - with each pound you add, the math between the two gets much smaller and closer together.

But don't take me to be diminishing the risk of bubble butt-edness, either. I actually used to say the same until med school printed out the data.



Let me conclude with one observation I've noticed:

- overweight people who don't smoke tend to project on the smokers the lethality
- smokers project how much more dangerous they think being overweight is

But it's real close to saying, "Okay, is strychnine or arsenic more likely to kill you younger?"

Almost a rhetorical question...."You ever notice how many people are BOTH fat AND smoke?"

 

[selmaborntidefan]

All true and just for the record, my first sentence was actually based on a comment that a doctor once said to me. (And I realize that doctors are people, too, and can absolutely be wrong.) He told me a smoker who eats right and exercises regularly is going to be in better general health than a non-smoker who never exercises and has a trash diet. (He also told me he smoked all the way through medical school, so there's that. I think he was trying to reach me when lecturing me that I needed to quit and assuming I would think he didn't know just how hard quitting was. I dunno.) Nice guy, though. I think he'd be happy to know that I finally did quit.

"Duh, experts. What do dey know?"
Richard Daley
Chicago Mayor


=============================

Now to be fair, I used to concur even with the first sentence, nor should it be taken that I'm minimizing one at the expense of the other. But then it sort of came up in several contexts and I modified my statement in agreement with those (which to be fair - you did as well).

My favorite - which 92 sorta showed - is the always preposterous "appeal to one person" fallacy, and here I WILL say that smokers at least in my experience are BY FAR the worst at "well, I had a cousin who didn't smoke and he died at 49 while his brother smoked like a chimney and lived to 98" (drinkers are a distant second in this one). It's like saying, "I knew a guy who had a wreck and the only reason he lived is he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and it threw him clear of the crush in the driver's seat." YES - that happens on rare occasions. But you never see these same individuals pull their life savings out of the bank, go to Vegas and put all the money on one roulette number because it happens.

Why not? Because odds are against it - just like with the seat belt.


On the other hand...as the late Tim Wilson said:

"Roosevelt smoked, Churchill smoked, Eisenhower smoked, and Douglas MacArthur smoked.
TOBACCO WON WORLD WAR TWO!!

Then we started smoking reefer and Vietnam and got our...."

 

[CrimsonJazz]

"Duh, experts. What do dey know?"
Richard Daley
Chicago Mayor


=============================

Now to be fair, I used to concur even with the first sentence, nor should it be taken that I'm minimizing one at the expense of the other. But then it sort of came up in several contexts and I modified my statement in agreement with those (which to be fair - you did as well).

My favorite - which 92 sorta showed - is the always preposterous "appeal to one person" fallacy, and here I WILL say that smokers at least in my experience are BY FAR the worst at "well, I had a cousin who didn't smoke and he died at 49 while his brother smoked like a chimney and lived to 98" (drinkers are a distant second in this one). It's like saying, "I knew a guy who had a wreck and the only reason he lived is he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and it threw him clear of the crush in the driver's seat." YES - that happens on rare occasions. But you never see these same individuals pull their life savings out of the bank, go to Vegas and put all the money on one roulette number because it happens.

Why not? Because odds are against it - just like with the seat belt.


On the other hand...as the late Tim Wilson said:

"Roosevelt smoked, Churchill smoked, Eisenhower smoked, and Douglas MacArthur smoked.
TOBACCO WON WORLD WAR TWO!!

Then we started smoking reefer and Vietnam and got our...."

It's always fun listening to someone rationalize away their own behaviors. God knows, I did it a lot as a smoker, so you are absolutely correct.

Also, it's good to know there's another Tim Wilson fan on this board. Taken too soon and easily one of the most under-appreciated comedians in history.

 

[Go Bama]

My ex-wife died of a heart attack two days before her 60th birthday. She was morbidly obese, alcoholic, and smoked better than a pack a day. She had a family history of heart disease. It was her second heart attack.

Some people don’t believe it will ever happen to them.

 

[Crimson1967]

I once worked in the front end of a grocery store. We sold a lot of cigarettes. One thing I noticed is that people who appeared to be lower income (based on dress and poor command of English) were more likely to smoke.

I don’t know how people afford it. Back then (late 1990s) they were around $2 a pack. I think it’s around $5 now.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

My ex-wife died of a heart attack two days before her 60th birthday. She was morbidly obese, alcoholic, and smoked better than a pack a day. She had a family history of heart disease. It was her second heart attack.

Some people don’t believe it will ever happen to them.

My ex, now deceased, only quit about 2-3 years before she died. Esophageal cancer got her. However, what the occasion was for quitting was winding up in the hospital with pneumonia, where they told her she was going to die if she didn't quit. She did make 78, though. Good genes on her mother's side...

 

[Tidewater]

It has always been my complaint that there are far too many handicapped parking spots in front of businesses. Nearly all of them vacant.

When I worked at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, at the Army Staff College, parking was at a premium. The Americans with Disabilities Act mandates a certain percentage of parking spaces be set aside for handicapped. Army Majors tend to be an abnormally healthy population (they discharge the disabled), but the ADA makes no exceptions, so shedloads of the very best parking spots sat empty every day. There were the occasion handicapped visitor, but 99% of the time, those spots sat empty.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I once worked in the front end of a grocery store. We sold a lot of cigarettes. One thing I noticed is that people who appeared to be lower income (based on dress and poor command of English) were more likely to smoke.

I don’t know how people afford it. Back then (late 1990s) they were around $2 a pack. I think it’s around $5 now.

It's almost a class thing now...

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I once worked in the front end of a grocery store. We sold a lot of cigarettes. One thing I noticed is that people who appeared to be lower income (based on dress and poor command of English) were more likely to smoke.

I don’t know how people afford it. Back then (late 1990s) they were around $2 a pack. I think it’s around $5 now.

Back 40 years ago (this month....good Lord...), I got one of my first jobs bagging groceries at the base convenience store (they're mini-malls now). I picked up on something real quick: the vast majority of the smokers buying packs on their way home were the ENLISTED corps. The officers - generally - didn't do that. Obviously I knew more white smokers by NUMBER than black, but the percentage among black enlisted seemed to be larger, too.

Later that year, I got a job as a janitor working for the "summer hire" program at sub-minimum wage and almost every single enlisted person in that shop smoked. It was a few years later the military began their efforts to really push people into quitting. But I wonder if smoking didn't make the long hours and low pay easier to bear mentally, too.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I wasn't surprised to see Madison County not in the blue, but I would have though Shelby County would have been there with us...

 

[Crimson1967]

On handicapped parking…

I have mobility issues. I’m not handicapped and don’t have a handicap tag but I do have some trouble getting around.

I also do merchandising work in grocery stores. One evening I went to a store for a job assignment. At the time I was having a lot of trouble to the was point I was limping. So I circled the lot a couple times until I found a good parking spot. It was the first legal spot next to the handicapped spots.

As I opened my door to get out some guy came up and started yelling at me saying some day I would need the spot. He then walked off before I could respond.

I was in my early 50s at the time and people think I look younger than I am. I don’t look 20, but people usually guess I am 5-10 years younger than I am. That being said, I was parking in a legal spot open to anyone who wanted it. No idea what his problem was. He looked about my age so he wasn’t old and didn’t seem to have problems walking.

 

[twofbyc]

Oh, I agree, but they also have an irrational loyalty to the Orange One. Make it make sense.
[/QUOTE

 

[Tidewater]

On handicapped parking…

I have mobility issues. I’m not handicapped and don’t have a handicap tag but I do have some trouble getting around.

I also do merchandising work in grocery stores. One evening I went to a store for a job assignment. At the time I was having a lot of trouble to the was point I was limping. So I circled the lot a couple times until I found a good parking spot. It was the first legal spot next to the handicapped spots.

As I opened my door to get out some guy came up and started yelling at me saying some day I would need the spot. He then walked off before I could respond.

I was in my early 50s at the time and people think I look younger than I am. I don’t look 20, but people usually guess I am 5-10 years younger than I am. That being said, I was parking in a legal spot open to anyone who wanted it. No idea what his problem was. He looked about my age so he wasn’t old and didn’t seem to have problems walking.

This is off topic, so mods, delete if it is too far off the path.
In German in public underground parking (this one was in Potsdam), they block off parking spots to women near the stairs/exit.
I asked my German colleagues about this and they said, "Women get pregnant and women are more likely to be assaulted in a an underground parking lot and these spots put them closer to the exits."
Interesting reasoning I thought, but that would not fly in the US.

 

[Its On A Slab]

Dad, who never smoked (but drank like a fish - my presumption? To escape his Vietnam trauma), told me the same thing. Would notice how many of his acquaintances would go year after year. And the only thing they had in common was the coffin nails.

My ex-FIL and MIL were both smokers - I mean the kind that not only drove you nuts with their habit but insisted smoking had no relationship at all with cancer. Both had heart attacks at 54-55 years old. And amazingly, like Paul on the road to Damascus, they miraculously quit overnight after the heart attacks. The FIL told me, "I thought I was gonna die over 18 months or so of lung cancer in my 70s; never once thought I'd have a heart attack due to smoking."

Which struck me as incredibly dumb from someone who was haughty and "this is no riskier for me than my welding job and all those carcinogens."

I've resisted all these years saying, "You both told us you couldn't quit and it didn't matter - but miracle of miracles, you QUIT OVERNIGHT once you had a heart attack, which tells me you could have quit any time you wanted; you just didn't want to quit."

I try not to be judgmental on stuff (I have my own challenges you know), but all that "my daddy died of cancer at 67 and never smoked and my brother died at 67 and smoked 2 packs a day, therefore, A has nothing to do with B" really didn't set well with me.

Glad you quit, although I'll be the first to acknowledge that CAN be tough.

I know a few who quit cold turkey when Yul Brynner came back from the grave making that anti-smoking commercial in 1985.

The odd thing is: I enjoyed smoking. I would smoke today if it wasn't such a disgusting habit(which I only learned AFTER I quit) and if it wouldn't kill me a lot sooner than I wanted to di.