At some point while I was traveling recently, an outfit called OneDC erected a tent city for a demonstration about affordable housing on a vacant lot at the corner of 7th and Rhode Island, NW.   The site is between my house and the metro, so I walk past it at least twice a day, but it hasn’t been clear what, exactly, their grievance is: there’s anti Adrian Fenty sentiment, with which I can sympathize; pro affordable-housing messaging, which is an understandable request in DC); expensive Coleman tents, which seemed a bit incongruous with the affordable-housing messaging; and very little, it seems, by way of organized activity–people just seem to be milling about.

The whole thing never made enough of an impression on me that I remembered to look it up.

But last Tuesday, I noticed that unlike a week before, when I first saw the site, it was in disarray.  Tents blown over and abandoned.  An unsightly “super-tent” erected in the middle of the lot, presumably to account for the total lack of natural shade.  Trash and various discarded objects littering the ground. Signs knocked down from the fences.  Probably much of the mess was weather related, but no one seemed to be cleaning it up.

Frankly, it was an eyesore.

I stopped to take some pictures, mostly to remind myself to look into the group (but also because I wanted to play with my new Droid app, FXCamera).

As I was taking pictures, I heard yelling from the far side of the lot. It being a busy intersection with lots of people around, I blocked it out like I do most urban  noise.  I took a couple more pictures and started to move on when two women appeared at the fence and I realized they were talking to me.

“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t take pictures of this.  This is our home.  You’re being disrespectful,” one of them said agitatedly.

Surprised, I said something to the effect of, “I’m just taking pictures of the lot from a public sidewalk.  I’m not trying to take pictures of anyone in particular. Mostly just taking pictures of the signs.”

“No,” the other woman said.  “You took a picture of everything, I saw you.” She was referring to the final picture above, that I now see she is captured in, marching angrily towards me carrying a water bottle. (Click here for a larger version of the photo.)

Keep in mind, this isn’t some residential cul de sac that I was scoping out from a mile away with a fancy camera and a high-powered lens. Seventh and Rhode Island is a very busy intersection, and the northeast corner–the site in question–is totally exposed to both streets.  It is across 7th from the Shaw/Howard Metro, and on both streets there is moderate-to-heavy bus, car, and pedestrian traffic.  That particular stretch of Rhode Island Ave is part of US Route 1 to the east and US Route 29 to the west, so there is also heavy truck traffic.

“I wasn’t taking pictures inside any of the tents, I just wanted some pictures of the demonstration, ” I said again.

My use of the word “demonstration” really set them off–still don’t know why–but they started yelling at me about my lack of respect for their homes and my lack of respect for the community, which I took to mean the neighborhood where I’ve lived for the last two and a half years.

I said something about having enough respect for the community not to litter it with trash or yell at my neighbors, and I reiterated that I didn’t think there was any problem with me taking pictures from a public sidewalk of what is clearly a public political demonstration.  They seemed pretty eager to let the City Paper take pictures of their “homes.”

I was done taking my pictures and eager to get away from the conversation, but as I started to move on, the women continued to yell at me about respect.  A woman standing behind me–one of several pedestrians who had stopped to see what the commotion was about–yelled at them about the irony of squatters calling someone else disrespectful.

It seemed like the discussion was headed towards an unpleasant shouting match between gentrifying professionals on the way to the metro and community activists in favor of subsidized affordable housing–not a discussion I wanted much part in at 8:30 in the morning on a street corner.  Hell, I’m a renter: it’s not a conversation I want to have ever.  So I left.  And the crowd broke up.

I’d put some space between me and the fence and was still moving on when I heard something whizzing through the air.  An empty water bottled spun lazily through the air and landed several feet to my right. It seemed like it was directed at me, and when I looked back, it was clear from the look on one of the protester’s faces that indeed, I was the bottle’s target.

I continued on my way, declining to offer advice on the physics of projectiles and why an empty water bottle is a difficult thing to aim.

Now a week later, the protesters are still there.  I still don’t know exactly what their goal is.  But it isn’t publicity for their cause or improved community relations.

And really my whole point is, isn’t FXCamera cool?

There’s an FDA hearing going on today and tomorrow that marks the beginning of a one year investigation into whether menthol as a cigarette flavoring should be banned. Let there be no doubt about it: going after menthol (after banning all other flavorings last year) is the FDA’s first major step in the slow march of ever increasing regulation that begins with squeezing out consumer choice in tobacco products and hopes to end with tobacco prohibition.  One by one, they’ll target tobacco products: first menthol, then “lights,” then e-cigarettes and cigars, and finally the president’s own Marlboro Reds.

Overly dramatic? Maybe not.

The FDA’s current regulations on advertising smokeless tobacco products—which prohibit companies from pointing out the obvious fact that smokeless products are far less harmful than smoked tobacco—make it very clear that consumer choice, transparency, and risk reduction are not priorities at the FDA (and they’re even less important to the tobacco control movement overall).   And the makeup of the FDA’s tobacco control panel—which skews heavily towards tobacco control activists and doctors who consult for pharmaceutical companies that make tobacco cessation products—shows that science-driven policy is taking a back seat to political pressure from Big Anti-Tobacco.  (Gawker says that the panel has a representative from the tobacco industry on the panel, but it’s a non-voting position, as the New York Times explains.)

I’d hoped that this hearing would look not just at the epidemiology and physiology of menthol as compared to regular cigarettes, but also look at what banning menthol might look like. Big Anti-Tobacco tends to declare something a win if it reduces tobacco sales, but what they don’t tell you is that those widely-touted figures only measure sales of legally sold products. Can you imagine the economic result of arbitrarily banning a product that makes up over a third of the US cigarette market?  Smuggling and black markets; reductions in taxable sales; enforcement costs.  Now imagine if the rules were rigorous enough to apply to individuals rather than just manufacturers and retailers: criminalization of smoking menthols, smoker harassment, a War on Menthol.  Locking up adults because they want a little minty freshness with their cigarettes.

Are any of these outside the realm of plausibility?

The drug war tells us no. Prohibition tells us no. Last year’s ban on other flavored cigarettes—still available at many stores if you know where to go and who to ask—tells us no.

But these aren’t the questions the panel is asking, which I guess is kind of a small blessing since there isn’t a panelist among them qualified to answer questions about the real world consequences of their conference-room conjecture. Maybe next time they can bring in someone from LEAP to talk about what prohibition—or even overtaxation—of popular products really looks like.)

No, if what I’ve listened to so far this morning is any indication of what we have in store for this process—statistical tomfoolery, emotion, and rhetoric that is all likely to go unchallenged in any meaningful way by companies that are rightfully afraid to speak out because it could be even worse—it’s going to be a long two days.  And a long year of waiting for March 23, 2011, when the panel is expected to release its recommendations.

Until then, menthol smokers: smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. And maybe consider stockpiling ‘em while you can.

P.S. Welcome aboard, indeed: I’d never seen this old ad before, but rugged blue-collar fisherman Newport man is way hotter than the Marlboro man. Just sayin’.

Photo credit, Flickr user Valentin.Ottone

Via Jacob Grier, it looks like DC Councilman Jack Evans only likes smoking bans when he’s in a position to manipulate them to exempt organizations of which he is a part.  I’d probably do the same thing if I were in office (though I wouldn’t have supported the ban in the first place, so I’d just be inappropriately taking advantage of my position, not taking advantage of my position and being a hypocrite, which is far more distasteful).

But politicians being hypocrites isn’t really surprising news.  What’s far more surprising to me is that Smokefree DC still exists and is still run by Angela Bradbury, who, not content with having imposed her personal preference for non-smoking bars on everyone in our fair city, is still sitting up nights worried that someone, somewhere in the District is having fun. And they Must. Be. Stopped.

These fun-havers are doing all kinds of things that can’t be allowed, like smoking on sidewalks, smoking in outdoor cafes, and smoking in their own homes. These are in addition to the exemptions Evans wanted for two specific events this year.

And of course there are the scourges of THIRD-hand smoke and e-cigarettes:

Unfortunately, [Matt Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids] said that e-cigarettes provide an alternative to smoking in smokefree places.

Whoa. Hold on there. We don’t accept that. It’s still unclear whether the chemicals in the vapor emitted from electronic cigarettes is harmful. Plus, there is the confusion factor – a smoker with a real cigarette may see the smoker with the e-cigarette across the restaurant or bar and figure it’s okay to light up. That would burden employees at bars and restaurants with unnecessary enforcement responsibilities.

Yes, hold on there Matt.  We don’t want people switching to reduced-harm products like e-cigarettes because we don’t know what the potential dangers of vapor are and we don’t want people to get confused and ask their waiters whether smoking is allowed.  Silly, Matt.

I for one look forward to hearing Big Anti Tobacco’s arguments for banning e-cigarette smoking on sidewalks; I’m sure it will have something to do with fifth hand vapor.

Keep it up, Angela.  If you blog just a little bit harder, I bet you can make this whole city into the joyless, soulless dystopia you crave.