Smoke 'em if you got 'em, says the 'Bune -- but not while you're pumping that $3.00 a gallon gas.

Damn it, Chris Morris, just when I’ve been complimenting the Tribune for its seeming maturation and overall improvement, you decide to unleash a ditzy “man-on-the-street” soapbox rant and dress it up like an editorial.

I’m referring to today’s “Smokers beware: Big Brother is coming after you.”

Selected excerpts:

Louisville has now passed a smoking ordinance. The new law is one of those feel-good ordinances … I know second-hand smoke can be dangerous, but the last time I looked, cigarettes are a legal product … since an anti-smoking ordinance makes everyone feel good, then that makes it okay … but in our politically correct society, nothing surprises me anymore.

Long-suffering ‘Bune readers will recognize the argumentation as vintage LaDukian "around the horn" illogic – an unconnected jumble of assertions that lack support, laced with populist appeals to emotion, and with an undefined buzz-word or two (“politically correct,” “smoking police”) thrown in for good measure.

Perhaps inevitably, Chris chooses to hang his rhetorical hat on the convenient but ill-conceived “politically correct” nature of smoking regulations, and this leads the reader suddenly and unexpectedly to a completely different topic.

Sports.

Of course, it’s always about sports at the ‘Bune, but specifically in this instance:

Recently, the geniuses who make the NCAA what it is, told colleges they could no longer have Native American nicknames on their uniforms during NCAA tournament events … it’s okay to use student athletes to make millions for member institutions … but it’s not OK to honor the Seminole Nation by having the name Seminoles sewn on jerseys … I would think most Native Americans in this country are honored to have a college, such as Florida State, use their name as the school’s nickname.

Chris, did you ask any of the Native Americans?

Have you researched the history of Native American opinion with regard to stereotypical depictions?

While NA Confidential agrees that “the NCAA is full of hypocrisy,” that’s only because college sports itself and most of its fans are hypocritical to the core, so let’s return instead to the smoking ban.

Did you ask any of the victims of second-hand smoke? You acknowledge that they exist, but apparently view them as negligible insofar as the pursuit of “freedom” (whatever that means) is concerned.

Have you researched public health findings and recommendations with respect to smoking and second-hand smoke?

Did you read former FDA chief David Kessler's “A Question of Intent?”

Have you seen the movie “Super Size Me?”

Have you read “Fast Food Nation?”

If so, you might not be so quick to blithely refer to cheeseburgers in a flippant matter as the next target of the regulators. Adults make choices ... but do children?

Smokers make choices ... but what about non-smokers? Whose "rights" and "freedoms" take precedence?

Meanwhile, NA Confidential remains under the impression, perhaps mistaken, that the Tribune’s editorial slot exists for the purpose of presenting the newspaper’s official position on matters of importance.

Opinion columns such as Chris's today, although written by the editor himself, certainly are not to be considered as editorials in spite of their positioning. Certainly they'd be better viewed elsewhere within the newspaper, lest there be confusion that the ‘Bune has officially come out against progressive measures affecting public health and minority fairness.

And for manifest destiny.

That's because there was an even worse example of the rant genre earlier in the week, when a jarringly juvenile 'Bune “editorial” on oil prices injudiciously denounced environmental regulation, conveniently perpetuating the stereotyping of the indolent, selfish, energy-guzzling American by hysterically screaming that a country of our "size" shouldn’t have to pay $3 a gallon for gasoline.

It would appear that size really does matter, after all. However, it ignores a tankful of relevant questions.

Is it politically correct for us to use such a large proportion of the planet’s resources?

Should a country of, say, France’s size have to pay $5 a gallon? What about China? Angola? Peru?

What size determines a "right" and a "freedom" to exploit?

Do we really wish to sanction the notion that might makes right when it comes to a supposedly “free” market in oil? Could that principle be used against us?

Is this overly simplistic screed the Tribune’s official position? If not, shouldn’t it be presented in the form of an opinion column, signed by the author, and not occupying the lead editorial position?

Does the Tribune yet have an editorial board? Perhaps the new publisher might consider a community advisory board in the fashion of the Courier-Journal.

Chris, in closing, the world outside our village is complex, and the way to make sense of it is to study, think, learn and grow. Anyone sitting on a barstool, driving a cab or listening to talk radio can lash out in anger and frustration, but we expect more than barely informed drivel from a newspaper – especially from its editor.

You don’t smoke; neither do I.

But although we at NABC still allow smoking at our business (with a non-smoking seating area on the pub side), I’m here to tell you in all earnestness that public attitudes toward smoking are rapidly changing, and not because of governmental directive from bureaucrats above.

The pressure is coming from below, not above, and it is coming from ordinary people who are tired of the intrinsic and undeniable invasiveness of tobacco smoke. It’s a veritable civil war out there over this issue, and while the recently enacted Louisville ordinance probably is too watered down to make either side happy, it's another step toward consensus.

Just as the “freedom” to scream “fire” in a crowded theater has been debated and refined during America’s history, so the definition of “right” to smoke is evolving in our day and time.

One simply can’t do justice to such complicated topics by dismissing them with the crowd-pleasing but misleading “politically correct” wave of the hand.

Mr. Tucker and Mr. Nichols – if you're reading, can you let us know whether the editorials discussed above reflect an official editorial policy of the newspaper?

And, if so, how they're to be justified?