Today is Blog Action Day and all around the internet blogs just like this one, except not quite as cool, are participating in this event nay, extravaganza!
Since I committed to Blog Action Day, (which per my previous post will be referred to as BAD) I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about. There are plenty of ways to relate running and the environment, but nothing was inspiring me, until I went running past the High School down the street from where we live. Normally I don’t like to complain about what teenagers are doing because that just makes you sound old and grumpy. “I just don’t understand those darn whippersnappers with their hi-tech cell phones and their new fangled walkmans, in my day… [insert long, boring and usually untrue story].” I ran past a group of kids that I can only assume were trying to keep up the ‘stoners’ stereotype. As I ran past, one of them dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and then stepped on it to extinguish it. I noticed that all along the path there were cigarette butts that had evidently suffered the same treatment.
It made me begin to wonder why we just accept that smokers do this? It’s littering plain and simple. How often have you seen a smoker throw a cigarette butt on the ground and walk away? As if it was OK to discard because it’s so small. If I started unwrapping my drinking straws and throwing the paper wrapper on the ground and then stepping on it I don’t think people would be OK with that, and rightly so. My paper drinking straw wrapper can be rolled up smaller than a cigarette butt and is more biodegradable (may or may not be true) but people wouldn’t accept this kind of behavior and I think it’s time we started calling out smokers on their littering habits. Next time you’re walking around in a public place take a few seconds to notice how many cigarette butts are lying on the ground. I think you’ll be surprised, I hope you’ll be outraged.
I propose that we invest more money in Big Tobacco and try to help them find out if there is any way that we can make cigarettes even more potent so that they kill idiots people quicker. We are talking about people who not only pollute the air but who also litter, I think most people would be OK with this solution. After all, no one’s forcing anyone to light up.
I realize that I’m probably preaching to the choir here because I doubt that any of my readers are smokers. I mean I assume that the majority of my readers are runners and tri-athletes, maybe a few cyclists and swimmers, a good number of heads of state and most of the Hollywood A-list (Hi Jessica, Bonjour Monsieur Sarkozy).
I’m sorry if you came here wanting a race report from yesterdays Denver Half Marathon. I’ll have a full report on it tomorrow and it will probably be quite long because I’m awesome. I rock. I finished in 1:59:42.