Big brothers Kessler and H.H.H. III will avenge his unfortunate fate.

Because the tobacco companies failed to tell him not to, Uncle Fred chimneyhead spends 35 years smoking himself silly. Well, the Surgeon General did tell him not to, twice a day on every new pack, but who's he, anyway? Uncle Fred ain't never seen him on a billboard in the Superdome, up there with that ten-gallon stud of a Marlboro Man. But it turns out that the hatless fellow is right, and one fine day Fred gets wheeled into the hospital as a hacking, grey-skinned mess with a heart that can't remember how to pump his soiled blood.

Enter friend congressperson who, to compensate for the citizenry's obvious lack of compassion, has decided taxpayers everywhere will cover the bills for our uncle's lung scrub and heart pills. Since there aren't enough taxpayers everywhere, it's left to the states and my distant offspring to come up with the rest of the money.

Now this is quite unfair, and the long arm of Johnny Justice is here to see that someone is made accountable for Fred's puffery (other than Fred). Now one could make the case that the Surgeon General is at fault due to his incompetence as an author of warnings, but an ever-so-clever Attorney General (no relation, I think) has a hunch that an almost-as-clever jury might join him in pointing Johnny's finger at those Corporate Death Merchants down south. So our plucky AG sues those demonic bastards to recover the small fortune spent vacuuming out Fred's chest cavity. For good measure his pals at the FDA demand that said bastards cease their attractive advertising and travel around the country personally telling every twelve year old that smoking is morally very, very wrong. Even if a phallus-nosed cartoon camel tells them otherwise.

And now, myself childless but a marginal taxpayer, what might I get from this? Apart from the enormous satisfaction that comes from knowning that I helped buy some doctor a Range Rover, I guess I'd get to boast my state government is richer than your state government and my attorney general is one ass-kicking specimen of a lawyer (I hope he gets a Range Rover, too). And we might finally get laws against minors purchasing cigarettes; God knows those are long overdue. There will also be the new black and white, text-only adverts for Winstons. Not only will these be as much fun as those for Enalapril-Felodipine but they'll also be extremely distracting when I'm trying to read a magazine. Continuously confusing them with actual articles, I'll find myself learning exactly why and how Carlton Is Lowest.

But methinks those-who-know-best's fundamental problem will persist and kiddies by the millions will continue scoring contraband smokes. Because, you see, smoking is cool. Especially when you're 15. As I recall, when I was in high school it wasn't nearly as cool as it is today, and, well, it was still pretty damn cool. To address this annoying little fact, our White House bully-pulpiteer could write an executive order (using no big words so even today's high schooler could understand) cleary stating that under no circumstance is smoking ever cool. But alas, this is the USA, where we don't mandate behaviour. No indeed; we extort it. In this spirit I am anxiously awaiting the $500-per-uncool-child tax credit. This could not only end teen smoking, but teen drinking, pregnancy, use of slang, and fashion sense as well. What remains will be an unopposable army of disspirited geeks to absolutely crush their Korean counterparts on standardized math and science tests. And with slightly wealthier parents to boot.

And of course, thanks to all this benevolent paternalism, we shall all have the freedom of choosing not to smoke. Personally, I know I'd be clueless without this inspired guidance.