Arnie made pit stop for Cuban stogie
June 01, 2007
A funny thing happened on the way to the airport.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on his way out of town, after a quick trip to Ottawa to meet Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when he decided to stop his five-car motorcade for a moment.
He got out and walked into the Westin Hotel to get a cigar. It was a Cuban, the kind that can’t be found on the shelves of American cigar stores because of a long-standing embargo — and the kind that Americans aren’t legally allowed to smoke, even while away from home.
At around 8 p.m. Wednesday, Rahmat Assad’s shift at International News Plus changed dramatically when he was told by a police officer that a special guest would be arriving.
Mr. Assad was stunned to see Mr. Schwarzenegger walk in, accompanied by ten police officers and security guards.
“I was very surprised. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’ve seen his movies,” he said.
He said the governor, dressed in a pale blue shirt, was in and out very quickly. An aide who was with him bought him the Cuban cigar — a Partagas — for $15.99.
“They paid for it, he put it in his mouth, and he left,” Mr. Assad said, adding that he did get to talk cigars with Mr. Schwarzenegger before he left the store. He said he was so excited at the time, though, that he can’t remember what Mr. Schwarzenegger said.
Mr. Assad said, though, the governor was very genial.
After leaving the tiny shop inside of Ottawa’s Westin Hotel, the motorcade left for the airport — where the governor had to catch a flight to Vancouver. Mr. Schwarzenegger did not stay overnight in Ottawa.
The U.S. embargo got more strict in 2004, when it also became illegal for American citizens to purchase or smoke the cigars abroad.
There’s a movement to change the policy within the United States. This week, five U.S. congress members in favour of easing the embargo and its related travel restrictions are in Cuba to discuss agricultural trade and U.S.-Cuban relations.
Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor, said the brief stop was unusual, but not unheard of. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made no secret of his passion for cigars.
Mr. McLear would not comment on Mr. Schwarzenegger’s attitude toward the U.S. embargo of Cuban goods.
“He stopped by, smoked it, nothing else. I don’t know what kind of cigar it was and it’s gone now,” Mr. McLear said.
It’s not the first time a famous American politician has stopped by to sample the cigars at this little shop. Just last year, former president Bill Clinton bought a few, said employee Tina Nguyen.
Ms. Nguyen said many of the hotel’s American clients will stop in to partake of the forbidden goods. The shop is unaffiliated with the Westin Hotel where it is located.
Anti-smoking advocates descend on Capitol to send Schwarzenegger a message
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, July 10, 2005
Alleging health risk, Assembly votes to stub out governor’s negotiation canopy.
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, June 3, 2005
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/12999612p-13846202c.html
By Deidre Woollard
http://www.luxist.com/entry/1234000437043265/
Bill proposes to ban smoking in courtyard
U NION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 13, 2005
http://www.signonsandiego.com/
“I think the fact that the governor is using state property to promote the use of a product that kills over 40,000 Californians is totally unacceptable,” the American Lung Association’s Debra Kelley complains. Never mind that smokers live on average into their seventies, and that the ALA blames smoking, virtually no matter what one dies of. What Debra Kelley and her hysterical ilk cannot bear is having anyone smoke in anything approaching a dignified setting. Arnold Schwarzenegger smokes, everybody knows it, and Debra just can’t bear this.
The news article linked with here includes a picture of the Capitol tent. Those within the tent would normally be altogether unseen by any who do not enter. What really does the tent “promote” except privacy? It’s well known that cocktails are served in the tent. Is the governor promoting alcoholism? Snacks are provided. Does this promote the “worldwide epidemic of obesity”? The governor and his friends generally wear shoes within the tent. Are they therefore promoting the shoe industry, and its abominable practice, of skinning slaughtered animals? Shut up, Debra Kelley.
Reportedly it’s possible, for Nazis willing to crane their necks, to peep through a slat or window in the tent. One such peeping Tom, Assemblyman Juan Vargas, Democrat of San Diego, declares that he has indeed experienced an obscene vision of the governor smoking a stogie.
Vargas is now pushing a bill to outlaw the tent, or any “enclosed” smoking area, on public property. As we understand it from various news reports, smoking could still be permitted under this bill, in areas where smokers are exposed to all the elements, and therefore also subject to cold and open ridicule from the likes of Juan Vargas and Debra Kelley.
Hilariously, Democrat Vargas pleads innocent, to making a partisan or personal attack on the Republican governor with his bill: “The governor’s smoking area is not a nuisance to me, not an annoyance to me, and that’s why it’s not aimed at the governor. I mean, there are many, many places like this around the state.”
There are indeed many, many places (if not too many gubernatorial smoking tents we’ve heard of) where smoking is not a nuisance or annoyance to anyone. Within California, legislators like Juan Vargas have banned smoking in nearly all those places anyway, just because they want to, just because they can. Of course Vargas’s plan is a direct slap at Schwarzenegger. Californian smokers, generally, are already slapped silly.
The California Legislature typically throngs to support every anti-smoker measure. Schwarzenegger’s signature would also be required to make Vargas’s bill become law. The governor’s office says he has not yet taken a position on the bill. Schwarzenegger has personally opined in the past that anti-smoking is “overboard” but he recently signed off on legislation banning smoking absolutely in California’s prisons. This takes effect on the first of July. As in every prison system where smoking bans have appeared a violent cigarette black market will result.
Republican Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy, quoted in the linked article, points to the truth: anti-smoker legislators like Vargas intend to impose these prison conditions on every inch of the state. They know they can’t do this all at once. So they deny what they’re doing, and enjoy what they’re taking, inch by inch. Submission by submission, humiliation by humiliation, they’ve learned to expect more and more, and how to savor every bit. They’ve learned how to make the world oblige them. They wish to have the governor oblige them again, more personally, this time.
Vilifiers rely on the human weakness for hysteria. Sadists rely on the human weakness for masochism. Vilifiers and sadists grow dominant in societies grown weak. Most individuals within those societies will conform. They will conform even when they know what is happening is cruel and wrong and even if it is happening to them. They will submit when requested, and hastily join the hateful mob if they can, out of fear of it, but equally out of fear of not belonging to it. Most men cannot bear to feel apart. They will accept anything before that.
Bad times require morally strong men, real ones, not play-actors. It’s easy playing a hero in the movies. In real life that’s a difficult role: it’s easier and much safer to be politically correct, to salute jackbooted gangs, and chant their slogans. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already bent over, like a “girly man” of the “Saturday Night Live” satire he inspired, on the prison issue. Now let’s wait and listen to hear if he says “Thank you.”
