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Seldom do I encounter a cause which seems worthy of my support, but then I learned of an activist group which apparently started on the West Coast: MACE, an acronym for Make our Atmosphere a Chemical-free Environment.
I wondered whether MACE was responsible for last year's
seating arrangements for hearings in Marin County --
perfume-wearers on one side of the room, segregated from
the unscented across the aisle. More recently, San
Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan ordered city employees not to
wear perfume to public meetings, for the sake of those with
environmental illness or chemical sensitivity.
Perhaps I am among them, because whenever I sniff certain commercial aromas that are alleged to make people more attractive, my eyes well up, my nose runs, my head throbs, and I launch a dozen sneezes.
In the hope of finding a way to make Colorado at least as progressive and enlightened as California, I finally tracked down one Zenith Killjoy, ad-hoc rotating chairperson of MACE, and congratulated him.
We just started last week,
he confessed, so we
really can't take credit. Actually, we're still networking
to implement an operating environment conducive to the
creation of a strategic vision.
Undaunted, I pressed for details.
The most promising suggestion is to go after it the
same way they went after smoking. There are a lot of
similarities -- perfume and cigarettes are both promoted as
ways to make you feel more attractive and confident. Why
should anyone, merely for personal vanity, have the right
to befoul the air with useless, sickening chemicals?
We might also point out that a soldier at the front
is safer than a citizen in an elevator. The Geneva
Convention protects the soldier from chemical warfare, but
there's nothing to protect regular citizens from these
walking chemical arsenals who flout international
law.
But there was medical evidence on smoking, such as the surgeon general's report in 1964 and the recent EPA ruling that even second-hand tobacco smoke is a carcinogen.
We don't have that for perfume,
he conceded.
In time, though, we will buy some science. If there's
money in it, some researcher will find known or suspected
aerosol carcinogens in some perfumes.
But what about the present?
We've considered the anti-fur tactics. We could
picket cosmetic counters and harass Avon ladies. And when
we sniff someone wearing perfume in public, we'll confront
them, ask them loudly just what odors they're trying to
cover up with their noxious fumes. That should embarrass
them.
Wouldn't that invite a backlash?
That possibility did come up at our last discussion.
We've also talked about a boycott against all products from
all jurisdictions which do not offer full rights to the
aroma-sensitive. We could also boycott all movies whose
performers are superstars with their own perfume
lines.
I'd manage fine without ever seeing another Liz Taylor movie, but life would get tricky if I could buy only San Francisco-Marin County products.
That's true,
Killjoy said, so we're pressing
President Clinton to go public and come out in support --
I've heard that his well-known hay fever allergic reaction
gets activated just as much by perfume as by pollen.
It's long past time that he turned his attention to
something vital, instead of wasting time on defense and the
economy. We believe that this is the only hope he has of
salvaging the Failed Clinton Administration.
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