Big Stink Makes No Scents

Another mind-boggling, head-shaking, face twitching proposal came a-belching from the brain of Ottawa City Councillor Alex Cullen last week, when he offered up a notion to possibly ban perfumes and colognes in public places.

Such a ban, Cullen said, could be "the new frontier after pesticides". The new frontier. So now we have former mayor and first apprentice to the Ontario Health Minister, Jim Watson, prancing around the province rehearsing the chorus of "Fat's The New Tobacco", promising to fight the evil obesity in vengeful defiance of his own proclivities to pudge out and, now, we have the "little social engineer that could", Clowncillor Cullen on a mission to outlaw Obsession, boldly pronouncing his new frontier.

To make sure I heard him correctly, I decided to look up the definition of frontier.

n 1: a wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country

That didn't tell me a lot, so I decided to look it up in a thesaurus. I found the following synonyms:

backcountry, backwater, backwoods, boondocks, boonies, bush, hinterland, outback, outskirts, sticks

Yup. An accurately chosen word, indeed.

Now, I can be just as put off as the next guy by a carelessly overscented individual, but this new frontier thing has the more offensive stench of a City Council with whacked out priorities. Surely, they can better spend their time and our money on more important issues like, say, better services for the taxes we pay.

But, I must admit, I am just as concerned as Health Play-Minister Watson about fat being the new tobacco. What really worries me is all that second-hand fat I'm taking in.