Stop Smoking. Now.

Calvin Trillan has been publishing wonderful wry, witty pieces on all subjects, especially about food, for over 30 years. His new book, About Alice, is a tribute to his late wife, earlier immortalized in books such as Travels with Alice.

The review by Peter Stevenson in the January 14, 2007 New York Times Book Review [subscribers get copies early], has these lines:

In 1976 Alice -- who's never smoked but grew up with a chain-smoking mother and cigar-smoking father -- coughed up a spot of blood. Ten days later she had a lobe of her left left removed. A doctor told Trillan there was a 10 percent chance she'd survive beyond a year or two.

She did survive. But she died in 2001 waiting for a heart transplant, her heart having been weakened by radiation during her battle with the cancer.

What more does it take? Even if there weren't mountains of evidence that second had smoke were deadly, shouldn't the tiniest possibility that it might kill your children be enough to get you to quit?

Stop smoking. Now. For everybody's sake.