Skirmishes on the unintended battlefield

     Home and work aren't enough. Personal and societal health also require "third places" -- table-service restaurants, pubs and other retreats from the rat race where people can eat, drink, hobnob and unwind without being judged. But these little outposts of sanity are increasingly under siege by the armies of zealotry.
      Whether your recipe for relaxation includes beer, tobacco, red meat, barnyard fowl, or desserts with "sin" in their titles, prepare nowadays to fend off attacks -- not only from government regulators and grim-lipped activists but also from fellow customers. Even waiters. Never mind that the attitudinal artillery may be light -- a disapproving look, a wry crack. Your once-friendly neighborhood eatery is ripe to become an unintended battlefield in a war to enjoin the enjoyable.
      Eating out now, notes Oklahoma State University sociologist Charles Edgley, "is often less a celebration of food and fellowship than it is an opportunity to critique the quality and quantity of food on your neighbor's plate." Or the drink in his glass. Or even the scent on her skin.
      Sufferers from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) disorder, who claim that perfumes and deodorants sicken them, are the newest to seek special considerations. A Maryland lawmaker allegedly beset by MCS introduced a bill to create "fragrance-free" zones. Her colleagues shelved this legislative Limburger. But can it be long before we see signs that read, "Thank you for not smelling good"?
      Of course, olfactory offenders aren't the only restaurant and bar patrons being instructed to feel insensitive. Chicken eaters also tempt the haranguer's hatchet. The activist group United Poultry Concerns (UPC) aims "to give every chicken in America a life worth living" and clucks its criticism of egg sellers as "animal abusers."
      Col. Sanders, war criminal? In some eyes he's right up there with the nefarious Ronald McDonald. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ("meat is murder"), would subject your cheeseburger and barbecue to a "sin" tax like those levied on alcohol and tobacco. Actress Mary Tyler Moore, meanwhile, has risen to defend lobsters. "Like humans," she writes, "they flirt with one another and have even been seen walking `claw in claw.' "
      Ms. Moore achieved stardom by playing a television producer -- fitting, since TV news usually spreads the dietary misconceptions that compel perfect strangers to tut-tut our menu selections.
      Too often, the mass media buy whole-hog the wild exaggerations of fringe groups, based on junk science or none at all. For example, UPC asserts that chickens sold to consumers are "marred by lung and heart infections." PETA pins 1.5 million dead or disabled Americans on the meat industry -- though many low-fat diets include lean beef. And "everybody knows" that eggs clog up arteries with "bad cholesterol" -- everybody, actually, but medical researchers.
      Analyzing three months of news coverage, the Food Information Council found that media organs give Chicken Little outfits like the Center for Science in the Public Interest -- stout nemesis of tacos, reubens and egg drop soup -- more space than all food trade groups combined. "This imbalance," finds the report," reflects the ability of activist groups to drive the news agenda on food safety issues."
      Unfortunately, America's modern secular missionaries often step on fingers grasping the lower rungs of the economic ladder. After New York City enacted a smoking ban, most full-service restaurants there experienced business declines, forcing 45 percent of them to shed workers. Ditto in California. Time was, social visionaries championed the working class; these days, their successes come from the hides of busboys, waiters and other low-wage toilers.
      But activists, along with the meddling irregulars at the next table, may be causing an even larger mischief by bringing strife to public restaurants and watering holes -- last bastions of the social town square.
      In his famous article, "Bowling Alone," Harvard's Robert Putnam notes a falloff in "the vibrancy of American civil society" -- voluntary face-to-face associations -- since the 1960s. This, he says, has spawned a distrust of others and of the government -- hardly salutatory sentiments for a democratic people. What further alienation awaits the Republic when restaurant-goers routinely encounter not a waving hand but a wagging finger?
      Already firms like Dallas-based Eatzi's are making millions preparing restaurant-quality meals for home consumption. American's tendency to cocoon themselves stands to become even more pronounced, which -- think what you will of martinis or veal -- can't be healthy.
      Not by accident, the first coin minted in the United States, the Fugio Cent, bore the words, "Mind your own business."
      Pleasure police, moral temperature-takers and others inclined to put their two cents worth might chew on that.Please see SKIRMISH/6E