Coffin Nails: A visitor from England pulled out a pack of cigarettes and showed me the warning printed in large, black letters against a white background: “Smoking Kills.” He flipped the package over to show this message in stark black letters: “Smoking can damage the sperm and decreases fertility.”

If you think that’s explicit, how about the new warnings going on U.K. packs of cancer sticks: Pictures of a red, bulging tumor on a man’s neck, brown and yellow diseased lungs, and a flaccid cigarette symbolizing smoking-related impotence.

Impotence? I don’t recall the U.S. surgeon general warning about that. Sex seems to be a potent issue in the island nation still clinging to its Victorian past. (The most popular stage comedy there recently was No Sex Please, We’re British.)

Until now, the U.K. has seemed to take the dangers of these coffin nails far more seriously than did our own nation, where senators from tobacco-growing states long protected their harvest of shame. Smoking kills an estimated 400,000 people a year in the U.S., plus thousands more due to second-hand smoke.

This seems to have escaped the notice of stogie-puffing Gov. Schwarzenegger, who has a chance to help wean Californians from their nicotine addiction, but is blowing it. With the state facing insolvency, Arnie claims that the Legislature’s proposed $2.10-a-pack tobacco tax hike would be “irresponsible,” even though it would discourage some smokers and raise $1 billion to help balance the budget. The governator appears to be blowing smoke—playing ideology politics (“no new taxes”) with the public purse and health. State Sen. Tony Strickland also voted against the tobacco tax hike.

Smoking costs Californians $8.6 billion in medical costs alone, according to the American Cancer Society. Smokers presently pay an 87-cent-per-pack state tax plus a $1 federal tax to fund children’s healthcare. An American Cancer Society spokesperson claimed that a $2.10 increase “would reduce youth smoking by more than 20 percent and help adult smokers quit.” He added, “The tax would save more than 150,000 lives.”

You can count on an army of lobbyists to stand in the way of fiscal responsibility and public health. “California legislators are grasping at tax straws that don’t exist as they seek to raise billions of dollars that don’t exist for a balanced state budget that doesn’t exist,” according to the in-denial International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association.

But the tide is turning. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a former tobacco lobbyist, recently approved a 277 percent hike on his state’s cigarette tax. And Congress has okayed legislation giving the Food & Drug Administration jurisdiction over tobacco. Warning labels on packages soon will show pictures of the harmful effects of tobacco. The bill would allow the FDA to reduce the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, and ban most of those cigarette flavors aimed at young smokers. It would also enable the government to dictate how tobacco firms can advertise their product. President Obama (he of the embarrassing cigarette habit he’s trying to kick) has strongly endorsed it.

The Bush administration, by contrast, was widely considered a good friend of the tobacco industry. Some of Bush’s top staffers had backgrounds in tobacco, including senior adviser Karl Rove, who once worked with Philip Morris.

Adios, Paul and Ken: Santa Barbaran Ken Palmer, who helped blow the whistle in a 1970s bribery case and had been an outstanding News-Press reporter, has died, friends tell me.

After devastating storms in 1982 and ’83 wrecked Stearns Wharf, City Hall gave crusty Paul Nefstead the demanding job of running the renovation. What we see out there now is largely his vision. Paul, who retired in 1988, has died at the age of 82.

Who’s Your Mayor? City Hall watchers are declaring the mayoral race, still in its early stages, far too close to call. Chamber of Commerce honcho Steve Cushman, who jumped in long after council members Helene Schneider and Iya Falcone were hard at work gathering endorsements, has scheduled fundraisers and is acting very much like a serious candidate. Since 1981, every Santa Barbara mayor has been a woman (except for Hal Conklin’s one-year tenancy). As Nick Welsh has pointed out, the three most recent full-term mayors, Sheila Lodge, Harriet Miller, and Marty Blum, have all been Unitarians. And Dems.

“Charity” Donations: “I lost my mother almost three years ago,” writes Judy Pearce. “It really irritates me when the begging letters still come for her.” Judy says that when she gets a call she asks what percentage goes to the charity. “People need to ask about percentages on any donations, even the ones we know to be legit, as some have a high overhead that I consider way out of line. I stretch my money by donating to the FoodBank.”

Easy Virtue: This week’s movie for grownups is Easy Virtue, at Paseo Nuevo, from a play by then-23-year-old Noel Coward. When the young son of a 1920s-era proper British family brings his glamorous American (horrors) wife home to the country estate, all hell breaks loose.

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