On Boxing Day, Charlie Adam scored an own goal against Blackburn Rovers on the forty-fifth minute.  Liverpool commanded possession at 65% with nine corner kicks against Blackburn’s two, from one of which the own goal was scored.  When Blackburn had six shots with only one of them being on target, Liverpool had twenty-seven shots with seven being on target.

Liverpool’s perseverance paid off as Maxi Rodriguez headed the equalizer within ten minutes of the own goal.  This was Maxi’s 11^th goal in his last 12 starts this year.  He scored two hat-tricks in April and May to keep Liverpool’s hope of Europe alive last season before it was snatched away by the Hotspurs, and that, too, was at Anfield.  His biggest goal this season came against Chelsea FC in London after being brilliantly picked out by Craig Bellamy.  Maxi Rodriguez may have delivered whenever he was asked to but he does not seem to be in Kenny’s short-term or long-term on-field plans.  He has been acknowledged publicly by the King to be an intelligent footballer, but the Argentinean’s role seems to be bit-part at Anfield.  And that too is when no one has been scoring for the Reds – at least regularly.

Liverpool went into tonight’s game having scored less number of goals than the two teams at the bottom of the league.

The best goal keeping this season has been witnessed against the £35 million English target man.  A great save that sticks out is from Joe Hart in the dying minutes from a header by Andy Carroll, and not to mention the ones by the “stand in goalkeeper” Mark Bunn.  Tonight, Carroll may have been unlucky again to hit the crossbar but his touch and eventual miss from Gerrard’s first “Hollywood pass” of the game just simply cannot be tolerated by any means!  Steven Gerrard marked the last game of the year with a comeback only fit for a KOP giant like him.  Kenny Dalglish seemed to have tried his best not to hype up Gerrard’s return, especially because he suffered from a freak infection on his previous return.  This is a man whose passes had been criticized in the past to be too flamboyant and ambitious and labeled as Hollywood Passes, despite just winning the European Cup almost singlehandedly.  To prove the critics wrong Chelsea hit man, Fernando Torres, had publicly stated and established with his time at Anfield that with Steven Gerrard behind any quality striker goals has to come in abundance.  Quite unlike the big man from Newcastle (against Newcastle) we have witnessed tonight.

Heads dropped when Liverpool conceded from another own goal by Agger who has been excellent this season.  Craig Bellamy equalized shooting home through a crowded Newcastle defense.  Liverpool looked less interested in the second half until Steven Gerrard came in at the 60^th minute to replace a Charlie Adam whose service had been less than ordinary on the night.  The KOP burst out upon the Captain’s arrival and Liverpool looked a completely different side.  After the brilliant ball to misfiring Andy Carroll, it was as if his presence provided Bellamy a freak goal… his second of the night, five in the last four matches he has played against Newcastle and 151^st in the English league.  He was substituted after an injury from an elbow inside the box by the highly rated Coloccini.  Steven Gerrard simply stole the show with sublime passes with perfect weight and sheer elegance along with deft touches before slotting in the third for Liverpool with his left from close range.  This was Gerrard’s fifth against Newcastle in his last five outings marking a great comeback filled with hope for the rest of the season and the new year for any Liverpool supporter.  Not to take anything away from the colossal captain, but Craig Bellamy’s contribution to the team may have been overshadowed by the return just like his transfer was by Suarez’s.

Football is not a game of statistics but the Reds are 11 points behind the league leaders.  The Merseysiders have drawn 6 games at Anfield: losing 12 points at home.

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The likes of Baros and Cisse came into the squad to replace the Liverpudlian, but the Czech was only a shadow of the clinical striker that we had witnessed during the Euro 2004.  On the other hand, Djibril Cisse may have showed the pace he was known for in France but could not live up to his goal scoring reputation.  One may sympathize with him because of his broken leg that put him in the side lines for months onward, but it did not help Liverpool’s cause in the year that the Kop was last crowned the champions of Europe.

Liverpool may have won their fifth European cup in the 2005/2006 season, but their form and display in the league was dismal.  A striker who had the record of scoring in all his debut matches for every team since starting his professional football career could not hold the record when he joined Liverpool that season.  He had an impeccable record in Europe partnering Raul in front of goal, but could not feature for the Merseysiders in the competition as he was cup-tied.  Maybe he could not score in his debut for Liverpool, but Fernando Morientes was a striker for whom it was impossible not to score.  The predatory striker was much needed for Liverpool to qualify for Europe in the next season, but the impossible was made possible.  Nando’s performance was so frustrating that any Liverpool supporter must remember him hitting the woodwork more than hitting the back of the net.

Chances had been ample for Rafa Benitez’s side, but many a games since the arrival of the other Nando (Torres) had ended in stalemates.  There were performances where the Liverpool side had over twenty five shots on goal, with the caliber of strikers like Morientes on their side, but still could not score a goal.  Today Liverpool lay sixth in the Premiership table having scored at least ten less goals than the teams who stand in positions over them.  The record breaking signing Any Carroll has scored only two goals with Luis Suarez making up for the Englishman, but with only five goals in the Premiership.  The Reds had beaten Chelsea and Arsenal, drawn against United and their noisy neighbors, but has lost against minnows like Norwich, Stoke and Fulham.  Suarez’s performance has been more than commendable but one cannot help but wonder what Liverpool’s league position would have been if the Uruguayan had been more clinical in front of goal.

King Kenny has been playing coy about signing a striker in the January transfer window.  It may be frustrating for some, but a neat summer signing has gone unnoticed by many.  KD may not admit it but he saw the risk of depending on Carroll too much and signed the ever-controversial Bellamy.  It seems that the father of the 15-year old Welsh youth international has grown out of the reputation of being a nuisance for any football team.  This term he has not only been professional on and off the field but according to Kenny he has been a great lad to have around in the dressing room.

With the luck that Suarez has been having in front of goal he might have missed the sitter that Bellamy has so comfortably netted against Aston Villa.  Liverpool looks like a team who can finish in the the top four in a league that has not been as competitive for years as it has been this season.  Suarez looks like a player who can hit the net as many times as any other world class forward (not counting Chelsea’s Fernando Torres).  If the King does not add any reinforcements soon, then one can only hope that the new no7 can form a formidable partnership with Bellamy to keep the mighty Reds’ hopes alive (one can barely hope for Carroll to perform as well as the other forwards at Merseyside this term).

Suarez has touched wood twice at Villa Park.  Let’s say once for himself and once for his team.

Let the government abolish smoking altogether and remove all vendors who sell cigarettes. Give the smokers something else and they will start having those instead of cigarettes.

You gotta hand it to him. At least he considered the livelihood of the vendors, or was it the smokers he was worried about? He could not have been, could he? Cigarette is probably the most addictive drug in this world. Most people die from smoking-related diseases than any other unnatural causes in Canada. The price of a package of cigarettes increased by over 100 percent in half a decade after the turn of the millennium because the government needs more and more money every day to treat all the smokers in that unbearably cold country. Rumor had it that the government of Alberta was suffering from deficit because the tax dollars from selling the death-sticks could not make up for the money required to treat the ill health of the smokers. And this is Bangladesh. He was talking about a country where about 43 percent of the population (or maybe youths) smoke. It is one of the most, if not the most, inexpensive of drugs. Only another cheaper drug or a more addictive and just as cheap drug could only work as an alternative, right? Could he be referring to therapeutic substitutes? Therapeutic sounds so herbal. Maybe something herbal could cure us from our addiction, because those nicotine gums taste like shit. And apparently some people get fits from nicotine patches. What about the oral fixation problem then? People say chewing gum works. So, the remedy would be to chew gum – definitely not nicotine gums – and spend god knows how many times more money to make up for the lack of discharge of acetylcholine between the neurons with them patches. And not to mention giving us fits.

He must have been referring to the nicotine patches. I refuse to think otherwise because the ease and confidence with which he insisted that smokers would readily shift to something else was captivating. He referred to what another speaker had stated previously to acknowledge the brilliance of the statement. They both had agreed that smokers don’t feel any difference when they don’t smoke and it is only a myth – an urban legend. The fact that synapses in smokers become dependent on nicotine that takes the place of the natural discharge, acetylcholine, and distorts the central nervous system cannot make a difference to these delinquents who is smoking the society away must captivate you. At least it captivates this smoking narrator. Smoking causes ‘so and so diseases’ are all so-called facts that have been accepted statistically, but the whole “nerves story” is a hard scientific fact (let’s not get into probability and quantum physics for godssake). And these people are activists of our society.

We have a very small group of people who are fortunate to have some form of educational achievement in Bangladesh. And the shusheel shomaj is even smaller making the group who possesses the earnest of activism mentalities can be said to be virtually non-existent. These people had to be more on the activist corner than any other one because the roundtable was on tuberculosis and tobacco control. Tuberculosis is not much of a socially stigmatized disease I presume and even if it is the fact that it is communicable makes social exclusion acceptable and can somewhat justify for any stigma.  This should really not be the case though. One of the main guests from Japan who had worked with and for Bangladesh for over thirty years had said that we must not blame ourselves for tuberculosis. It is a disease that can affect anyone simply by the virtue of being a human being and being a human being is being able to breathe. What someone, who seemed to be one of the few real doctors in the seminar, had briefly articulated is that tuberculosis will exist as long as there is poverty. Someone, who is not a doctor but knew what was being discussed, had to ‘not as blatantly as this narration by the despicable person that you must hate by now’ suggest that smoking only increases the chances of tuberculosis… because someone who introduced himself as a doctor followed the assertion of him being a certified physician with the statement that smoking is the root cause of tuberculosis. Need I mention that a few others had started with the same assertion when they shared their views? These are the people who belong to the media; to the civil society; these are the people who are activists.  These are the activists who barely spoke about tuberculosis – the main subject at hand – because it is not as much of a social issue as smoking is. Smokers have plagued the society. They are not human and one must admit that the 43 percent that we have in this country are the most docile of beings. They are unhumanly, if not inhumanly, docile. So, many and most had agreed upon the requirement of immediate abolishment of tobacco from the lives of any and all people as the final and only logical solution. Who am I to agree with what this only other person in the seminar had stated? He simply said that doing so can actually cause unrest among the people. Fine, let the 43 percent be as meek and docile as any living thing can be. Let this writer’s statement on stopping tobacco use causing irritation be an urban myth (and hence logically cannot add to the 43 percent causing any unrest). What about the producers? Are they not human?

This woman from either an NGO (or some form of health-issue related organization) had brilliantly pointed out that it is not only tobacco use that is an issue but tobacco production is a problem too. Even though smoking may not be a direct cause of tuberculosis, one must agree that if tobacco production is not the root cause of tobacco use it must be a proximate cause (I cannot see how it cannot be the root cause). She had stated the society should also divert its attention to tobacco cultivation. The eight month harvesting period can be invested upon by planting crops with smaller cycles. She had a point that must receive some kudos even if crops with smaller crop-cycles are cultivated – if not for anything else then simply because of a more noble use of the produce. If it was not her then it was another equally impressive lady who had brought up the issue of environmental degradation that tobacco cultivation can have, and already has had in areas like Kushtia and Bandarban. But then, the activist, the activist, the activist… now, Now, NOW! Not so surprisingly, the rest jumped the bandwagon. Stop production. Stop cultivation. Make the tobacco giants pay for tobacco cultivation… Now! Today! At least, someone had brought up the tobacco giants into the discussion. From the manner in which tempers flared in a room full of what must have been non-smokers having intimate personal issues against smokers, one would have thought that the giants would never be brought up. It was only the smokers to blame. Now, the so-called giants. These are the people who had influenced cinemas in the West to portray smoking to be fashionable starting in the middle of the twentieth century. The biggest of the biggest popular and public icons posed for them in magazines and billboards. Some may even go to lengths to say that being in a Marlboro ad is an honor in itself. Come on, even in the nineties Cramer could not resist being in a smoking ad put up on a billboard at the Times Square, giving up millions of dollars from winning a tobacco lawsuit. Yes, the giants had an influence on and through popular media. This was not the end of it as they had prolonged smoking to be considered as a cause for any form of disease as a scientific fact for decades. Yes, notice the “s” in decades if you haven’t already.

If my memory serves me correct the battle started in the late 60s. Throughout the 70s it was a battle that the medical society could not even picture winning. Statistical significance was not something pure science liked to consider to be in the same team as them, and the sentiment that medical science is a pure science is not shared by some even today. A physics professor from UofT had laughed off a biology major’s contribution (which was an opinion) to a discussion simply on the basis of not considering the field as a truly pure science, and being in the field did not allow him to think like a scientist. There was pure science on the tobacco giants’ side and when there wasn’t, statistical conclusions could always be argued against as the sample in any analysis is never the whole population… esp. in the case of smokers. They argued that the whole world smoked and people being tested or surveyed could never show the relation between smoking and any illness to be 100% conclusive – pure science relies upon the absolute definite. And believe me they sold crap like this among many other things not only to the people but to the scientific society. To add to the case, ever noticed how they prevented warning signs against smoking to be publicly advertised for ages? Yes, these are the people who are responsible for producing tobacco and why not tell them to pack up their bags and wipe away from the face of existence in a matter of seconds.

So, the smokers are not human. The manufacturers are not human. But the producers have to be human.

There are hundreds and hundreds of farmers, if not thousands, whose livelihoods are facilitated by the tobacco corporations. They must pay better than what the farmers can manage to secure food and they actually contribute to the livelihoods of one the least fortunate ones living in this country. Why would anyone farm tobacco as opposed to any other crop that can add to their food security? The tobacco companies must be made to pay heavily on their behalf and there must be a plan to reduce tobacco cultivation and usage, but is it necessary to do so as abruptly as the drivers of our society had been so confidently stating? One can understand if no one sympathizes with smokers, but one has to take the lives of the workers of our largest sector into consideration and be a little lenient. Not only is taking away the demand for tobacco not feasible but it is also not possible. Even if it is to do so in a second, considering for the sake of argument, the effect on the supply-side of the problem would start taking away the lives of many. If members of our society, who attend seminars that cost about 85,000 taka for around three hours of discussion on issues that are integral to the MDGs set by the UN, do not understand the practicality of this simple idea of reduction and prevention over elimination, I say buy me cigarettes worth a total of 85,000 taka.