The war on smoking, now five decades old and counting, is one of the nation’s greatest public health success stories — but not for everyone

As a whole, the country has made amazing progress. In 1964, four in ten teens in the US smoked; today fewer than two in ten do. 【小题1】.

Their failure is the greatest disappointment in an effort to save lives that was started on Jan. 11, 1964, by the first Surgeon General s Report on Smoking and Health. Its finding that smoking is a cause of lung cancer and other diseases was major news then. The hazards of smoking were just starting to emerge.

The report led to cigarette warning labels, a ban on TV ads and eventually an anti-smoking movement that shifted the nation’s attitude on smoking. Then, smokers were cool.

Today, many are outcasts, rejected by restaurants, bars, public buildings and even their own workplaces. Millions of lives have been saved.

The formula for success is no longer guesswork: Adopt tough warning labels, air public service ads, fund smoking cessation programs and impose smoke-free laws. 【小题2】. If you can stop them from smoking, you’ve won the war. Few people start smoking after turning eighteen. 【小题3】.The 10 states with the lowest adult smoking rates slap an average tax of$2. 42 on every pack -three times the average tax in the states with the highest smoking rates.

New York has the highest cigarette tax in the country, at $4.35 per pack, and just 12 percent of teens smoke, far below the national average of 18 percent. Compare that with Kentucky, where taxes are low(60 cents), smoking restrictions are weak and the teen smoking rate is double New York's, Other low-tax states have similarly dismal records

Enemies of high tobacco taxes cling to the tired argument that they fall disproportionately on the poor.【小题4】. The effect of the taxes is amplified further when the revenue is used to fund initiatives that help smokers quit or persuade teens not to start.

Anti-smoking forces have plenty to celebrate this week, having helped avoid 8 million premature deaths in the past 50 years. But as long as 3, 000 adolescents and teens take their first puff each day, the war is not won

At the start of every working week, millions of people around the world get ready for something they do endlessly, joylessly and badly: a meeting.

The root of the rotten meeting is simple, says Madeleine de Hauke, a meeting coach and teacher in an Antwerp Management School. “We spend our lives and huge sums of money in meetings, but there’s very little investment (投入) into helping people run them effectively.”

Madeleine is correct. Running a meeting well takes skill. People need to know ahead why they are meeting, what they are supposed to achieve, who really needs to be there and how they should contribute. That sounds obvious but it is not, as anyone who has been to a pointless meeting knows. Yet meeting leaders are expected to learn all this on the job. I cannot remember ever being taught how to organize a meeting, and I have rarely had a job requiring me to do it.

I also like Madeleine’s descriptions of what she calls the Meeting Monsters: people who destroy meetings with all sorts of annoying behaviors. There is the cruel off-topic speaker. The non-stop noise in the background. The confusing rambler (夸夸其谈者). The rude multi-tasker. The mute who says nothing but emails later to say what was decided will never work.

The trouble is, we are all meeting monsters sometimes, says Madeleine. A good meeting leader knows how to stop this behavior, or make sure it never starts by making it clear what will and won’t be allowed.

A bad meeting is like a virus. By failing to produce good decisions it often requires another meeting to be held, then another and another. Luckily there is no need for a vaccine, just a bit more care and preparation, and an understanding that there is no shame in being taught how to lead a meeting well.