Comments on: Anti-smoking ads cause… smoking?

By: Alessandra

Alessandra — Sun, 13 Jul 2003 00:56:06 +0000

Smokers do not gain a single positive thing from buying and smoking cigarettes. But tobacco companies make billions of dollars from their sale. That is the reality. If a smoker does not wish to see that reality and continues to desperately smoking one cigarette after the other, then they will suffer. Smokers say they “enjoy” smoking. What they rarely say is that they feel extreme anxiety if they do not have a cigarette, this anxiety sometimes becoming a blind panic. This is because they are stuck in an addictive cycle. Once they escape this addictive cycle they will no longer feel this anxiety. Many, many ex-smokers can testify to this. Sure, a smoker can sit on a plane for 24 hours without a cigarette - they have to, so they do, but that doesn’t mean they are not addicted.
When you are addicted to something which ruins your health and costs you a lot of money, how can you be benefitting from that? Sorry, I forgot, you enjoy it. Dream on.

By: Matt Moore

Matt Moore — Thu, 30 May 2002 23:57:54 +0000

Rapmaster - Cool shit with the cheese. I don’t remember that at all.

Have you read Buckley’s collection of stories and reportage? I think it is called Wry Martinis, but I could be wrong. The story about his trip to an aircraft carrier was funny shit from some kind of 5th demension of funny.

Dawn - Smoking is one of the few things that I consistently enjoy, even on the dank, dark days.

By: Dawn

Dawn — Thu, 30 May 2002 22:18:41 +0000

Smoking is bad whether you are sarcastic or not. So butt out!

By: Eric Olsen

Eric Olsen — Thu, 30 May 2002 18:57:36 +0000

I was being both sarcastic and sincere in a pointedly postmodern manner.

By: Rapmaster Bobby D

Rapmaster Bobby D — Thu, 30 May 2002 18:25:06 +0000

Buckley’s book is one of the funniest I have ever read. In hindsight, it’s like what Tom Wolfe said about how hard it is to be a good satirist when you look at the absurd things that are said and done in real life.

I recall that Wolfe created the Sharpton-like figure for Bonfire only to have the real Sharpton appear around the time of publication. So it became a character satirizing Sharpton even though Wolfe never knew who Sharpton was until the book had gone to press.

Buckley’s book is similar. I think that the book had one of the MOD (Merchants of Death) squad argue in Vermont about how cheee was killing people as much as tobacco (or alcohol or firearms). What do we hear now about fatty foods, etc…