Smokin’

Just when you thought the anti-smoking campaign might be working, along comes a news story that proves otherwise. Ardi Rizal, aged two years, has a 40-per-day smoking habit. His mother has tried to get him to stop, especially since the government has offered to buy the family a new car once the child quits, but she says he is entirely too addicted. His father, on the other hand, doesn't see any problem - "He looks pretty healthy to me..." In the meantime, Ardi's health is such that he can't run around and play with the other kids. Instead he rides around on a plastic toy truck while puffing away, looking like a parody of a middle-aged truck driver.

Follies of the Mad Men #82

Feminism = equal access to cancer.

No Smoking in Bismarck, North Dakota

And they mean it, too. Ron White, the popular comedian from the Blue Collar Comedy tour and various Comedy Central specials, is a whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking redneck, and proud of it. He's included those two fundamental elements in all of his shows. But apparently grumpy people in North Dakota won't stand for that kind of blatant disregard for the law. This is one of those times where you wonder just how uptight Americans have become since Janet Jackson flashed a tit on prime time.

Follies of the Mad Men #21

[From Life for March 10 1952. Two separate scans, top and bottom.]

The weirdest thing about this ad is the notion that an airline would give a customer something for free!

Young Rastafarians

Following up on my previous post about the Kuku-Kuku of Papua New Guinea, here's another image from The Circle of Life: Rituals from the human family album. It's my favorite image in the book. It's captioned, "Outside of Kingston, Jamaica, young Rastafarian church members smoke ganja."



The text goes on to explain that Rastafarians consider marijuana to be a sacred herb, and that the ritual of smoking it mirrors similar rituals in many other cultures: "Ritualistic smoking of tobacco is an expression of group bonding in numerous Native American ceremonies, and the use of incense, hallucinogens, or alcohol to alter the senses is a common initiatory practice worldwide."

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.