postus interruptus: 2.

(c-note: this is more like a rantus interruptus.)

3.3.06: you gotta be kidding me.

this morning, while listening to espn radio, i heard something that cracked me up like a bastard.

it was an advertisement for philip morris's quitting smoking help program. (now, i just want to be clear on something. i assume that the tobacco companies, by now, are in some way forced by law to promote quitting, and to engage in anti-smoking campaigns. [if anyone knows for sure, id love to hear about it.] so in that case, the criticism im about to levy might not be fairly directed at philip morris; it would more be a criticism of the government--or our society as a whole for apparently necessitating such dumbass regulations, whoever is truly responsible for them. in any case, my gist is the same.)

here's the point, dude. you cannot, i repeat you cannot, as a "legitimate" society, have giant tobacco companies engaging in quitting smoking campaigns, because it is an insult to the intelligence of said society on a scale so massive, that for the society to allow it is tantamount to every man, woman, and child standing up and declaring 'we are all full of shit.'

now, you might think, c'mon--there are bigger projects our society is working on that proclaim that we're all full of shit, like the war in iraq, or intelligent design. but i propose that as a matter of principal, those travesty-pills are easier to swallow, down the gullet of reason. you can make much sounder arguments, though i vehemently disagree with them, for those two crises in values.

but you cannot make the argument that it's ok to walk into an aa meeting and see a banner that reads tonight, brought to you by bacardi. and you cannot let big tobacco stick its tongue out at all of us by claiming to be interested in anyone quitting smoking. esp. when big tobacco surely depends financially on the lifelong heavy smokers--the very people who try again and again to quit and cant--more than on any other group.