Sure, personal responsibility is an important issue but I feel it's impossible to overstate the role of corporate conditioning. Is it our fault if we eat ourselves to death? Of course...but the marketers (and the corporations that pay them and politicians that legitimize them) are complicit. It's hard to imagine a society like ours existing without persuasive coercion.

 

very persuasive, absolutely. but those who are aware of it have less excuses, especially if they believe in the wrongness of it

 

Good luck with the smoking. Both my parents quit successfully. I never smoked (not cigarettes, anyway), and I have no desire whatsoever to give up beer.

Congrats on the solitaire, at least. As I always say to people I catch playing solitaire, "Play a real game!"

 

Just saw this quote and found it appropriate to the discussion:

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."
(Joseph Pulitzer)

 

More fun:
http://tinyurl.com/ha93f

 

Hey Michael,
which one're you in that picture?
(Sorry, had to be done.)

'No excuses for anyone; that's my principle at the outset. I deny the good intention, the respectable mistake, the indiscretion, the extenuating circumstance. With me there is no giving of absolution or blessing. Everything is simply totted up, and then: "It comes to so much. You are an evil-doer, a satyr, a congenital liar, a homosexual, an artist, etc." Just like that. Just as flatly. In philosophy as in politics, I am for any theory that refuses to grant man innocence and for any practice that treats him as guilty.'
---Albert Camus, The Fall

 

C'mon, Mickey Z; blaming the corporate culture for one's eating habits is akin to blaming action films for hitting your spouse. Aside from impressionable and social status-seeking teenage girls, anyone with any sense of self-awareness (and, I suppose, self confidence) and a modicrum of intelligence is aware of healthy diet options and their benefit.

That said, with few exceptions, what you eat is a choice. As for myself, I choose to drink beer for dinner, which no doubt explains how I've gone from 190 pounds to 210 in just over a year (at 6'2, I figure I can add another 20 before I might consider choosing to drink...yuck..."light beer.")

 

i'm a mess and it's ALL my fault. not my parents and not the print ads or the television commercials. it's not micky d's (i don't eat meat) and it's not starbucks (never was in one and never will be although i am addicted to coffee). it's ME ME ME

NO excuses

 

Hello Danger Seeker,

If you re-read my posts, you'll see I was not blaming corporate culture alone. Also, you say: "anyone with any sense of self-awareness (and, I suppose, self confidence) and a modicrum of intelligence is aware of healthy diet options and their benefit."

I just don't see empirical evidence of this being true.

 

Smoking still kicks ass. I figure the more I smoke, the fewer people are destroyed. So I'm doing it for everyone else's health, rather than mine. Lil' ol' altruist me. Besides, every time I've temporarily halted my smoking (I smoke American Spirits, so it's a bit easier to quit), I miss all of the great, visceral conversations about non-smokers!

Sorry if I've given you reason to continue....

 

I smoked from 14 until 22 (i am 25 now) and quit cold turkey. Then I gained weight like a motha f*cka. that probably has more to do with me never making time to play basketball anymore, but i tell people quiting smoking made me fat

 

i smoke because i get ALL of the good gossip from the other ostracized smokers

 

sorry to eevryone for being so tardy with responding. they are working me like fuck at the moment


mickey, i agree with that quote but if people are aware that the press is of than nature does the dynamic change?

i like the camus keir

zamba, thanks for saying hello. i am not sure there is a correlation. you might find a correlation with poverty and smoking though.

rose, i am sure your not a mess.

rex, ifi ever hear that you have been drinking light beer i will be on the first plane to give you a good talking to.

graeme, when i quit my weight went up to but then i picked up my mountianwalking habit which has stuck with me since (tho i still liek a cigarette and a whisky at the top!)

 

although there is such a thing as choice and critical thinking ... it is being blanched out of more and more people ... if marketing was able to sell bush's lies to a majority of yahoos back in the day when it mattered, ie before he started bombing the shit out of iraq for example, then it sure as shit can sell twinkies, ice cream, locomotion prosthesis for the otherwise able, and sedentary pursuits ... frickin' A man ... I blame corporate culture ... oh yeah ... rory frickin' well does blame society ... that being said ... i am in pretty frickin' good shape cause I move my ass about under its own power quit a lot ...
bottom line ... those without the mental defenses against corp culture ... whether because of lack of education, intelligence, depression, or what have you are the most vulnerable ... and corporate marketing culture preys on the weak ... not the michaels of the world ... that being said, I'm gonna go eat a twinkie and quaff a brewskie to wash it down ... and I'm remembering how much I used to like to smoke ... hmmm .... guess I better go for a frickin' walk

 

oh and I forgot to say ... really enjoyed this post ... great lyrics from the proclaimers ...

 

Its funny you get all these comments on a personal post. Have been discussing 'the anarchist view of the smoking ban in pubs' with friends. Got to agree with it but is there something sad about the way people have abided by it, or is that a sign of the brotherhood of man that it needs little enforcement? We decided yes that the smoking ban was the best argument FOR anarchism seen in years. Like Zebra Crossings. is this maaking any sense?

Gus at www.1820.org.uk