Censureship

Censorship

When you think about censorship, you automatically think about pornographic movies, books, and so on. Well sure – there’s that. I’m not even really sure what these censorship people do, but whatever it is, it’s a very narrow concept.

What I’m talking about is – smoking! Now there’s an issue for you that they seem oblivious to. Here we’ve got a gazillion dollar lawsuit going against the tobacco companies. And there’s provinces, health care people, NGO’s, just waiting in the wings to take them down. And yet, they’re smoking again in the movies. Seems to be the latest fad. Everybody’s lighting up – cigarettes, cigars, everything except pipes, which don’t seem popular, although I don’t know why. You’d think the censorship boards would be all over them.

Well, never mind about pipes – it’s all them cigarettes and cigars! They’re lighting up all over the place. It’s almost like a gratuitous act – like they’re advertising for the tobacco companies. What – is that where they get their funding from – the tobacco companies? What a perfect platform to advertise their product – and nobody censures it. Go figure. And the two billion dollar lawsuit is petty cash compared to the whole new generation that will become addicted because of the movies.

Think I don’t know what I’m talking about? Well let me tell you. It was about sixty-five years ago that a whole gang of us got hooked on cigarettes, thanks to an actor called Wallace Beery. Him and his marine buddies would fight their way all over the world for freedom and the good old USA, their guns ablazing, and always with a cigarette dangling from their ugly faces. That was cool, man! Well, we thought so. It wasn’t long before we were all hooked. In fact you’ll find it documented in a story called ‘Old War Stories’ in Stories by Victor Epp.

Well, those days smoking was a recreational thing – everybody did it. It was no big deal. Nobody knew the real harm caused by cigarette smoking.  And the non-smokers pretty well accepted the stink in their houses from the smoke the smokers caused. It was a status thing. In fact your status was based on whether you rolled your own or smoked ‘tailor mades’. Mind you, it was naughty for little boys to do it – which is of course one of the reasons we did it in the first place.

So now they’re going to be serving up cigarettes for an entire new generation coming up – based only on the advertising they get out of these innocuous acts in the movies. And all the do-gooders, the health care systems and governments will continue to lament the ill effects of smoking and doing a bunch of grand-standing – and be blown away by the tobacco companies in the process. What – are they in cahoots with them? Everybody makes money from this smoking thing, you know. Interesting thought isn’t it?

Well, when you don’t close all the avenues, it’s a little like coming into the cabin from a blizzard and forgetting to shut the door. Stupid!

At least that’s how it looks from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.