Old Smoking Adverts

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Funny old cigarette print ads I’ve stumbled across at work: (Part of my job involves doing web stuff for a tobacco document archive)

You can dig for more in the TDO Advertising archive.

Christianity and Smoking

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Ah, is that smoke I smell? Spinning off from the debate on the Bible and alcohol, Razormouth has an article on Christians and Cigarettes. Of special interest to me, in my current position as anti-tobacco activist. And sure, Spurgeon smoked, but was he aware at the time of the addictive and carcinogenic properties of those heady vapors? More importantly, if even a moderate Christian smoker were to cause his brothers to stumble because of his habit, would it not be better for him to quit?

Somewhat ironically, I discovered yesterday that the Chairman and CEO of Philip Morris is named Bible.

TweakUI

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No installation of Win9x is complete without TweakUI. Download it for extra GUI control.

Orisinal

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The games at Orisinal are best enjoyed with a high-speed connection. Wow.

Pedophiles and Thomas a’Beckett

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Church sex scandals aren’t big news in Rome. I didn’t think they would be, having come from a country which suffered under oppression and abuse by Catholic friars during the centuries-long Spanish colonization. I’m not saying, of course, that pedophilia was then or is now the Catholic ideal or norm, God forbid; but certainly we cannot assume that these controversies are new or unique to the Church. Priests, bishops, pastors, and even some popes through the years have committed sins of sexual immoderation — as well as other crimes — and likewise there have been attempts by the higher clergy to cover and compensate for those guilty of such indiscretions.

The great martyr Thomas a’Beckett comes to mind. He maintained that a priest accused of murder be tried under the religious courts rather than the royal, despite King Henry II’s insistence to the contrary. That’s a deficient analogy, of course: Cardinal Law and Archbishop Beckett face vastly different historical contexts for different crimes. Certainly Rome does not have the influence it had back then, nor would any such standoff now result in a martyrdom by execution.

And yet, we do have here a situation where the people cry for priestly offenders to be submitted to secular courts of government rather than to the discipline of their mother Church. What is one to make of this, were one to speak in defense of Catholicism? And the question must be asked, (and not begged ;) is this more a matter of media hype than it is one of ecclesial discipline?

(Heh. “In defense of Catholicism…” Can you tell I’m not your average everyday Baptist?)

Netan-yahoo!

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Ariel Sharon didn’t come over to Washington today, but Benjamin Netanyahu is at the Hilton right now, with several thousand demonstrators outside, clamoring for the establishment of a Palestinian state. All this just a few blocks from where I am currently sitting.

Just in case you didn’t know, my sympathies are with the demonstrators. I am no dispensationalist, and I do grieve for innocent refugees killed by Israel’s military operations. Just as I grieve for those innocent Israelis killed by suicide bombers. More on that from this fence-sitting moderate, some other time.

De Quiros: The Persistence of Myth

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The Persistence of Myth. Conrado de Quiros draws an intensely provocative parallel between the masses’ support for a fake hero — and the middle classes’ support for a fake military training exercise. On one hand, you have the Philippines’ poor and uneducated believing the lie that the ousted Erap is their savior, the “one of them” who can lead them out of their poverty — while in truth he only filled his already-bulging pockets at their expense. On the other hand, you have the majority of Filipinos who welcome a new American incursion, under the impression that their former US colonists will lead them to a brighter tomorrow.

Now, as I sit here typing from a Washington flat, it’s pretty obvious that I don’t share De Quiros’ nationalistic ire. Yet at the same time, I think it is high time the Philippines stopped believing that either “pro-poor” populist presidents or intervention by international superpowers could lift them out of social quagmire. The agent of change must begin with the realization that there is a deep-seated cultural problem plaguing the Filipino psyche: a “memetic” problem, as Benign0 puts it. Again, I do not share all of his “Get Real”-isms; but I can tell you that even if Erap were to be reinstated as President, or even if the Philippines were granted Federal Statehood under the United States, neither event would lead to a change unless Filipinos, rich and poor alike, are liberated from their current mode of thought.