I had never before heard the phrase "the cigarette community." But like so much of what comes out of the mouth of veteren Queens rapper Noreaga, I find it to be an irresistible mix of tough-guy ridiculousness, bizarro-world genius and huggable humanity. Talk about "no filter." The guy is just an amazing personality. UPDATE: Joe Budden responds!
It seems like only yesterday that America's women were finally allowed to be killed in front-line combat. But it was a hollow victory, as so many victories are, because after losing something like nine consecutive wars, America now fights its foreign battles using genderless drone airships that will never cry or come home unemployable.
But ladies can still die "like a man" without even being sent to Camp Victory:
U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more—that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows. [...]
Last summer, we checked the price of cigarettes state by state and in D.C. Here's how prices have increased and decreased since then.
51. West Virginia (last year $4.74): $4.84 = +2% 50. New Hampshire ($5.87): $4.86 = -20% 49. Tennessee ($5.56): $4.91 = -13% 48. North Dakota ($4.91): $5.03 = +2% 47. Idaho ($4.99): $5.11 +2% 46. North Carolina ($5.51): $5.14 = -7% 45. Alabama ($5.27): $5.18 = -2% 44. Colorado ($5.96): $5.19 = -15% 43. Wyoming ($5.50): $5.21 = -6% 42. Oklahoma ($6.19): $5.24 = -18% 41. Virginia ($5.55): $5.43 = -2% 40. Mississippi ($5.75): $5.55 = -4%
Attention New York City smokers: You have 8 days left to purchase cigarettes at the what-will-soon-seem-reasonable price of $10. Starting July 1 the state is adding another buck sixty a pack in taxes, which, you know, HOLY SHIT IF ANYTHING IS GOING TO TURN ME INTO A RAVING TEA PARTY LOON IT WILL BE THIS. Seriously, this is going to be a pretty excellent test of "how stupid am I?" If I'm actually pulling out twelve dollars-because you know that's what it's going to get rounded up to-for twenty Marlboro Reds (sixty cents a cigarette, if you're scoring at home; good luck trying to bum an "extra" smoke [...]
I'm a bad citizen, environment-wise, in that I don't really give a shit about my carbon footprint or whatever. I leave everything plugged in and crank the A/C as soon as the mercury passes 50; if I cared, I'd justify it by noting that I live in New York and use public transportation, but I don't care, so I don't bother, because by the time global warming's gonna be a major problem for those of us in the first world I'll be dead, an assumption which probably holds true even if global warming becomes a major problem for those of us in the first world next year or so.
My left index finger has been intermittently numb for about the last week or so; at first I put it down to some manifestation of carpal tunnel or such, but now I'm thinking maybe it's somehow related (hopefully subconsciously) to those grisly new anti-smoking ads the city is running in the subways.
"She knows how difficult it is to quit, even though—beginning at age 25—she had a sore throat that never went away. She says she quit when pregnant with her daughter, now 32, but then relapsed. She even smoked during her radiation treatments for oral cancer in 2001. It was only after the surgery to remove her voice box that she finally quit, cold turkey." —The new reason to avoid television is the new CDC campaign featuring ex-smokers who have lost various parts of their bodies to their habit, from legs to larynx. If you've already managed to quit, go ahead and give yourself a high five and hope that's [...]
Bad news for women who like to have a cigarette now and then while drinking a six pack of wine: Even one smoke more than doubles your risk of keeling over dead from a heart attack. Results from a three-decade study that followed the health habits of 101,000 American nurses found that even very light smoking dramatically increased the incidence of "sudden cardiac death"—these are the sneaky kind of heart attacks that just knock people over dead, with no warning and no previously known medical conditions.
Light-to-moderate smokers were twice as likely to die of sudden heart problems than those who had never smoked. But those who quit [...]
51. West Virginia: $4.74 50. Louisiana: $4.82 49. North Dakota: $4.91 48. Kentucky: $4.97 47. Idaho: $4.99 46. California: $5.19 45. Alabama: $5.27 44. Georgia: $5.29 43. South Carolina: $5.42 41-42. Indiana, Wyoming: $5.50 40. North Carolina: $5.51
A YouTube video making the rounds-most recently posted on the entertainment news blog Crazydaysandnights, since disappeared-shows a two-year-old boy lighting and smoking a cigarette while a group of surrounding adults laugh and clap and cheer. This is less okay than those already not-really-okay Etrade commercials. And much less okay than the forever-awesome cover of Dinosaur Jr.'s 1991 album, Green Mind.
Hey smokers: If you want to reduce your chances of getting lung cancer, stick with the strong stuff. Or move to Australia.
Turns out that the more money you make, the less likely you are to smoke. Unless you happen to earn less than $12k a year, in which case you fall right in the middle, and probably have more serious concerns, hierarchy-of-needswise.
"Both daughters and sons from divorced families are significantly more likely to initiate smoking in comparison to their peers from intact families, shows a new analysis of 19,000 Americans. Men who experienced parental divorce before they turned 18 had 48-per-cent higher odds of ever smoking 100 or more cigarettes than men whose parents did not divorce. Women from divorced families were also at risk, with 39-per-cent higher odds of smoking in comparison to women from intact families." —Smoking is terrible and kills everyone, but don't be so hard on yourself. This habit, like so many other poor choices in life, can ultimately be blamed on your parents getting married [...]
I was at the Rite Aid the other day and I don't know if you have Rite Aid where you are, but basically Rite Aid is a Drug Store, plus they have makeup and all kinds of little garbage-y food like Kraft Easy Mac and Chef Boyardee in those little styrofoam microwave cans and junk food and crackers and beef jerky and soda pop and all the different colors of Pringles tubes, and you can buy a 20" box window fan and there's a toy aisle and there's seasonal candy, like for Halloween and Valentine's and Easter and Mother's Day and 4th of July and Christmas and probably for [...]
"If people quit smoking their depressive symptoms go down and if they relapse, their mood goes back to where they were. An effective antidepressant should look like that." —Brown University Professor Christopher Kahler discusses his recent study showing that people who quit smoking are happier than those who stick it out. This seems patently ridiculous to me, despite the sample size of 236 participants. A close reading of the article allowed me to find the flaw in the research: "Professor Kahler said he was confident the results apply to most people, even though the smokers in this study were also heavy drinkers." AH-HA! Anyone who has ever smoked [...]
Carolyn Smeaton is worried. The 48-year-old resident of Fall River, MA, used to smoke 3 packs a day, but cut that amount in half by supplementing her habit with e-cigarettes-liquid nicotine vaporizers. "It's far exceeded my expectations," she told her local paper last month. "I feel like this could save my life," she tells the New York Times. Now, however, the FDA is threatening to ban the products. "I'm a nervous wreck," Smeaton informs the Wall Street Journal. With all those reporters calling her for quotes on the product, no wonder! The woman deserves a smoke.
The next time you cough ostentatiously or wave your judgmental fingers around to disperse the invisible cloud coming from a nearby smoker, remember this: We are the only ones keeping this economy afloat. You should be a little nicer to us. Because we're probably going to die soon.
