Thank you for smoking

I hate smoking. Anyone who smokes in this day and age is a cretin. (If you stop, I respect you, but you were still stupid to start.) I hate pictures like the one I posted. But I also hate McCarthyite moralizing, and here we have a prime example. The American Medical Association Alliance, which is watchdogging smoking in movies, is upset with an anti-smoking storyline in the hit comedy He's Just Not That Into You, simply because a brand of cigarettes is shown. (There are no smoking scenes in the movie itself.) Apparently, just showing cigarettes--not even the cancer sticks themselves, just the box--is enough to turn kids into ravening smokers, something I find hard to believe. In a pretzel-ish twist, the brand maker, fearing bad publicity, has also criticized the film, saying it did not appreciate what looks to have been inadvertent product placement. How principled of the death merchants! When cigarette makers find common cause with the anti-smoking brigade, against a movie that criticizes smoking--well, the whole thing makes me want to light up.