Sex okay, gore okay, smoking in films a no-no
An anti-smoking group in Liverpool is calling for all movies with smoking scenes in them to be given an 18 certificate because research suggests young people pick up the habit from watching them. Funny. I thought people usually started smoking because their friends smoked. It’s called peer pressure, not that there’s necessarily any pressure involved.
Don’t blame Bogart and Bacall. It’s just stupid. Where does the tinkering and interference stop? Can we expect history to be rewritten next, Churchill’s famous cigar photo-shopped out of images? Will we find James Dean movies on the top shelves next to pornography and horror?
But then, I don’t understand anyone joining anti-smoking campaign groups. Or pro-smoking. If I were looking to join a group of people pushing for change, it might be a tree-planting club… an end poverty now charity… the Green Party.
tags: environment, films, health, peer pressure, propaganda, smoking, social engineeringKilling us sweetly
Returning to the subject of artificial sweeteners, last covered in my article on the news that diet soft drinks may increase hunger and therefore worsen rather than combat obesity, I came across this interesting article on The Ecologist website, all about aspartame, possibly the most controversial food additive in history. The most recent evidence apparently links it to leukaemia and lymphoma.
Aspartame was once listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent. It is sold today under names like NutraSweet and Canderel, and is found in more than 5,000 foods, including fizzy drinks, chewing gum, table-top sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, breakfast cereals, jams, sweets, vitamins, prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Two-thirds of the adult population and a whopping 40 per cent of children consume this chemical regularly. It has no calories, so is usually pushed as an aid to losing weight, but can induce a range of disturbing adverse effects in humans, including headaches, memory loss, mood swings, seizures, and has been additionally linked to multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s-like symptoms, tumours and even death.
tags: aspartame, chemicals, drugs, food, health, poison
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