Evil Fuckers

I wrote about tobacco companies and their efforts to keep their products on the market after they tried unsuccessfully to cast doubt on the science showing the disastrous effects of smoking on health. Tobacco companies, led by Phillip Morris International (PMI) are fighting to keep their deadly product in the limelight around the globe, where even small, relatively backwards countries have recognized the evils of smoking and tried to discourage the addictive and deadly habit. PMI has even pressed the U.S. Government for language that would make it tougher for countries in a proposed Pacific Rim trade pact to require plain packaging or other limits on company logos. Australia’s packaging law is being challenged at the World Trade Organization, and U.S. senators from tobacco-growing states, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, recently warned the European Union that smoking controls it’s considering could endanger a U.S. trade deal.Listen to John Oliver's amusing, but nevertheless, distressing take on this.

Annie Get Your Gun

Ethel Merman, Annie Get Your Gun, 1946

In the Broadway musical, Annie Get Your Gun, Ethel Merman belts out

The gals with 'umbrellars'

Are always out with fellers

In the rain or the blazing sun

But a man never trifles 

With gals who carry rifles

Oh you can't get a man with a gun.

With a gun, with a gun,

No, you can't get a man with a gun.

Sarah Palin might well disagree. She's all for guns and she has her man, Todd, and she's the darling of the National Rifle Association, where she was a featured speaker at their annual "Stand and Fight" convention in Houston. Palin tried to hit all the gun nut hot buttons; President Obama, a hot button needing no elaboration, gun control, the liberal media, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and those of us who "exploit" tragedies like Newtown to press our liberal agenda. Palin's brief talk was a highlight for many of the conventioneers, who pushed forward to get a good look at Palin's tee shirt, which had antlers and the words, 'Women Hunt' written across her ample breasts in bright pink.

Despite Sarah's appeal to the female shooter, the percentage of women gun owners in the population as a whole, an estimated 10%, is only about a third of that of men. Among people who admit to owning guns, 74% are men and 26% are women. The NRA is trying to change that statistic, as seminars and product displays at their 2013 convention demonstrated. The message being broadcast by the NRA is simple. If women want equality with men, buy a gun, and CRASH goes the 'glass ceiling.' Not really, but doesn't a woman feel safer carrying a gun in her handbag? You're damned right they do, at least according to the blogs cropping up promoting gun ownership among women.

It used to be that men owned guns to hunt. Then the NRA began getting out the message that they needed guns to fight the "jack booted thugs" of the ATF, and the FBI, and Obama's government tyranny, bent on denying them their Second Amendment rights. And men bought the message and they bought semi-automatic assault rifles (much higher profit margin) and 30-clip magazines.

The government tyranny pitch was a harder sell for women, so the NRA pushed the idea that women needed guns for protection from home intruders, murderers, rapists, and census takers. And they made designer handguns and holsters and concealed carry handbags, and knowing how women love to accessorize, NRA fashion consultants came up with concealed carry denim jackets, and 'tactical slacks,' and 'Women Shoot Too' tees, and holster bras, and sleepwear featuring gun motifs; all specially designed for the new Annie Oakley.

Display at the NRA 2013 Convention

The gun industry isn't contributing millions to the NRA to conduct safety classes. They expect the NRA to generate gun sales by whatever means necessary. The NRA has responded by appealing to a man's sense of independence, self-reliance, and patriotism -- all characteristics the male dominated NRA leadership believe their gun-toting male demographic exhibit, in addition to the paranoia that they encourage.

Not so with women. Women are still viewed by the NRA as 'the fairer sex,' basically little scaredy-cats, who, unless they have a CCW (concealed carry weapon) male companion, must substitute a sleek, compact Glock 26 to feel safe maneuvering their shopping cart in the Walmart parking lot (accessorize with a flashbang bra holster for concealed carry, ladies, and ask for a weapon with a pink grip to show you care about women's health).

The NRA's campaign to recruit more women to their ranks is eerily reminiscent of the tobacco industry's push to swell the ranks of the addicted by glamorizing smoking. The industry's sophisticated advertising transformed the image of the woman smoker as decadent slut to emancipated sex symbol, and convinced women that the way to slim down those waistlines was to take up smoking their 'torches of freedom.' And as the waistlines of women smokers slimmed and their ranks swelled, the tobacco industry could proudly proclaim, 'You've come a long way, baby.'

The NRA's campaign to recruit women gun owners has so far been less sophisticated than the tobacco industry's campaign, but given time, the gun industry will succeed in building its female demographic. They'll have a hard time, however, matching the tobacco industry's success in getting women killed -- there's been a 600% increase in smoking-related lung cancer deaths among women -- but give the NRA credit for trying.

Oh, by the way, ladies, more than twice as many women are shot dead by their spouse or intimate other, than by a stranger. So be sure you're armed around your gun-toting man, and do practice your quick draw from that flashbang bra.

Blow Smoke in Her Face and She'll Follow You Anywhere

The Tobacco Industry is fighting back after they were finally taken to task by Congress for killing Americans and lying about it. It is estimated that the tobacco industry spends some $15 billion per year advertising its products. More and more, Big Tobacco is focusing its advertising dollars, product design and placement on teenagers, with the aim of getting them hooked early. They are even creating tobacco products that are easily concealed in schools and at home. And they're coming up with smokeless products. Camel, for instance, is test marketing tobacco sticks, strips, and orbs. The orbs look a lot like Tic Tacs mints, while the sticks resemble toothpicks, and the strips are much like Listerine breath mint strips. One tobacco lobbyist felt pretty good about this because, in his words, it really reduces the effects of second-hand smoke.

"All my friends are doing it."

The perfume they used? Chanel #5 @ $300/oz. What they smell like? Tobacco smoke.

Do these young women think they look sexy with smoke spewing out of the mouths? Isn't it just a bit absurd really? But tobacco company advertising has for years tried to convince us that smoking is cool and sexy.

"Blow smoke in her face and she'll follow you anywhere."

The Industry doesn't use models like these to advertise their products.

Ronnie smokes 'em. Shouldn't you?

Maybe Ronnie will send some to you for Christmas

Nicotine is not addictive. I swear.

Smoking is stupid, and blowing smoke out of one's face looks stupid, even if it's an electric cigarette. I mean, what's that smoke coming out of your face?

And how about chewing tobacco? Sticking that stuff between your cheek and gum. Yuke! Seeing all that spitting by ball players is bad enough, but believe me, you don't want to see the pictures of people's ruined teeth, jaw, and most of their face. Ugh!

Baseball banned tobacco use in the minor leagues in 1993,
but it is still common in the majors.

"...men with half-burned wood in their hands and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf, also dry, like those the boys make on the day of the Passover of the Holy Ghost; and having lighted one part of it, by the other they suck, absorb, or receive that smoke inside with the breath, by which they become benumbed and almost drunk, and so it is said they do not feel fatigue. These, muskets as we will call them, they call. I knew Spaniards on this island of Española who were accustomed to take it, and being reprimanded for it, by telling them it was a vice, they replied they were unable to cease using it. I do not know what relish or benefit they found in it." (as recorded by Bartolome de las Casas, sent by Columbus into the interior of Cuba, circa 1500).