India loosens ban on smoking in movies

ICONIC FIGURES CAN BE SHOWN
SMOKING; HEALTH MINISTRY NODS

New Delhi, Oct. 20 — (IANS) India’s multibillion rupee film industry, which has been fuming over a ban on smoking scenes in films, now has reason to smile. The health ministry is ready to allow the depiction of iconic characters with their favourite poison stick.

So British statesman Winston Churchill and fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who cannot be imagined without their cigars and pipes, can now be shown smoking in new films — though with a warning.

“Characters like Churchill and Sherlock Holmes can smoke on screen. People know about them and their on-screen smoking won’t influence the audience behaviour much,” a senior health ministry official told IANS.

“This will be made public next month,” the official added.

The health ministry had banned smoking in films but director Mahesh Bhatt moved court against the government decision. The case has been pending in the Delhi High Court for the last two years. The Delhi High Court is going to hear the case in the third week of November.

Earlier, the ministry was completely against any smoking scenes in any movie. It had said all old movies with such scenes would have to be accompanied with a note saying the habit is injurious to health, and new films with such depictions could not be made at all.

Fool your friends with this fake camera

Speaking of surveillance cameras — which I was earlier today — why not spook your friends with this nifty free downloadable papercraft CCTV camera, courtesy of Nude Magazine? Mount one at your front door or, as Cory Doctorow suggested at Boing Boing, in your bathroom.

"Smile! You're on Candid Camera!"

Paul Strong Jr. has launched a public art project to protest Seattle’s recent installation of “security” cameras in some of its parks — The Camerahead Project.

The project parodies the security-surveillance police-state by deploying its own agents, “a highly trained elite group of cybernetically enhanced observers using the latest and greatest in modern surveillance technology. Each Camerahead agent has been hand selected and specially modified for their unique ability to monitor the public with a complete disregard for anyone’s personal privacy.”

The lurid world of George Orwell

The copy on the back cover of this 1954 Signet paperback edition of Orwell’s 1984 reads:

Which One Will YOU Be In the Year 1984?

There won’t be much choice, of course, if this book’s predictions turn out to be true. But you’ll probably become one of the following four types:

Proletarian — Considered inferior and kept in total ignorance, you’ll be fed lies from the Ministry of Truth, eliminated upon signs of promise of ability!

Police Guard — Chosen for lack of intelligence but superior brawn, you’ll be suspicious of everyone and be ready to give your life for Big Brother, the leader you’ve never even seen!

Party Member: Male — Face-less, mind-less, a flesh-and-blood robot with a push-button brain, you’re denied love by law, taught hate by the flick of a switch!

Party Member: Female — A member of the Anti-Sex League from birth, your duty will be to smother all human emotion, and your children might not be your husband’s!

Unbelievable? You’ll feel differently after you’ve read this best-selling book of forbidden love and terror in a world many of us may live to see!

And how about that front cover illustration? Who’da thought Julia was so, well, HOT?

Your Thursday dose of political poetry

What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

“The Colonel,” from The Country Between Us
by Carolyn Forché
(HarperCollins, 1987)

Free Bill Stickers!

Thanks, Wendy!

Wash your car, go to jail?

Now being considered in San Luis Obispo County (CA), where I live: a law making it illegal to wash your own car. You might think the argument for this proposed legislation has something to do with our ongoing drought problems. Nope. Supervisors feel that too much dirty, soapy water may be washing down the storm drains and into the sewers. Of course, in my neighborhood, we have no sewers or storm drains. We're all on septic. Big friggin' deal. The law would still apply.

So my fellow county residents and I may soon be coerced into spending $7 to $20 to have our cars washed by "professionals," rather than do the washing ourselves.

Thanks, Daddy.

Government is good for you!

If it weren’t so detailed and earnest, I’d think Professor Douglas J. Amy’s Government is Good website was a joke. But I’m afraid it’s not. Amy teaches politics at Mount Holyoke College, and his site is subtitled “An Unapologetic Defense of a Vital Institution.” You’ve got to see this to believe it.

Here’s a snippet from Amy’s article “A Day in Your Life”:

Though we usually fail to notice it, government programs and policies improve our daily lives in innumerable ways. …

7:50 a.m. You and your child walk across the lawn to your car and arrive without getting dog poop on your shoes. A small but welcome achievement that is made possible now by a local law that requires people to clean up after their pets. Also, the reason your neighborhood is not plagued by stray cats and dogs is that your local Animal Control officer is on the job dealing with this constant problem.

Columbus Day -- phooey!

And besides, it's just another goddamn State-sanctioned day off for government bureaucrats and bankers...

The stuff libertarian dreams are made of

Atlantic City Mayor Goes Missing

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Under federal investigation for embellishing his Army service in Vietnam, a groggy-sounding Mayor Robert Levy called in sick at City Hall, climbed into his city-issued Dodge Durango and seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth.

A spokesman issued a 36-word statement saying the mayor was going on indefinite medical leave. That was a week and a half ago. Aides say he is in a hospital, but they won’t say where, why or for how long.

The mystery and the gathering scandal over Levy’s military record have worried civic leaders in this seaside resort, which has a long history of corruption, with four of the last eight mayors busted on graft charges and one-third of last year’s nine-member City Council in prison or under house arrest.

As author and radio talk host Tammy Bruce remarked, “Now if every politician in Washington, DC would take [Levy’s] lead, we’d have something to smile about.”

Government

Thanks for the tip, Karen.

Being naughty for fun and profit

Russia is one of the most sparsely populated countries on the planet. In fact, its population’s been shrinking since the early 1990s. But government leaders in the region of Ulyanovsk have got a “fix.” According to a story in today’s Denver Post, they’ve declared this coming September 12 the “Day of Conception” and for the third year in a row are giving couples time off from work to, well, screw their brains out and make babies.

Sound like fun? Well, it is! And not for just the obvious reason! Couples who “give birth to a patriot” exactly nine months later will win money, cars, washing machines, video cameras, and other prizes during June 12 festivities.

Is Russia a great country or what?

How scary is anarchism?

Al-Qaeda is more dangerous than ever, say our masters. This, after six years of Homeland Security, the U.S. invasion and demolition of Iraq, and the intrusive Patriot Act.

Despite the watchful eye of the Food and Drug Administration, our spinach, our canned meat, and even our green beans are unsafe to eat. Our pets are even afraid to eat meals.

The Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota collapses, due in part to the incompetence of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Despite all of this, I was told by a friend today that the notion of a world without government frightens him. He'd never feel safe, he said.

Sheesh.

To the moon, Alice!

On his blog, sci-fi author John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, The Last Colony) reminds us that yesterday marked the 38th anniversary of the first moon landing. Writes Scalzi:

“38 damn years, people. There ought to be a Starbucks up on the moon by now, and a bunch of tourists experiencing the challenge of sipping a vente latte in one sixth G.”

And there would be, John, if government didn’t have a monopoly on space exploration.