Editorial: Why so much hate surrounding cigarettes.

Smoking is now a day considers as a bad habit that most people wants to get rid of. But it wasn’t always like this back in the days where cigarettes were considered as “The cool things to do”. Movie had a huge impact on the cigarette industry. Indeed, directors had the need to make their actor do something when talking. Now, when someone is smoking, he’s either a psychopath or European. But why so much hate around cigarette? Do you really believe that cigarette is the number one killer in America? Studies have proved that obesity was overtaking smoking. According to CNN, heart disease is still the America’s number one killer in America. Though these proven facts, have we stamps all burger and any cholesterol product with death skulls? Are they as many warning sign on cigarette than on cheddar cheese, the number one cholesterol in America? Well no… Then why should cigarettes?

Some people will tell you that these logos are required to warn the person who’s not aware of the danger of cigarette. Those people are mostly children who tend to be easily influenced and fascinated by harmful product. Indeed, if the adult can do it, why not them? However, awareness of danger doesn’t come from a sign of a pack of cigarette. It comes from education, from teachers and mostly, from parental education. It is there responsibility to warn their children of all the danger of our world so they can decide for themselves and be prepared.

Long time ago, liquors were a big issue and were even prohibited for a period of time. However, this prohibition only worked to a certain extends and now is revealed as a complete disaster. Crime rates surrounding liquor has arisen drastically.

By implementing such harsh rules on cigarettes, aren’t we afraid to redo the mistakes of the past?

Does it really make sense to put some death logo to packs of cigarettes that isn’t the number one killer in America? If yes, why not cheese burger and all other food loaded with cholesterol?

Do people actually know that they are even more dangerous product than cigarette?

Is the tobacco industry to blame or should it be education?

These questions deserved to be asked since there is so much debate concerning the tobacco industry.

The Statue of Liberty

To tell you the truth, visiting the Statue oLiberty wasn’t in my to do list. Indeed, saying “hello” to a high tall spiked headed lady painted in green doesn’t seem really exciting to me. But hey, I’m a tourist, Helena wants to drop by in her island and visit “Miss liberty”, I guess I can make an exception. Perhaps, I may learn why people have decided to paint her in green … (I know, I’m just being silly, I know why it’s green of course thanks to the State House field trip).

But first things first. We went to a small restaurant for a brunch. Pretty nice and old fashion style. Helena wasn’t familiar with the term “Brunch”, a mixed between breakfast and lunch. So I told her that when you skipped breakfast but still want to eat an early lunch, than we have what we called a brunch. Then we took off for Miss hulk… erf… the statue of liberty sorry.

So when you arrived at the border right before taking the boat to Liberty Island, you can have a quick look at the “Statue of Liberty” and … I thought she would be taller. We bought the ticket, and hop on the boat for Liberty Island. On our way, I couldn’t help noticing 2 things. While the city and its huge skyscrapers started to shrink, the Statue of Liberty started to grow bigger and bigger. There… oh wow… I can’t have the whole statue in my field of vision. While we walked around we took many picture of her, many ones were pretty funny.

I also learned some piece of history. Did you know that Mr. Eiffel made the last pieces of the Statue of Liberty? The one who built and designed the Eiffel tower in France. Well this may be the reason why she is so gorgeous ^^. I also notice that she wasn’t built on a socle but on a fort. Indeed, long time ago, the Liberty Island was a military position. It served as a scouting fort to spot incoming invaders. The fort where the statue stands is shaped as a 11 spiked stars to have a 360 field of vision.

Then our next stop was Ellis Island. This place is huge, loaded with historical facts as well as movie facts. Indeed this is where they shot the movie “Hitch” with will Smith. This latter dates Eva Mendes to the island to show her that one of her ancestor was a pioneer. Anyway, the most important one is that it was used as a place where new comers who wanted to live in America had to pass a health check. Two diseases were common at that time. One of them was called trachoma, a disease that can make people blind. The second, well I don’t remember.

On our way back to the Manhattan, there was this guy dressed as Spiderman. His outfit was... hum pretty tight... and he was striking some weird poses for by standers pictures... But I couldn't help noticing all these girl gathered around him. Roughly 10 girls around him, each one of them giving him 1 dollar for a pose. It is really unexpected and now, I believe beeing Spiderman is quite an earning job.

After leaving the statue of liberty, we had a quick look at the NYSE-Euronext. Pretty beautiful. Now a days I believe that NYSE is less croweded because of new way of communication ( internet). Bye bye to all the messy people screaming at each other with pens and paper sticked to their mouth. I also notice one strange thing: very fancy Gym clubs surrounds these stock option houses.

At last but not least, I invited Helena to a sushi restaurant. Since it was her birthday, it was my treat. So Helena is a bit afraid of trying out new stuff. She doesn’t like to go on unknown territory. Since I have some experience with sushi I ordered several different fancy rolls. Why fancy? Because they are not just casual sushi’s such like the California rolls. There are a bit more… well fancy… More topping and so on. Then for our final sushi I made her try something really unusual. The “ Uni Sushi”. Uni stands for sea ursine. It has a very particular taste and a very particular way of eating. You have to put it in your mouth and eat it really slowly so the taste just blows your mind. It kinda feels like the sea is invading your entire mouth. And you know what? She totally agreed ^^. Sharing your experiences and likes is really enjoyable (especially when we both agreed).

The next day… guess what we had for dinner again…

I <3 NYC. Trip day and empire state building

My friend Helena Mignon, a former classmate who happens to study in Mexico for the second semester, decided to come to Boston and New York to celebrate her 23^rd birthday. Now the funny part is that we don’t really know each other very well. Even though we were in the same class the first semester, I realized that we never talked to each other. And now, we’re going to visit NYC together. Wouldn’t you feel awkward to visit such city with someone you don’t really know? Well I guess this trip is my opportunity to know her better.

The main issue is she’s coming right in the middle of the week and therefore, I have to skip some classes in order to show her around. Of course most teachers gave me green light for skipping classes in exchange of extra work. Now the funny thing is that I warned them on the 1^st of April and I would never thought that even teachers would take advantage of this special day to fool me.

The previous day before my trip to NYC was a rough day. I had to buy the tickets as well as the Hostel. This latter is so hard to find especially when you plan to stay for more then 4 days during Easter Sunday. However, with a bit of effort, I was able to find a little hostel right next to Central Park and a nice bus ride.

The trip to Boston lasted 4 hours or so with only one break. When we were about to arrive in NYC, the bus started to stop and go on almost every relight and I started to get really sick. Hopefully, I managed to hold my breakfast in my stomach and finding our hostel wasn’t that hard after all. After unpacking, we decided to visit NYC.

We first went to Ground 0. It was so windy and cold that we decided to go shopping next to that famous century 21. It’s a shop were almost everything is on sale. You can find almost anything you want from clothing to gift with a relatively cheap price. However, good luck in finding your right size. You can chose between XL, XXL, and XXXL (I didn’t know this latter could even exist).

Then we walk up the street up to the Empire state building. Like many touristic place, the Empire state building is an Iconic symbol of NYC. I believe this latter is one of the tallest building in NYC if not the highest. It also has a huge impact on American movie history with King Kong and other old style movie. The inside of the building is old school fashion style and it feels like you are living in a 1960 movie. It is so sixties that the architecture and design deserve big attention.

While we reached the top, NYC was drowning in the dark. Many little white light from tall building were drawing the cities. It was really breathtaking. We spent roughly 1-hour taking picture of the entire city.

Then it was already 0h00 and we ate nothing since we arrived. So we decided to eat at Wendy’s then come back to ou hostel, dead tired.

My apologies

Hello Bruce, I wanted to apology for not updating my blog these later days. I really wanted to post my daily entries in NYC, but I never realized how tiring NYC could be. We walked all day long and I got pretty tired by the end of the day. I know that you’re asking of us only 15 min of bloging but to tell you the truth, I spend much more than only 15 min. However, I’m willing to make it up by writing you every single day I’ve spent in New York in every detail with illustration too. I hope you’ll enjoy it because I’ve got so many things to tell you.

Complicated Subject: Moral Flexibility

During the movie, Nick Naylor, who happens to be a lobbyist on the behalf of cigarette, have this conversation with his son.

Son: “Can’t anyone be a lobbyist?”

Nick Naylor: “No… It requires a certain moral flexibility that goes beyond most people.”

Son: “Do I have flexible morals?”

Nick Naylor: “Well… Let’s say you become a lawyer and you were asked to defend a murderer, no worst than that, a child murderer. Now the law states that every person deserves a fair trial. Would you defend him?”

As for my complicated subject, I’ve decided to explain a particularly term used in“ Thank you for smoking” which is moral flexibility.

Our live is built on decisions and dilemmas. Every actions and calls we make are based upon our perception of what we consider the “right” things to do or the “wrong” things to do. Now the key to moral flexibility is that since our moral in influenced by our OWN perception of the world and society, even though you may come across someone who shares your principle and values, you can always play and bend your morale factor to act without feeling guilty. Why? Because we are all different. And no one is going to blame you for your values.

Now let’s talk about “moral flexibility. What is it? Well first of, it is composed of two words:

Moral: which concerns the principle of “right” and “wrong”.

Flexibility: to be easily modified to respond to altered circumstances or conditions.

As such, moral flexibility is the aptitude to bend our principle to achieve many spins for many purposes. On one hand, people with flexible morale can either come to their end or use it as a “get away” technique from a situation where they would be cornered if they were to stick with their principles. The most interesting part is that by bending your moral, not only you get away but you simply don't feel guilty whatsoever. One the other hand, people who would stick firmly to their principle would in theory, always chose the action they believe to be right.

Do you have flexible morale? Well as for as I’m concerned, we all have some sort of moral flexibility to a certain extend. People cheat, people lie. People download. Let’s talk about downloading, a subject we talked about couple months ago. It is considered as stealing and unethical and therefore the “wrong” things to do. Many people are aware of what downloading represents and how it is perceived. However, so many people still download without feeling guilty. Why? Because (thanks?) to their flexible moral.

In some situation, flexible morale is always used where there is no “right” outcome. Both decisions end up in a “No win situation”. This is where you have to prioritize your principles.

In the movie, Nick Naylor stressed how parental education is important in a children growth during a debate against the health organization. Education doesn’t come from a sign of a pack of cigarettes, it comes from parental control.

Health organization:” Ok Mr. Nick Naylor, what are you going to do when your son turns 18. Are you going to share one lovely afternoon smoking cigarettes?”

From this moment, Nick Naylor is cornered. He has the choice of speaking on the behalf of the cigarette OR as a father.

On one side, if he speaks as a father and say "No because smoking kills" , he would then lose the debate. On the other side, if he speaks on the behalf of cigarette, he goes against his principles. For both case, moral flexibility is required.

After speaking on the behalf of cigarette, Nick Naylor comes out of the conference room with a sense of guiltiness.

Nick Naylor may not seems so flexible when it comes to his son.

Iceskating

Every Friday night, BU has this special night even that takes place at the roof. There it is possible to ice-skate from 6 to 10 pm. One thing to know about me is that I love ice-skating. It is such a great place to socialize, meet people, and have fun at the same time. I believe it is also a romantic place to date someone. If your partner doesn’t know how to skate, just grab her hand and ice skate according to her speed. If she’s better than you, then grab her even tighter. If you’re lucky, you might even fall together romantic style ^^.

What I also like about Ice-skating is the speed sensation. It reminds me a winter sport. I can go relatively fast and do some nice tricks as well. When I went to the roof I was looking forward to get on the ice. However there was a little hiccup. The ice skate they give me was ridiculously old. It was so hard to put them on and after only 5 min, my feet started to hurt like hell. Each step was so painful and I looked so ridiculous too. All I wanted to do is to get rid of these ice-skating shoes, go home and massage my feet. However, my friends seemed to enjoy the rink. So we just stay a little longer and as for me, I just chilled on the ice for a while.

Eye of the Tiger

Since my 2 weeks of work out didn’t really make me lose any weight whatsoever, I’ve decided to push myself harder and focus on cardio. Now the thing about cardio is that it’s only effective when you keep your heart running for at least 30 to 45 minute. Below this time, you basically burn nothing but the energy you have ready at hand.

Me: “So to make it simple, I just need to keep my heart running for 30 minutes? This shouldn’t be too hard”.

Dave: “Well you need to run for AT LEAST above 30 minutes. Only after then, the energy you’ll burn after this lap of time will be depleted from your fat. I also suggest you to run with your sweater on so you can sweat more and burn more fat.”

Me: “Alright”

Dave:” Also remember to play a power song when you feel tired to give you a mental boost… Ready? Alright, let’s go tiger”.

This day, I’ve come prepared with all the required equipments:

• New Nike shoes I’ve just bought for 90 bucks, READY!
• Ipod with arm strap loaded with power song, READY!
• Bottle of water, READY!

Today, there is no way I’m coming back home without losing at least 5 lbs of fat! So I’ve decided to run for one hour on one of those treadmills. I pressed the button “Quick start” and “3…”, “2…”, “1…”. and the tread started to move. Let’s put the speed at 6 for a little warm up…

As I run, I couldn’t help noticing this little timer that tracks my running time, a calorie meter and distance meter. Alright, today, I’m going explode those numbers!

• 2 min 14sec: I couldn’t help notice how boring running was.
• 3 min: My thirst is kicking in… humpff.. I’ve never thought it would be that hard to drink while running…
• 3min 20: My first drop of sweat falls. And my legs starts to get heavy… At this rate, I won’t last much longer. Power song! Power song! I need mental boost!

“Power song played: Eye of the tiger from Rocky…”

Tuuuuduuuutuuuuu… tuduuuduuuuu…!!

Alright baby! I’m back in the game… But lets speed down by a bit...

…

Oh no powersong is over… I’ve got nothing else to do besides running and …

Oh man… NO… Don’t look at the clock… Don’t look… crap…

What the?? oO 4 min 11 sec. How is that even possible? Have I entered in some sort of time distortion or something? At this rate, I’m going to kill myself. Let’s walk a little to regain my breath. All I need is to keep my heart running, so walking a little bit should be fine.

Breath… breath… the key is breathing…

After couple minutes, my body sweated as it never sweated before. My grey T-shirt who was supposedly grey turned black and sticky. I felt like my body was evaporating and that warm thick sweatshirt didn’t help at all. Doh... No wonder it's called a SWEATshirt. From this very moment, I only had one objective… to survive at least 10 min on the treadmill… To survive so I don’t look like an asthmatic rookie. After 10 minutes, tI barely made it alive…the calorie meter indicate 90 cal burnt… Barely enough to burn off a Coke…