Tobacco Articles: category arts

Should I design a tobacco firm’s new HQ? : In the first of a new series, Irena Bauman, author of How to be a Happy Architect, tackles your ethical dilemmas

Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A tobacco firm has asked me to design its new headquarters and the brief looks exciting. But I have ethical objections to its business. Should I accept the commission?

. . . My advice is: resist the vanity of the compliment and refuse the commission. Architects lack direct political or financial powers to shape society’s ethics. But we can help shape social values by deciding who we will or will not work for. In accepting commissions, we sign up to the values they represent.

Nuala O'Faolain; Irish Writer Illuminated Female Isolation

Mon, 12 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Nuala O'Faolain, 68, an Irish journalist who in midlife turned an introduction to a collection of columns into a best-selling memoir and then quickly wrote a novel, another memoir and a biography, died of cancer May 10 at the Blackrock Hospice in Dublin. . . . She also began a long-term but ultimately unsatisfying relationship with a man whom she followed to London. There, she became a BBC producer, making community access programs, traveling extensively, writing and teaching. Her relationship ended and, drinking and smoking heavily, she returned to Ireland in 1977

Cigarette sparked Ballet Austin fire

Thu, 08 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Austin fire investigators say a discarded cigarette sparked a fire at the Ballet Austin building in Central Austin. The historic building caught fire Tuesday night.

Cuyahoga County groups face first battle for cigarette-tax money: ARTS FUNDING

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Eight out-of-state experts in arts and culture met in Cleveland this week to review applications from Cuyahoga County groups that want to use cigarette tax money for special projects in the next year. . . . Seventy-five nonprofit organizations applied to receive part of the $1 million in project-support grants that will be distributed this year through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Issue 18 tax administrator. The panel recommended 58 projects for funding. . . . Support for specific arts projects is the second of three types of grants CAC plans to make with the millions of dollars that will be generated each of the 10 years of the cigarette tax. The majority of the money -- about $15 million annually the first few years -- is going toward operating expenses for well-established nonprofit arts and culture groups, large and small.

Sculpture of racing legend Peter Brock to display cigarette brand

news@heraldsun.com.au (Gareth Trickey) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A MEMORIAL to motor racing legend Peter Brock due to be unveiled in Bathurst later this year will be emblazoned with cigarette advertising. The life-sized sculpture, to be unveiled at Bathurst's Mount Panorama in October, depicts Brock standing on the roof of one of his favourite Holden racing cars. Bathurst city council defended the sculpture on ABC radio's The World Today, saying it was important to faithfully recreate the car's design, with original cigarette advertising. Bathurst Deputy Mayor Ian North said the car and its cigarette advertising were part of Brock's legacy. "History is history," Mr North told ABC radio. "We're honouring the man and what he achieved. "That vehicle was a very significant vehicle in what Peter Brock achieved."

Cigarette row hits Brock memorial

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

The final design of a Bathurst memorial to the motor racing legend Peter Brock could be changed following public outcry. Melbourne-based sculptor Julie Squires has been chosen to build the life-size bronze sculpture. Her design, which features Brock standing on top of a VK Commodore, has been criticised because it displays cigarette advertising. However Ms Squires says the final design of the tribute is open to change. .. . "It's something that will have to be discussed as far as do we stick with that historical detail or do we maybe just have the M of the Marlboro. . . . "I just found it very important to try to have him with the car, you can't really separate the two with his legacy.'

Out of the ashes: Cigarette tax is lighting up financially strapped arts groups

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

some local arts groups report they're faring reasonably well. That's thanks in large part to Cuyahoga County's cigarette tax for arts and culture, which supporters credit as a crucial stabilizer for tough times. "I cannot tell you how fantastic [the cigarette tax] has been for us," said Jill Snyder, executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. It was one of 67 arts and cultural organizations that qualified to receive grants for general operations this year and the next two years. MOCA will receive about $155,000 in each of those years. Kevin Moore, managing director of the Cleveland Play House, echoed Snyder's enthusiasm for the tax. The theater's cigarette-tax allocation will be $495,000 a year in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

When Is a Fashion Ad Not a Fashion Ad?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

MAN IN THE SILVER SHORTS For this ad with Charlotte Rampling, Mr. Teller became both subject and photographer. . . . to judge by Juergen Teller’s pictures of her for Marc Jacobs’s ads, she is a good sport. . . . For the Rampling shoot, which was done in a Paris hotel suite, Mr. Teller thought it made sense for him to be in the ads, since he and the actress were friends and she didn’t want to endorse a product. . . . I said, ‘I’m going to show you what I’m going to wear.’ So I went into the bedroom, and I came out in these silver underpants. And she said, ‘What the hell is that?’ ” At this point, as Ms. Rampling howled, Mr. Teller said, he was having grave doubts about the rest of his plan. “I was smoking my cigarette, breaking out in a sweat. I said, ‘Well, I was just thinking I could kiss you and fondle your breasts.’ “She sat down and got herself a cigarillo. She didn’t say anything. The whole room was quiet for what seemed like months. I was, like, Oh my God, that is the most stupid thing I’ve ever said, how stupid was that? She just dragged on the cigarillo and crossed her legs, and she said: ‘O.K., let’s go. I’ll tell you when to stop.’ I thought, Oh my God, genius. I can’t believe I’m getting away with it.”

Tobacco culture not native

jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com (Jomay Steen, Journal staff ) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Within his lifetime, Stephen Yellowhawk has fought stereotypes about his Native American culture and heritage. When a recent art contest opened with a theme asking how the use of commercial tobacco had impacted the Lakota culture, traditions and values, it resonated with Yellowhawk's personal goal to keep youths healthy and tobacco-free. For the first-time art contestant, the Black Hills Center for American Indian Health's "The Oniyan Wakan" ("Sacred Breath") art contest offered an opportunity to display his skills at beadwork and the cultural knowledge he wanted to share. "It all fell together," he said. . . . According to Henderson, the tobacco industry has long targeted Native Americans as a subgroup for its products, using Native American images and names to market its products while also sponsoring tribal rodeos, athletic tournaments and powwows with money and handing out cartons of cigarettes. "It worked," she said of industry hooking its target. Commercial tobacco today is not what native tribes introduced to the colonists, she said. Cigarettes and other tobacco products are saturated with 4,000 different chemicals . . . Afraid of Lightning said it was a contradiction to his tribe's value system and a misconception that tobacco was part of the Lakota culture. "Tobacco doesn't grow around here, and it never has. What was traditionally used for tobacco was taken from the bark of the red willow tree. … It was never smoked for pleasure or addiction," he said. . . . "The tobacco companies are tricking us; cigarette smoking is not traditional in any way," he said.

Jamaica Cancer Society Launches Anti-Tobacco Poster Competition

jis@jis.gov.jm — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:00:00 GMT

As part of its continued effort to prevent young persons from smoking and getting hooked on other tobacco related vices, the Jamaica Cancer Society (JCS) has launched its Anti-Tobacco Poster Competition for students in Grades 1 to 6. The aim of the competition is to educate children about the dangers of smoking and tobacco use and also to increase awareness among the nation's youth about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, which includes not smoking. "Our mission is to eliminate cancer as a major health problem in whatever areas that we know that the disease will be caused by certain lifestyles and we place a lot of emphasis on these areas," Carol Blair, Administrative Director of the JCS told JIS News in an interview.

NI 'peace pipes' sold at auction

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A work of art consisting of pipes smoked by three key players in the Northern Ireland peace process has been auctioned for �6,500. The Pipes of Peace exhibit consists of pipes belonging to Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams, ex-PUP leader David Ervine and former UVF leader Gusty Spence. The money will go to a cross-community fund set up in memory of Mr Ervine, who died last January.

Art, Tradition at Cuba Cigar Fest

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The tradition of the Cuban cigar and its related art and history are being discussed Thursday in conferences at the 10th World Habano Festival in Havana. Today's agenda includes conferences by experts on interesting issues like the architecture of tobacco factories, women's participation in production and history and a conference on how to roll a cigar. As part of this stage, a group of Cuban academics linked to cigars talked with participants of the quality of the island's cigar and its cultural values. Musicians like Leo Brouwer and Chucho Valdes, actors Jose Antonio Rodriguez and Rogelio Blain, and painter Nelson Dominguez, all of international prestige, attended the talk. . . . Brouwer, musical arranger, composer and orchestra director, said he started smoking cigars at the age of 10

LANDMAN: Working to Make A Difference (In Their Favor): The Arts Dollars of Philip Morris

editor@prwatch.org (Submitted by Anne Landman on Wed, 10/10/2007 - 17:59.) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:00:00 GMT

Cigarette maker Altria/Philip Morris (PM) recently announced that it is moving its New York headquarters to Richmond, Virginia, and that it will end its corporate sponsorship of the arts in New York. Predictably, New York arts organizations are crying over the loss of cigarette dollars. These organizations sadly believe that their acceptance of PM dollars has been benign. In truth, these organizations have helped PM advance its credibility and legitimacy with policymakers, and have done tremendous harm to the country. . . . Arts sponsorship is nothing more than a branch of PM's "third party strategy," a massive, decades-long public relations plot to gain political support from diverse groups that under normal circumstances would never come to the aid of a tobacco company. The third party technique is described in a transcript of a 1984 PM Corporate Affairs World Conference, ...the whole question of getting third-party assistance and enlisting this whole third-party concept in our defense structure is to give us clout, to give us power, to give us credibility, to give us leverage, to give us access where we don't ordinarily have access ourselves...

WOESTENDIEK: Up in smoke: The smoke-filled bar -- mysterious, inspirational and, yes, unhealthy -- is about to be snuffed out in Maryland

john.woestendiek@baltsun.com (John Woestendiek Sun reporter ) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Tomorrow at midnight the last smoldering cigarettes will be snuffed out in barroom ashtrays across Maryland. . . . Nevertheless, you must remember this: For hundreds of years, the smoky tavern/pub/cocktail lounge/jazz club/blues bar have been part of our culture, and to erase the memory of it would be wrong, on numerous levels. So, too, would be failing to acknowledge its demise. Hence, this homage to the smoke-filled bar - an ode to an odor most foul, a paean to a pain in the neck. For in losing the smoke-filled bar, we are losing a layer of society's texture - granted, an unhealthy, lung-irritating, certifiably toxic texture - but texture all the same. It's another vanishing icon, like the milkman, the typewriter, 8-track tapes and the rotary phone. It's another tool lost for writers and movie directors . . . When a piece of popular culture bites the dust - even as unpopular a piece as the smoky bar - it rates an obit ... Smoky Bar, the illegitimate son of Sir Walter Raleigh whose roots stretch back to Colonial times, died today after a long illness.

Judge Dredd Writer - My Nightmare Vision Of A State Gone Mad Has Come True : Depressing reality of social trends exaggerated for comic book fame

website@sundayherald.com (Edd McCracken) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

ALAN GRANT, the writer behind the infamous lawman Judge Dredd and the post-apocalyptic Mega-City One, has admitted he now finds it hard to write the comic because real life has strayed too close to his science fiction dystopia. While doing research for his talk, Writing Tomorrow Yesterday: How Fiction Became Reality this Tuesday in Edinburgh, Grant skimmed through copies of Judge Dredd from the early 1980s and admitted he was amazed at how much has come true. The obesity epidemic, overcrowding and smoking bans all appeared in his comic strips. . . . The smoking ban is another worrying example of science fiction becoming reality, according to Grant. A 1979 Judge Dredd storyline featured the Smokatorium, the only place in the city where people could smoke. "But instead of having a Smokatorium, they've made us go outside to do it," said Grant. "This blanket ban is, well, it's Judge Dredd. We deliberately set out to portray Judge Dredd as a fascist. And while our government is nominally a left-wing government, it has all the signs of a fascist government." . . . Grant's talk is part of the Edinburgh Lecture series. Now in its 16th year, previous speakers have included Stephen Hawking, Seamus Heaney, Princess Anne and Mikhail Gorbachev. It will be chaired by crime novelist and fellow comic book writer Denise Mina, and is in conjunction with the Scottish Arts Council.