Cigarettes don't cause cancer

I had an interesting conversation with one of my students the other day. This student is in his/her late teens to early twenties and we were discussing bad habits and another student threw in smoking as a bad habit. Eventually the conversation wound itself around to the fact smoking is a really bad habit because it causes cancer. This student became very passionate about the fact that he/she believes that there's no data or facts to prove smoking causes cancer. Even on a pack of cigarettes it's noted that smoking can cause cancer. There's a definite correlation and it's almost unbelievable that a person would ignore all the information out there on smoking like it were a conspiracy theory. We can put walking on the moon and getting lung cancer from cigarettes in the same category--doesn't happen. It's all made up. The truth is we'll tell ourselves (myself included) whatever personal story we have to so we can believe that and keep on keeping on. We lie to ourselves basically. If not about cigarette smoking, then we lie to ourselves about something else. Winston Churchill once said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." This is so true. In fact, yesterday a friend put this quote up on Facebook and it got a lot of comments. I think if Winston were still kicking around he would have appreciated what I added to the quote. And when the truth does get its pants on it suddenly realizes it left its fly open.

It's a Mad Mad World

In honor of my daughter's birthday (she's a teen) we've transformed the house into Wonderland and will be hosting a Mad Tea Party this evening. They've dressed up and arrived, so let the madness begin!

American Idol Fan

Yep. I'm an American Idol fan. I'm almost ashamed of it this season. I only dare whisper I watched the show last night and whisper even lower when I ask someone if they watch also. I've watched the show since the first season and I'm excited as each new season begins in January and scratch my head and wonder what to watch when the season ends in May.

Uhn Uhn. Nope. Not this year. I'm having a hard time even liking the singers this year. Oh sure Crystal Bowersox (CBX) is a good singer, but do I like her? Big Mike has really surprised me with his big voice, yet I'm not sure about him. You can forget the guy who took his shirt off for Kara. I'm gonna hate on him all season just because he did that. Siobahn Magnus is a little spark of hope, but she thinks she has to screech out the ending of every song since she learned how to in the shower ever so long ago to a Kelly Clarkson song. Each week Didi Benami gets the shaft from the judges even though she gives a good performance. Not that I'm on Team Didi either though.

I'm not even going to bother going through all of them. I'm going to wait and see if any of them can step it up. Go hard or go home. Maybe this will be the year when no one will be worthy of the title of American Idol.

Return to the blog

I took a break from the blog because my mother was diagnosed in January of 2009 with small cell lung cancer. She lost her fight with that disease in September of 2009. If you've ever lost someone you know what I was doing. RIP Mother, grandmother, friend Ransy Waguespack