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Duffy · Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 449 Location: Oman

Forrest Gump said "stupid is as stupid does!"

That is exactly the way this, once interesting thread is going. How about we's all stop sniping at each other and get back on to the topic I for one at least was enjoying

Duffy Rolling Eyes

flutterbayou · Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 244

Hi, Duffy... wondered where you'd been lately - nice to see you.

Back to smoking.

I smoked on and off for over 18 years because it was something I could do with friends (really) until my former mother-in-law died of lung cancer from second hand smoke. Nowadays the smell of others' smoke... on clothes, on the breath... is enough to keep me from wandering back to the tobacco shop.

It just doesn't seem to be the 'cool' thing to do anymore.

One of the previous writers wrote that smoking is a matter of personal choice, to which claim I take exception. If smoking disturbs the health and comfort of others, then the responsibility to withhold the urge to light up outweighs the free choice to contaminate the space of others.

The machismo of smoking and the fashion sense it once carried is diminishing. Likewise, the health and safety risks are obvious enough, so what's so wrong with encouraging people to stop? Case on point: not too long ago, I was having my nails done at a salon and a woman was smoking and flicking ashes quite near the combustive chemicals they were using to make acrylic nails. It disturbed me, so I told her so and asked that she put the cigarette out. Next time I entered the salon, a no smoking policy was in effect.

So what kind of statement are Omani youths making? It must be an expression of 'cool' that gives them a sense of freedom. Is there any other way they can have fun and be 'cool' that isn't haram?

lall · Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 358

flutterbayou · Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 244

The quote function is not working properly here, so I'm pasting the last remark:

"Some Orientals (the Japanese, the Burmese, the Indonesians, the Malays and the Chinese) are perceived by them to be chaste and even sexless. Not so, the Thais.

Who is "THEM" and could you please clarify what the statement has to do with your OP on smoking?

bje · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 527

Duffy · Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 449 Location: Oman

bje,

Some of us still have a countdown to Saturday morning. Sad

Anyway, is it not the honourable Mods who call time on a debate that goes way off topic? As for

bje · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 527

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

... but but... I saw him shaking hands with Kennedy, so he must be real. Laughing

(scary to be in a world where photos and video can no longer be trusted)

Back to smoking. I would say that with Arabs it is still integral to 'machismo' and although I see few movies, I have been reading that the cigarette industry is working hard to get more smoking in films to keep the idea alive that it is both macho and cool. In particular, in the types of movies that are popular around the world... action films...

I am surprised that Oman doesn't have a campaign going to urge people not to smoke. Oman has the epitome of a 'nanny' government in the best meanings of that term. When I first taught there in the 1980's, students bragged of the number of siblings they had (the record was 32), but by my next contract in Oman in 2000, the students were adamant that they planned to only have 2-3 children because life was so expensive now. Their parents may not quite buy the idea, but the generation that started marrying at that time had.

So, I think that if and when the government and the mosques step in to limit smoking, it will drop dramatically.

VS

007 · Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:58 pm Post subject:

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

I don't think the Omani government's example has much to do with the reduced birth rate.

It is the same in Saudi, and indeed more or less follows a universal pattern. The increase in wealth, combined with better medical care, results in a population boom because food is now cheap and infant mortality negligible. The generation after has higher expectations, less tradition of having a large amount of children for protection in old age and to offset the risk of infant mortality, higher expenses in that extra chicken and rice becomes a minor part of the cost of a child, and finally there is the well-known effect of female literacy on reducing the birth rate.

lall · Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 358

lall · Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 358

Am intrigued by the peculiar way of holding a ciggie by the forefinger and thumb such that the filter/sucking end points into the palm. Noticed it in Egypt, Qatar and in Bahrain. Not so in Oman. Never in India.

Sucking end. Very Happy

Fellow posters, no stray comments on the "sucking" part, please, Dr. Freud notwithstanding.