“Hell is other people who don’t smoke”
France’s National Library has airbrushed Jean-Paul Sartre’s trademark cigarette out of a poster of the chain-smoking philosopher to avoid prosecution under an anti-tobacco law.
(Brought to you by Zeitgiest – the free Blather news service)
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“Smoking,” the Left-wing existentialist wrote, is “the symbolic equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world.”
And yet in its poster for an exhibition to mark the hundredth anniversary of Sartre’s birth the Bibliothèque Nationale de France decided, destructively or not, to edit out the philosopher’s Gauloise.
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Writer, photographer, environmental campaigner and "known troublemaker" Dave Walsh is the founder of Blather.net, described both as "possibly the most arrogant and depraved website to be found either side of the majestic Shannon River", and "the nicest website circulating in Ireland". Half Irishman, half-bicycle. He lives in southern Irish city of Barcelona.
That’s ridiculous! And I’m not just saying this because I’m a Gauloise smoker and Sartre lover.
Dave Hitt once posted a rather controversial article about this topic entitled “Nicotine Nazis”. It can be found here:
http://www.davehitt.com/nov02/nicotine.html