Comments on: Egyptian anti-smoking warning labels

By: Amre El-Abyad

Amre El-Abyad — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Fatalism is a grass root value in Egypt. Unfortunately education and piling petro-dollars out of living like lice in Kuwait don’t help.

A radical cultural change is what Egypt really needs. Alas such change will have a dominos effect in a region floating over the world’s almost entire energy reserves. That is why the region is frequently subjected to exogenous shocks so as to maintain the historical paths of this region conforming with the prevalent world order

Fatalistic people end up being passive, no matter how much they deny it by parroting cool slogans they watch in American movies or reading books which they totally fail to internalise, although they can probably enjoy the semantics of what they pretend to be doing. And eventually being passive pours into a highly static persona who make up for their deplorable status of which they are very conscious by resorting to pointing at people in a disgusting nouveau riche way ( they are no even rich sometimes), foul talking and carving at those who CAN. No wonder then, that our culture is so far incapable of holding off the “enemy”

I knew a girl in Cairo who simply hated herself because of her disproportionate crappy looks, mean obsequious natural disposition that is genetically transferred, in addition to being plagued by some religious “cult” that confounds servitude with goodness which only add up to the intractable plethora of complications infecting that girl .

That girl is a personification of our failed culture!

By: forsoothsayer

forsoothsayer — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:04:33 +0000

well if they DID get it it would a very effective deterrent. i’ve found few greater causes for concern among the egyptian populace.
although i think a scan of an insane doctor’s bill would be quite effective as well…

By: Amre El-Abyad

Amre El-Abyad — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:04:31 +0000

Mc is dead meat! It is finished. I will teach that pig how it is like to mess with the masters of his dirty mother

By: PH

PH — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:57:08 +0000

Am not sure if the smoking leads to impotence thing will work in Egypt because despite the pervasive smoking, there’s such a high birth rate! So, clearly enough men are still able to, um, get it up.

By: MC

MC — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:32:30 +0000

Me, I’m just confused. First it’s “everyone put your raingear on!,” you know, “wrap the little basha!” or however the command to muzzle members is going to be passed down to the great horny multitudes, and then it’s “tsk tsk, that cigarette’s got to go.” First you have to do it with some cheap prophylactic made of recycled tractor tires wrapped around your dick, and then you have to forgo the post-coital nicotine rush. What’s next? No more car horns? A ban on guard-hut sex? I sense the hand of a killjoy Welsh granny in this. “Hosni, I looked out the window the other day and I saw one of those, you know, those people, those little dirty people, and it was smiling. Now I want you to do something about that Hosni. Hosni? Are you listening to me? I want you to wipe that nasty little grin off its face!”

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:50:24 +0000

I believe the state-owned cigarette company is “Eastern Tobacco,” not “Oriental Tobacco,” literal translations aside….

And, off the record, when the “droopy” cigarette image was field tested, about 95% of the men and the women didn’t understand the symbolism. They were like, “whatever, it’s a bent cigarette that someone picked up off the ground, because they were desperate and very addicted or something.”

So that should testify as to the unequivocal straightness of the, ahem, Egyptian cigarette. They had nothing to reference the image to! (Or at least wouldn’t admit to it. In a focus group at that.)

Only a couple of men got it, and thought it was fantastic, and their enthusiasm for it got it through the final cuts, as the thought was that if it was a slightly confusing image, people would talk about it, spurring discussion, which is a good thing when you’re trying to bring about a major behavior change….

By: Amre El-Abyad

Amre El-Abyad — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:20:23 +0000

History shows again and agin that stupid iranian dogs only love droopy cigarettes. Arab cigarettes are straight and stand up like Nasser. His cigarette was big but Saddams cigarette was even bigger. And Saddam’s regime which had been ensueing drastic grass root modernisation is not to be intimidated or cornered easily, especially with his articulate use of intelligent vocabulary that can always find him a way out. That reads, we are creating a new Middle- East order, so some slain Arabs are not really significant when set against a background of smoking droopy cigarettes.

By: SP

SP — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:57:27 +0000

LOVE the droopy cigarette in number 4.

Meanwhile in Amrika, it’s quite the opposite - the NYT encourages Obama to smoke shaabi cigarettes to counter some of that effete herbal-tea-drinking bad press.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/opinion/17horwitz.html?ref=opinion