isn't the connection between a lifetime of smoking and its odds of causing one to develop lung cancer a well-supported medical fact

The funny thing is, there's a more immediate -- and always overlooked -- connection between smoking and hardening of the arteries, i.e. heart attack country. Nobody (outside of, like, doctors) ever says "coulda seen that coming" when an ex-smoker has a heart attack, but lung cancer tends to get the full force of the cause-and-effect stinkeye. (There are also weird genetic factors involved in the lung cancer-smoking connection, too, which is why my grandmother smoked an obscene number of cigarettes in her lifetime and still managed to live into her 80s cancer-free.)

I do recall reading an essay by Russell Banks in which he described, in his childhood in the 40s, calling cigarettes "coffin nails." But I think that's the kind of thing where, people kind of know something's bad for you, but they don't know it know it for a really long time.

(Until that day in health class where they make you look at slides of blackened, cyst-ridden lungs. Almost as much fun as the horrible livers of alcoholics!)

Operation Lets Muslim Women Reclaim Virginity

The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.

But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the thin vaginal membrane that normally breaks during the first act of intercourse.

I meant to add Yikes to my post above.

Salon mentioned that a while back in Broadsheet. I seemed to be the only person in the letters who thought it was a dandy idea.

Icky, sure, but no more icky than the idolization of virginity in the first place -- at least it levels the playing field.

God machine back. Have universe.

lisah: [link]

(that'll be current whenever you click on it.)

We all heard about this on NPR this morning right? [link] Surprise yourself!

Yeah, now I wish I had ordered a few weeks ago, when it first came up here. Now it'll be ruined!

("No one goes there any more -- it's way too crowded!")

I just hope stormy doesn't happen before I have a chance to pick up my dog and walk him! (also, really really hope it doesn't do something crazy like knock out power!)

It's already overcast, but not storming here.

Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other type of cancer, but lags significantly behind many other cancers in research money, because it's hard to get people behind preventing a cancer that many view as the "fault" of the victim. If you smoked for a couple of years back when you were young and stupid, but quit 30 years ago, your heart and lung function improves, but you still have a significantly higher chance of cancer.