Fashion and ALP out of step on smoking
The Sydney Morning Herald

The fashion industry has declared smoking is out - but the vogue has yet to catch on with the NSW Labor Party.

Fronted by a model called Mink, the Australian fashion industry, with Federal Government support, yesterday launched a campaign in Canberra to combat the "guerilla marketing" of smoking within the fashion industry.

But while the industry has said it will no longer tolerate attempts by tobacco companies to "infiltrate" fashion events, the ALP stands by its acceptance of tobacco money in return for naming rights at party events.

British American Tobacco has paid the party about $15,000 to become an "associate sponsor" at party fundraisers.

This means it will be named along with other sponsors at the $220-a-plate "great debate" between the Premier, Bob Carr, and his Queensland counterpart, Peter Beattie, next Thursday.

The NSW ALP state secretary, Eric Roozendaal, yesterday denied any clash between the party's acceptance of funding from the tobacco industry and the Labor Government's rejection of cigarette promotion.

"I don't accept we are promoting a tobacco company," he said.

"We are merely acknowledging the support of a corporate donor ... We don't in any way support smoking ... I think they are two separate issues."

An anti-smoking group, Action On Smoking and Health, has damned the party's acceptance of tobacco money as hypocritical.

"Why should political parties be the only organisations exempt from receiving donations from tobacco companies?" asked the group's director, Anne Jones.

"I think people would be concerned that tobacco donations purchase influence."

Mink, who has strutted the catwalk for leading designers in Milan and Paris, said too many young models thought smoking was the thing to do.

The Web needs more soft-core eroticism
By Larry Magid
The Mercury News

There's something I've wanted to say ever since I started writing this column a couple of years ago. Frankly, I wasn't sure exactly how to phrase it without upsetting some people but, what the heck, I might as well say it.

What the Web needs is more soft-core eroticism and less hard-core pornography.

Some of you may be thinking: How dare a ``family technology'' columnist encourage the spread of sexually stimulating material that will undoubtedly be looked at by teenagers and even pre-teens? Yes, it's true, such material would be viewed by young people.

If your goal is to completely shield our youth from sexuality, my proposal has absolutely no merit. But if that's your belief, you had better ban them completely from the Internet and, while you're at it, keep them away from TV, the movies, magazines, the beach and even school. We're raising a generation of kids in a highly sexually charged environment.

When I was a kid, topless photos in Playboy were considered pretty hard core. We didn't have Victoria's Secret back then but, if we did, you can bet that their advertisements would have been banned from the mainstream publications that are only too happy to print their ads today. Read more...