Happy Fourth of July

World Hum’s Most Read: June 28-July 3

What We Loved This Week: Def Leppard in Greece, Austrian Competence and Freedom in Colombia

The LAX Theme Building, Then and Now

As a Woman, Can I Really Travel Without Much Fear for my Safety?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Inside Slum Tourism

With mixed feelings, Rob Verger recently signed on for a tour of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. He looks back on the experience—and the photos he was allowed to take.

Break Bread and Brie in France

Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.

10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts

Call it world music or global pop or the sound of the world hum. Ben Keene reveals 10 acts on tour that are sure to transport you. Plus videos.

Bryan Mealer: ‘War and Deliverance in Congo’

The former AP correspondent traveled up the Congo River. Frank Bures asks the author of “All Things Must Fight to Live” about following in the wake of Joseph Conrad. 

A Journey Into ‘The Second World’

Some bureaucrats joke that they would never claim expertise about countries they had not at least flown over. In an excerpt from his new book, Parag Khanna argues that real global understanding can only come from serious travel.

‘The Worst Guidebook Writer Ever’?

Lonely Planet author Robert Reid reviews Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” and weighs in on the controversy surrounding it

Paris: ‘A Delicate Pale Blue’ No Longer?

Hi Eva:

I, too, regard Paris as being a city of delicate pale blue. In fact I just chucked the French art film “Betty Blue” into my Amazon cart.

I doubt, though, that Parisians will honor a silly and spurious law like “No Smoking.” I’m sure that a Gaulloise-puffing cafe habitué, used to listening to Serge Gainsbourg, would regard the hysterical tirades of American Dristan victims as morally reprehensible.

The anti-smoking crusade clearly began in the United States. It is indeed the most ridiculous and dangerous law ever passed. Not only does it violate our basic human rights, it’s downright invasive. I doubt anybody would be thrilled to be found in flagrante in their own apartment, waving an unlicensed Cubana, before being slamdunked with a fine and a short period sniffing like a bloodhound between the bars.

Unfortunately, the nervous nellies who complained about spurious “second-hand smoke” in restaurants and bars, think nothing of ruining our glorious space-age metropolises with their opinions. I’m afraid, air pollution is worse than smoking. Good luck going to Mexico City if a pack of Winston’s makes you grow green in the face.

Boy oh boy, everyone just loves sitting nervously in airports during a twelve-hour layover, without being able to hang out in the bar, punctuating their draft beers with the occasional cigarette. Uh, they kind of sell Marlboros, Dunhills, and 555s in the duty free shops. Remember, if you are caught smoking in the bathroom, drop it in quickly, flush it down, and lie through your teeth, “I guarantee it wasn’t me, it was the guy before me.”

Some people do indeed go back and forth through Customs to choke down one last cigarette before their nightmare longhaul flight on Quantus. Come on, flying used to be fun. We filled our ashtrays, stole extra aiplane bottles, and wondered about the Mile High Club.

The only reason all those airlines folded like the dotcoms, is, we’re not going to have a nervous breakdown just because you legislate it. Yeah right, It’s every traveler’s wet dream to take a 24-hour bus tour through, say, the Malay peninsula, sort of hemming and hawing and counting sheep. And yes, if you make a big deal about it, the bus will at least stop so you can have a smoke, buy even more cartons, and say, “Can’t wait to get to that beach resort.”

I’m sorry, there is no real evidence that smoking is that bad for you--in moderation. Eating too much food makes you fat. Drinking too much makes you drunk. Walking too much makes you lame. It reallyh should be up to the establisment. What are they going to ban next? “No talking in public!”

Amen.

There is no evidence that smoking is bad fo you!!  You must be an executive from one of the tobacco companies.  Science has beyond proven that smoking, as well as second hand smoke is harmfull.  Just ask all the people with lung cancer and emphasema.  Smokers are only concerned with feeding their own addiction and not the discomfort and health of others around them, even children. Moderation is something a smoker does not comprehend so don’t even go there.

Whoever thinks smoking doesn’t harm you must have some stake in the tobacco companies.  Here are some cold hard facts:

Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality in the United States and the world.

Smoking-related diseases cause an estimated 440,000 American deaths each year.

Smoking costs the United States over $150 billion annually in health care costs.

A 2004 Study by the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion found that cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer.

I am thrill that there is no smoking in France that I will be going there this oct. Now if we can just conqueurt the world with our non-smoking ways