Michelle Trachtenberg Shouldn't Be Smoking - Egotastic.com Article

Another truly stupid article from egotastic.com. A weak platform for another anti-Michelle shot. Grow up.

It’s 2006. Everyone knows the effects of cigarette smoking. People who still choose to smoke cigarettes in the year 2006 are, by definition, stupid idiots. Period. There isn’t any excuse for it. Calling attention to Michelle Trachtenberg’s doing it is not an "anti-Michelle shot". Michelle smoking cigarettes is an anti-Michelle shot.

Deciding to smoke is not a rational process. Tobacco is an emotionally charged substance. The tobacco companies have seen to that. Associating tobacco with rites of passage, maturity, personal freedom, etc., has been a virtual gold mine. Nicotine addiction has been the picks and shovels. MT taking up the nicotine habbit proves that she’s just as human and fallible as the rest of us. M, if you’re reading this keep in mind that nicotine will age your skin at an accelerated rate. By the time your 30, you’ll look 45. Statisically, the big danger from cigarettes is heart disease. When your hormones stop protecting your heart, you’ll get the double whammy. If you live that long. And besides, who wants to kiss a smoker ?

Smoking is a matter of choice. It is NOT illegal to smoke, in fact we are all highly taxed on our habit. Simply because someone does not choose to smoke, does not make it their right to make someone who does into a social pariah.
Smokers are well aware of the outcome, and dangers of smoking, yet still choose to smoke. Driving gas guzzling, exhaust driven pollutant making cars hacks me off too, but hey, we don’t stop people driving them, do we ?
Smokers I know understand that others hate the habit, so go out of their way to ensure that their smoke does not bother others.
Michelle T is an adult, and as such can choose what she wants to do.
You make your choice, and I shall defend the right of smokers everywhere to make their choice too.

Of course it’s an attack on her, every thing on that site about her is geared towards spite. Read the other articles, or just take in the tone of the article in question.
As for "in 2006", you’d think people would have learnt that Stigmatizing a person or pushing one’s own values, is not productive. Hows about looking within before we attack those around us for making choices ?

i could personally care less if michelle smokes. it now appears that virtually every actress on the show including sarah michelle gellar herself smokes. makes you wonder how often they must have snuck out for a smoke in between takes. oh well — that’s hollywood as they say

First off, before I say anything : I AM NOT A SMOKER ! Now that we’ve got that out of the way and you think you know which side of the argument I fall, on to my point.
All this backlash against smokers almost makes me want to become one ! You know, just to piss people off. Sure sure smoking kills whatever. How do you explain the pictures of old people lighting up ? Or that fact that my friends grandfather (who lived to be quite a ripe old age himself) used to cut a hole in this breathing mask to stick a cigarette through ? How do you explain the fact that not all people who smoke die from it or it takes a damn good while to kill them off ?
I really hate those so called "Truth" ads. I honestly think those are more staged than they try to make them look. They have some good points every once in a while. Ooo, smoking kills ? Thanks, didn’t know that. But then there’s the lame ones like standing outside a cigarette office and asking them why they make a product that kills people. Uhm...hello ! People from companies that make cars to chicken wings kill people ! Cars crash, chicken wings choke. Sh !t happens. And okay, cigarette companies make a product that is only for fun and has no real purpose. Guess we’d better stop McDonald’s before they give everyone heart disease and start knockin’ people off, as is thier grand plan I can assure you.
This is America people and my foot is DOWN ! Isn’t this supposed to be a country of freedom ? Isn’t that why we have so many imigrants, legal and otherwise, making thier way into this country ? If "Truth" can post thier television ads, why can’t Marlboro ? Even if it is pushed back to late night tv, at least let them say their piece ! People choose to smoke. Okay, it may not be the smartest thing, but it’s still thier choice ! Some people need to grow up and realize that there are other people in this world besides themselves and, yes, those other people are in fact going to do things they don’t like and piss them off. They are not so important that they need to infringe on the lives of others.
First smokers were pushed outside, then they were pushed to only certain areas outside. What’s next, Tabacco Nazis ? At least they’ll know where to drive by and load up all the smokers. They’ll all be outside huddled in one little corner of the side of a building, possibly already standing in a little box or, beter yet, some kind of enclosed coccoon so they can’t harm anyone but thier own selves with thier nasty death vapors. And while we’re at it, why don’t we pass some law that these coccoons need to be placed only at train depots so all the Tobacco Nazis have to do is bring a forklift to load the smoky bubbles onto the train with ? *POOF* Off to some seculded smoker’s camp and all the harmful ill in the world will suddenly magically disappear forever !
Now that that little rant is off my chest excuse me while I go hinder my own health and slowly kill myself by playing video games instead of exercising.

I think michelle smoking is hard to believe, especially how a few years back she was all ’anti-drugs’, but it’s not a terrible thing, because none of us know what she’s going through in her personal life.

What surprises me about Michelle smoking is that she had said in interviews that she was "anti-drug" and that when she went out to Hollywood parties, she didn’t drink. So it seems odd that she’d take up smoking, since it is in the same ballpark as drinking and drugs.