We write as a matter of urgency regarding the arbitrary detention of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (Report, 7 April). We and many Chinese and other friends are very concerned at the Chinese government's behaviour towards its own citizens. Ai Weiwei's position is that he firmly believes in the freedom of speech and the right to speak up on behalf of others who have been brutally silenced for their efforts to change society for the better.

As an immediate priority we urge governments to exert strong pressure on China to treat its citizens with respect as a matter of basic justice and humanity. At this stage of China's development as a country taking an increasing part in world affairs, it is crucial that we make it clear that China's credibility in the world is at stake if it does not significantly improve its human rights record.

For example, another artist, Wu Yuren, was released in Beijing on 3 April after being detained for nearly 11 months without trial. His wife and child were left in a state of great anxiety for his safety and welfare and he had committed no crime. Liu Xiaobo has been handed an 11-year sentence as a writer who expressed the need for constitutional reform in the Chinese political system. He has effectively been removed from society for more than 10 years for expressing his views.

We are concerned that the same fate awaits Ai Weiwei. We urge the UK government to treat this case as an urgent priority and to press for his immediate release.

Katie Hill (Curator and Lecturer, Chinese Contemporary Art)

Cai Yuan (Artist)

Ma Jian (Author, Beijing Coma)

Jung Chang (author, Wild Swans)

Jon Halliday (Historian)

Craig Clunas (Professor of Art History, University of Oxford)

Michael Stanley (Director, Modern Art Oxford)

Jayne Parker (Head of Graduate Fine Art Media, Slade School of Fine Art)

Adrian Searle (Critic)

Gao Brothers (Artists, Beijing)

Iwona Blazwick (Director, Whitechapel Gallery)

Tehching Hsieh (Artist)

Greg Hilty (Lisson Gallery)

John Gittings (Writer)

Rob and Roberta Smith (artist)

Kathy Battista (Programme Director, Contemporary Art, Sotheby's Institute)

JJ Xi (Artist)

Britta Erickson (Chinese art specialist and curator)

Alison Craighead (Artist)

Fabio Rossi (Director, Rossi & Rossi Gallery)

Langlands & Bell (Artists)

Siu Lan Ko (Artist)

Prateek Raja<</span>!>

Chris Berry (Professor of Film Studies, Goldsmiths)

Voon Pow Bartlett

Esther Menon

Eunice Yu (MYU projects)

Sarah Macdonald

Cameron Eeles

James Robertson (Writer)

Jo Ahern

Siobhan Doran

Sharon McCulloch

Fawz Farhan

Anna Allalouf

Richard Allalouf

Ciaran Daly

Jennifer McGuire

Jenny McConnel

Julie Rogers

Malu Halasa<</span>!>

Katrin Macmillan

Izumi Yuu

Camilla Pearson

Matthias Kispert

Gerard Faggionato

Louis Eastwood

Jay Ridings

Umi Baden-Powell

Melissa Lam

Rhianon Morgan-Hatch

Elizabeth Bromley

Bradley Phillip

Kasia Fijalkowska<</span>!>

Philip Watson

Anna Merton Kan

Verity Wilson

Rachel Marshall

Dr. Clare Harris (Art historian)

Eyawn Harry

Raksha Patell

Pamela Skelton

Mariele Neudecker (Director, Neudecker Gallery)

Peter Davies

Mike Tsang

Annette Lord

Sally Joyston-Bechal

Ellen Mara De Wachter

Michael Walling

Emma Talbot

Dave Cross

Stuart Jones

José A. Sánchez

Tim Etchells

Rose Issa (Curator)

Caragh Quinlan

CJ Mitchell

Cecilia Wee

Gini Simpson

Sue Giles

Erika Tan (Artist)

Debra Wacks

Franziska Koch

Christine Robertson

Grace Lau (Artist)

Dinu Li (Artist)

Anne Odling-Smee (Designer)

Mary Ryan

David Elliott (Curator)

Gervase Rosser

Mary Hill

Alice Mills

Christopher Horrocks

John B. Turner (photographer)

Sarah Hymas

Eric Fong (artist)

Cao Fei (artist)

Victoria Brown

Julian Ward

Anthony Roberts (Director, Colchester Arts Centre)

Amelia Beatty

Ben Lewis

Fiammetta Rocco

Hanneke Grootenboer

Adam Chodzko (artist)

Antonia Mexcua<</span>!>

Malcolm Bull

Pasco Q Kevlin

Jonathan Murray

David Campany (photographer)

Miriam Manook

Jeffrey Wasserstrom (China scholar)

Sylvio Nery

Rob La Frenais (Curator, The Art Catalyst)

Frank Dikötter (author, China's Great Famine)

Jon Kear

Nikki Tomlinson

Paul Carey-Kent

Alicia Paz

Fleur Donnelly-Jackson

Claire Doherty

Grace Sherrington

Thomas Clark

Layla Curtis

Julie Umerle

Claire MacCrory

Emma Kelly

Katie Paterson

Roisin Byrne

Karen Wright

Marco Filippini

Jeremy Deller (artist)

Anne Gerritsen

Mei Yuk Wong

Joanne Greenbaum (Artist)

Taylor Trabulus (Artist)

Caryn Coleman (Curator)

Lauren Weinberg (Art & Design Editor, Time Out Chicago)

Jamie Sterns (Director, PPOW Gallery)

Ron Hogan (Writer and Blogger)

Rachel Selekman (Artist)

Alyce Santoro (Artist)

Lisa Cooley (Director, Lisa Cooley Gallery)

Rachel Mersky (Artist)

Caren Golden (Director, Caren Golden Fine Art)

Louky Keijsers Koning (Director, LMAKprojects)

Aileen Tat (Artist)

Greta Kuriger  (Archivist)

Jennifer Sanchez (Artist)

Jeffrey Baij (Artist)

Michael Gillespie (Director, Foxy Production)

Priya Bhatnagar

Julia Halperin (Writer, New York Observer)

Nora Gomez (The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers)

Tracey Harnish (Artist)

Paul Schmelzer (Managing Editor, American Independent News Network)

David Carson (Typographer)

Alexis Tryon (CEO, Artsicle)

Eva Kenny

Sally McKay (Artist)

Matt Held (Artist)

Judith Braun (Artist)

Jacqueline Mabey (Writer)

Rachel Stevens

Sheila White (Artist)

William Schefferine (Artist)

Charles Gute (Artist)

Helen Dennis (Artist)

Kathryn Smith (Artist and Curator)

Kelli Miller (Designer)

Man Bartlett (Artist)

Jennifer Dalton (Artist)

Torben Zenth (Kopenhagen.dk)

Perry Bard (Artist)

Sally Williams (Brooklyn Museum)

Matthew Gaffney (Artist)

Andrew Russeth  (Critic, 16 Miles of String)

James Joyce (Artist)

Renee Vara (Vara Fine Arts)

Nathalie Herling

Joyce Pommer (Artist)

Dan Levenson (Artist)

James Wintner (CEO, BenefitEvents)

Michelle Forsyth (Associate Professor, Washington State University)

Michelle Vaughan (Artist)

Ian Ferrier

Madeline Warren

Natalie Moore (Artist)

Kate Wilson (Artist)

Grace Johnstone (Artstar)

Benjamin Tischer (Director, Invisible-Exports)

Elaine Kaufmann (Artist)

Erik Parker (Artist)

Randy Wray

Daniel Wilson

Alexis Hubshman (President, Scope Art Fair)

Jane Deschner (Artist)

Tyler Carter (Writer)

Monica Lundy

Rebecca Taylor (Arts Blogger, The Huffington Post)

Judith Page (Artist)

Peter J. Russo (Editorial and Program Director, Triple Canopy)

Heather Bhandari (Director, Mixed Greens Gallery)

Amy Talluto (Artist)

Mark Holdrege

Susan Smith Rosenthal

Fiona Gardner (Artist)

Leah Sandals (Writer)

Chloe Pantazi

Nicole Eisenman (Artist)

Amy Bennett (Artist)

Michael (Art Observed)

Courtney Strimple (Exhibitions Coordinator, Mixed Greens Gallery)

Poppy Gordon Lennox

Lisa Moon

Siobhan Burke

Julie Peppito

Forrest Nash (Editor, Contemporary Art Daily)

Elizabeth Zans

Svea Lin Soll (Director, Swarm Gallery)

Caroline Dumalin

Nickolus Meisel (Assistant Professor, Washington State University)

Kevin Zucker (Artist)

Rebecca Loyche (Co-Director, Co-Verlag)

John Zeppetelli (Curator, DHC/ART)

Cheryl Sim

Emily Vey Duke (Assistant Professor, Syracuse University)

Olen Hsu (Artist)

Annie Rana (Director, Marianne Boesky Gallery)

Lyle Rexer (Curator and Writer)

Doug Garth Williams (Artist)

Alice Gray Stites (Curator)

Laura Sandoval

Shelley Marlow (Photographer)

Thomas Jaeckel (Director, 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel)

Brainard Carey (Director, The Artworld Demystified)

Sholeh Asgary

Borbay (Artist)

Edith Bolton

AMI Miami (Design)

Sophie Leininger (Artist)

Alana Amram (Musician)

Whitney Jordan (Artist)

Emily Falvey (Curator)

Diana Nemiroff (Director, Carleton University Art Gallery)

Cathy Busby (Artist)

Garry Neill Kennedy (Artist)

Cindy Baker (Programme Coordinator, AKA Gallery)

Dennis Cordell (Photographer)

Howard Johnson

Steve Loft (Trudeau National Visiting Fellow, Ryerson University)

Jennifer Gheith (Critic)

Carly Murphy

Deborah Kass (Artist)

Martha Moszczynski

Tina Newlove (Artist)

Jeanette Doyle (Artist)

Danielle Mysliwiec (Artist)

Ariel Goldberg (Artist and Writer)

Bobby Lukas (Artist)

Chris Fraser (Artist)

Chloe Wyma<</span>!>

Tanya Barrett

Hazel Muir

John Condon

Rustyna Edwards

Kate Newnham

Leslie Johnson (Director, Valand School of Fine Arts, Göteborg, Sweden)

Flore Nove-Josserand

Haegue Yang

Michael Duffy

Dr. Alice Correia (Gimpel Fils)

Michael Duffy

Judith Knight (Director, Artsadmin)

Estelle Holland

Erica Ornato

Gianni Barucco

Susan Hill

Robin Hill

Jane Bowen (Artist)

Dylan Bowen (Artist)

Arthur Bowen

Sarah Pickering (Teaching Fellow in Photography, Slade School of Fine Art)

Deirdre O'Mahony (Programme in Art and Design, GMIT, Galway, Ireland)

Joon Lynn Goh (Battersea Arts Centre)

Stephen Williamson

Richard Williamson

Dr. Patricia Lyons

Tania Mouraud (Paris)

Nicolas Aiello

Eric Alliez (Professor of Philosophy, Paris)

Joshua Loftin

Bernadette O'Donnell

Xenia Piëch (Writer and curator)

Peter Fraser (Insight Education)

Dragoljub Nesic

Loraine Baud

Simon Steven

Kai Syng Tan

Kwanyi Pan

Jean Cameron (Director, Visual Arts Festival, Glasgow)

Ynaiê Dawson

Beatrice Bonafini

Julia Whitehead

James Bluemel

Jaymz Wong

David Smith 

Astrid Mahrer 

Jeremy Mahrer

John Tucker

Beth Keeble

Rekha Pandy

Manu Pandy

Paul Edwards

Christine Edwards

Flora Drew (Translator)

Catherine Allen

Mary Knowles

John Cayley

Harriet Evans (Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Westminster)

Jeremy Lee (Artist)

Ai Weiwei

Gardening - Philosophy for Everyone: Cultivating Wisdom, edited by Dan O’Brien, Wiley-Blackwell   ISBN 978-1-4443-3021-2

Here is a gardening book unlike any other. If someone had told me that, with an overview of the philosophies that propelled civilization, we might arrive at a better understanding of the role that gardens have played in our history, I wouldn’t have believed it. And yet, here it is - a collection of essays to reminder us that there is more to gardening than just growing plants.

Wiley-Blackwell is the scholarly division of John Wiley and Sons. Under the guidance of editor, Fritz Allhof, Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Western Michigan University, the publisher has produced a series of books titled Philosophy for Everyone. Each volume in that series undertakes an overview of different topics essential to contemporary civilization. Subjects, ranging from motherhood to cycling and from Christmas to porn, are examined from the perspective of the erudite scholar.

Dan O’Brian, Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, is the editor responsible for this volume on gardening. He targets not only the green-thumb thinker but any reader who is fascinated by the historical evolution of civilization. In this multi-faceted collection of essays, all related to gardens and gardening, the contributing writers draw upon their knowledge and strengths in the disciplines of history, theology, archival studies, music theory, art history, anthropology and the classics.

A five-part book, it begins with a section titled The Good Life. This thematic umbrella allows Isis Brooks to discuss the rewards of gardening on a physical and philosophical level. Meghan T. Ray adds an article about the ethics of gardening in Ancient Greece and Rome, Mathew Hall questions the exclusion of plants from gardening ethics, and Helene Gammack examines historical trends in agricultural self-sufficiency.

Part Two, Flower Power, focuses on the strength of the garden as a cultural and a political statement. Jo Day considers the ancient gardens of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Crete and examines their function as symbols of political and spiritual power. Michael Moss scans the history of the British Empire from the vantage point of vegetable consumption, Laura Aurrichio writes about Lafayette’s garden in France, influenced both by British gardening methods and plants from America and Elizabeth A. Scott argues that allotment gardens helped stimulate the political activism of lower- income citizens in the UK.

In Part Three, The Flower Show, writers examine the subject of the garden-as-spectacle. Eric MacDonald discusses gardening and gardens as a source of enchantment while Ismay Barwell and John Powell take the reader on an intellectual journey. They submit that while gardening is an artistic expression similar to other plastic arts, it differs from them in one substantial way. Gardening presents the passage of time visually, in the same way that music does so audibly. Finally, Gary Shapiro surveys the philosophy that inspired the design and function of Central Park, in New York City.

The metaphysical garden or, The Cosmic Garden, is the focus of Part Four. Here, Robert Neuman explains how the gardens at Versailles conveyed an illusion of royal grandeur, Mara Miller examines a garden’s ability to structure time, and Dan O’Brian, following the ideas of philosopher David Hume, argues that, by functioning as a refuge away from deep thought and reflection, a garden can play a therapeutic role.

In the final section, The Philosophers’ Gardens, Susan Toby Evans writes about the gardens of the Aztec-Philosopher Kings, Gordon Campbell surveys the gardens of Epicurus and the golden age associated with his writings, and Anne Cotton analyzes Plato’s drama, Phaedrus, in which Socrates compares philosophical development to the growth of plants in the garden.

Reading this book has been an experience so enchanting, that I am eager to revisit each of the essays, to re submerge myself in their expertise. If one is a gardener, this is a publication reserved for cold winter nights or long plane rides; for the non-gardener, it is an engaging private symposium. One might also call it “variations on a theme of gardening”, enriched by diverse intellectual disciplines and unexpected perspectives of the contributing authors.

I did an interview recently with Pemo Theodore at Ezebis and she generated a transcript which is a godsend since I am still trying to keep my typing light. So if you will excuse the slightly subpar editing compared to my usual fare, here are some edits from that video:

On Atlas

“We are very old fashioned in many ways. We invest at Seed or Series A. We like to take a lead role and really partner meaningfully with the companies that we back.  We’ll look for high upside, highly scalable, highly ambitious entrepreneurs that we can work with and build businesses with over time. So we’re old fashioned in the way that we believe in real leadership, really owning a decent chunk of a company, really partnering with entrepreneurs and then we try and be useful in the sense that we try and be transparent and honest and fast and have a lot of the brand qualities that I think an entrepreneur is looking for in terms of finding an open minded, evidence driven, pragmatic partner, that’s willing to do some real work with them.”

We Need More Women In Tech

“We were running a CEO event here recently in Boston and we had Scott Kirsner over talking (among other things) about the necessity of having a more diverse ecosystem in Boston, what Boston could do better; suddenly I semi interrupted him and stood up and said, 'Listen by the way, there’s 50 of us in the room here and there’s only one woman!' And it turns out I’d invited her, a newcomer to the scene. Gina Ashe from Krush: she was the only female entrepreneur in the room. There is a long, long way to go, this was striking evidence that it’s rare and continues to be rare, no question!”

“If you’re asking how many women we’ve funded, we do have a few.  I backed Helene Monat at Adsafe Media whose really been there since the start in helping structure that firm. We have backed Mara Aspinall at ON-Q-ITY here in Boston who is a life science’s business focused on cure for cancer in particular circulating tumor cells in the human body.[…] So we have a few, but just like everybody else I will tell you it remains the minority. It’s true if you look at the venture funds as well as looking at the companies that are backed which I think is part of the problem.

Have You Noted Differences With Women Entrepreneurs In How They Pitch And Build Businesses?

I think it is very difficult to not fall into broad generalizations when you’re trying to answer that question.  I don’t want to insult the women I work with and pigeon hole them. I will say one thing though. Let’s take PayPal for an example. There’s a good body of evidence that PayPpal became such a fabulous company because it had a lot of diversity. Diversity in the sense of sometimes complex talent with people coming from very different walks of life. So Elon Musk who went on to create the electric car company, Tesla, and the rest of the team also had highly varied backgrounds. There’s a recognition that richness comes from diversity […] especially in the age we live in, where there’s a lot of lateral thinking that happens between biology, chemistry, IT etc, and where the only certainty is the lack of certainty. We live in a world of continuous change, and diversity is the best response you can have to that!  So I would just consider that have female people in your company, having women you can work along with is a strong factor of diversity. And I’m just amazed that more people don’t leverage that more!

Do VCs Fund In Their Own Image ?

Cindy Gallop, Founder of IfWeRanTheWorld, said in a recent interview: ‘VCs fund in their own image: white, male. The cycle is self-perpetuating, so (predominantly male) VCs have a preconceived notion in their heads of what they think constitutes the kind of entrepreneur to back. John Doerr apparently said, ‘If you’re a white, under 30, tech geek with no social life and a Harvard/Stanford dropout, line up for VC money.’ He didn’t say ‘male,’ but he might as well have. If it had been a 17-year-old Russian girl who came up with ChatRoulette would there have been as much interest in funding whatever she might do next?’  What is your take on this Fred, and if this is happening how can women startups find an opening in this culture?

The venture world probably favors a style of leadership that is highly directional. It depends on how well your Board listens but a bunch of the Boards I’ve been involved with are basically an environment where influence matters a lot, and where people expect you to show extremely strong direction. Many times you are basically faced with four or five white males from Stanford or Harvard, whatever they may be, expecting a lot of direction. So it’s not a natural environment where you if you don’t belong to that world, whether you’re a female or whether you’re Russian or both, where it’s particularly easy to express yourself.  There are almost unwritten rules of the game as to how you manage these environments. Now I think the good news is that we’re moving towards a world where there is a lot more acceptance of our own ignorance.  I always posit ignorance as a starting point.  I don’t know at the outset what the recipe is for success because I don’t think there is one. I think there is a lot more open mindedness out there that should help.

You know female leadership style has more to do with building consensus, with being a leader who’s accepted by skills and ability to take input etc. So maybe this leadership style may be more efficient but not one that people are used to in the venture environment. Of course people fund within their zones of comfort. Because the venture game is so much about long term trust relationships and whether you fall in love with a project, the people running it and whether you know you have the feeling that you’re going to be able to count on them. So anything that is a strong affiliation, whether it’s "I recognize myself as younger"; "We come from the same university"; whatever it may be, it helps people get over these hurdles. A challenge that the venture industry has to embrace is, which is hey you know there are actually a lot of ideas that are way outside your normal comfort zone that may deliver outsize returns that don’t come from this typical profile. Maybe women fit that mold too ?

Embrace Who You Are

The women that I’ve seen that do best are women who are absolutely willing to embrace who they are.  There is absolutely no attempt at being tougher than the boys or whatever it may be, unless that’s who you are.  In fact, you use humility frankly and female characteristics to their full. You’re just not ashamed to be a woman, you absolutely are who you are.  You’ll dress the way you feel like dressing !  That gives you inner confidence to be more yourself in these environments &amp; ultimately if you can’t be yourself &amp; you can’t make it without faking who you are, you’ll never make it!  I think we’ve moved very far away from an environment where it was recommended that women try &amp; fit into a certain mold. I think in the world of entrepreneurship, a Caterina Fake or a Gina Ash or whoever it may be, are very complete personalities. They are awesome personalities and every instance of successful women entrepreneurs I can think of are people who embraced who they are. 

And by the way the same is true for a geek. If you’re a geek don’t pretend to be a businessman. You good as a geek! It’s about embracing your inner actor in a way when you go and pitch to vc’s and when you go and play the game of being an entrepreneur . I think it’s difficult enough that if you can’t fully be yourself you might never make it, so you might as well completely embrace who you are. Embrace everything idiosyncratic about you and turn it into strength.

Video
Enjoy and let me know what you think.

This article originally appeared at Fred Destin's blog and is republished here with permission.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Difference In Entrepreneurial Spirit Between England And America<</span>!>
• Women In Tech Make More Money And Land Better Jobs Than Men
• To Succeed In Business, You Must Be Able To Recognize Complete And Total B.S.

The carnival of horrors is coming to the United States at last and all smokers are invited.

On Wednesday, health officials unveiled their plans to replace the text-only warnings on cigarette packs with graphic image warnings, including pictures of diseased organs and corpses.

The Food and Drug Administration, exercising new powers approved by Congress last year, will select nine of the 36 proposed new images, after hosting a lively round of public discourse and doing some reading of the available scientific literature. Come October 22, 2012, any cigarette makers that don't have new warnings on their packaging will be restricted from selling their brands in the U.S.

"When the rule takes effect, the health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes," FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said.

The U.S. is playing catch-up on its anti-smoking efforts, mostly untouched since 1984, when Congress enacted legislation requiring new warning labels for cigarettes. Some 30 countries already require graphic imagery on cigarette packaging, most notoriously among which is Canada, the first country to require these warnings a decade ago.

But as The Washington Post reported, many health activists find the measure inadequate in a country where one in five adults and teens smoke despite the fact that smoking is the leading cause of premature and preventable death.

As a smoker, I have encountered these warnings, usually when I perceived a change in the wording or when, while traveling in a different country, I encountered the warning in another language. I even collected the warnings, as a sort of travel memento. As far as contemplating my health, they seemed to have no effect.

It's possible that the drastic change from text to imagery will attract some attention, but when I initially contemplated the notion, I wasn't moved.

It reminded me of an incident that occurred at the premiere of National Geographic's Great Migarations in Beverly Hills a few weeks ago with my friend Jason Goldman, who blogged about it. The audience responded with loud dismay when the wildebeest herd lost a calf to hungry crocodiles during their dash across the Mara River. But a few minutes later, these same people stampeded over one another to gorge themselves on the sandwiches, pizza bites and sushi that had been made available at the reception.

There seems to be a disconnect between the world and ourselves, a strange sort of denial. Though we eat meat and fish, we are not predators like the crocodile. Though we run over one another eagerly to get at the last spicy tuna roll, we are not opportunistic eaters. Somehow, we're different.

Somehow, I'm different than the number on that billboard I see every time I take Santa Monica to get home. The number that tallies all the smoking deaths this year.

I think text ads, in their careful and inoffensive manner, do little to shake the denial. Or disconnect. Call it what you like.

Smoking may cause cancer.

I typed that with a cigarette resting between my index and middle finger. Would it give me pause if the package said “Smoking will kill you” instead? Or if the cigarette itself read “I am killing you” or “You're consuming your own life?” Or would that just make cigarettes cool again, somehow fuel a juvenile sense that I'm a consummate contrarian, subversive and invincible, sucking on death?

What about a graphic image? Would that help shake the denial?

I turned my attention to the available scientific literature addressing the use of images in cigarette health warnings.

A study by Michelle O’Hegarty and her team published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2006, which surveyed a panel of 763 smokers and former smokers between the ages of 18 and 24, found that warnings that made use of text and graphics were more effective in terms of prevention, motivation to quit, motivation not to start smoking, and heightened concern about health effects. Another study, this one lead by Constantine I. Vardavas and published in The European Journal of Public Health last year, found that the 574 teens that were surveyed considered graphic images on warning labels more effective than text-only warnings.

The O'Hegarty study made note of the elaboration likelihood model in their discussion of the results:

If the message is of importance to the receiver, then the central route to persuasion is most effective. However, if the receiver is not interested in the message or cannot process the information, the peripheral route will provide the way to produce attitude change. In the case of warning labels, the use of a peripheral message, with a visual image, may provide a means for gaining audience attention for quitting smoking among smokers who are not interested in quitting.

The discussion also touched on the over-exposure factor: continued exposure to both types of warnings will result in a decrease in effect. This was echoed in the Vardavas study:

When the current text-only EU warning labels were introduced, research indicated their significant impact of cessation attempts and the inclination to purchase cigarettes, as they were more noticeable than the one it replaced and had the strength to motivate smokers to quit. Over the years though, and especially among Southern European countries the effectiveness of the current EU text-only warnings has reduced.

The latter study mentioned that research seems to indicate that larger, more vivid warnings maintain their effectiveness over a longer time than text-only warnings. In Canada, which has been using graphic warnings since 2000, impact remained high even four years after their implementation.

All studies I surveyed seem to agree that the images used will need to be changed with some frequency to prevent burn out among consumers.

Here's what I want to know: what happens when the graphic imagery we're using is no longer enough to shake the denial? When the tag on the toe suggesting a dead body isn't enough to give us some pause? Will we one day be so desensitized to these images we'll need more and more graphic ones to get the message across?

Is there a better way? How can health activists better connect the dots for smokers? How can we make the risks accessible in a real way?

I don't know. But I'll tell you this: having pored over all the available literature and statistics relating to smoking in order to write this story, I'm second guessing lighting that congratulatory cigarette now that I've wrapped this article.

Maybe that's what we smokers need: to put away the defensive snarking and simmer on data for a day or two as we attempt some level of objectivity.

Special thanks to Jason Goldman for his help in rounding up the available scientific literature on the topic.

AV Flox is the editor of Sex and the 405 -- what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section.

Hady Amr, the founding director of the Brookings Institution Doha Center, will join the United States Agency for International Development, The Cable has confirmed.

Amr has been appointed as deputy assistant administrator in USAID's Middle East bureau. That bureau is currently led by George A. Laudato, who serves as special assistant to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on the Middle East. No one has been nominated for the assistant administrator position in the Middle East bureau, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Politico reported that Special Envoy George Mitchell's chief of staff, Mara Rudman, was slated to move to a top USAID post related to the Middle East, which could mean that she will be nominated as assistant administrator.

Over his long career as an author and analyst on Middle East diplomacy, Amr has managed projects sponsored by the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, the United Nations, USAID, and others, according to his bio on the site of his consulting firm, Amr Group. During the Clinton administration, he helped establish the Near East and South Asia center at the National Defense University. In 2004 he authored "The Need to Communicate: How to Improve U.S. Public Diplomacy with the Islamic World."

You can follow him on Twitter here.

Photo by sally henny penny.

• The big plans for the Southwest Waterfront look pretty fantastic, though some people aren't too thrilled about the fact that one of the buildings is planned to be 11 stories high. While we're on the topic of tall buildings, construction will begin shortly on a 390-foot tall office building in Rosslyn. It'll be the tallest building in the Washington area when completed.
• The region's Flash Flood Warning has been extended to lunchtime tomorrow; do be careful if you're driving around this evening.
• Michael D. Brown, Michael A. Brown, Clark Ray, Harry Thomas, Jr., Kathy Patterson, Anita Bonds, Deborah Royster, Muriel Bowser, Carol Schwartz, Vincent Orange, Sekou Biddle, Adam Clampitt, Jacque Patterson, Patrick Mara -- all names that are getting tossed around to fill the At-Large Council seat vacated by presumptive Chairman Kwame Brown. But if the inside baseball is any indication, it looks like Bonds is the smart bet, like it or not. (Plenty don't.)
• Bill Euille, a member of the WMATA Board of Directors, slipped and blew out his knee while boarding a train this morning; he was riding to today's board meeting when the accident happened.
• The Penn Branch DMV will offer free HIV tests beginning on Tuesday.
• Google Maps updated their satellite photos on August 29 and Greater Greater Washington rounds up the imagery of various infrastructure projects that are now aerially visible from your computer screen.
• Great, now I'll have the haunting image of Alexander Ovechkin's disembodied head stuck in my memory forever.
• The dream is over: Chipotle will not be giving out free burritos to the foil clad on Halloween this year.

This year was no different. This blogger strolled up and down 18th St., NW Sunday after to take in this year’s politicking.

Thie blogger stumbled upon a scene unfolding in this year’s best bit of unintentional political theatrics. Below “shadow senator” Michael D. Brown is besieged in this trek into daylight. Brown, of course, has been roundly denounced Phil Mendelson, the man he’s challenging for the Democrats’ At-Large council nomination, for insufficiently drawing the distinction between himself in the minds of the electorate with another pol who is not on the ballot this year, failed mayoral candidate-cum-Independent at-large Council Member Michael A. Brown.

Below, Michael D. Brown gets an earful from a Mendelson supporter, and his verbal “shadowboxing” clearly fail to placate her.  (Note Brown is obscuring his preference for mayor; he sports both Vince Gray and Adrian Fenty stickers prominently.)

Adams Morgan falls in Ward One, home to a vigorously contested primary. Incumbent Jim Graham - whose costume seems to resemble “Late-Night Informercial Clown” Matthew Lesko more and more these days - asked constituents for another term near his tent, taking a break from making the rounds.

 

Challenger Jeff Smith moved around, and encroaching on Graham’s territory, perhaps looking to greet people avoiding the council member.

 
Graham’s other challenger, Bryan Weaver, held court at his table, fitting as Adams Morgan’s main drag fails in the ANC members Single Member District.

 

A sign of how politically-charged things can get in this nightlife stripped neighborhood, a candidate for  the micro-local governmental advisory board set up a table as elaborate as the tables representing council and mayoral campaigns.

 

Campaign workers and unaffiliated festival-goers alike reported sightings to this blogger of both Vince Gray and Adrian Fenty, each replete with placard-waving entourage, in conflicting directions. Despite jogging up and down 18th St., this blogger couldn’t catch up to the hoopla, so we ambled over to the campaigns’ literature tables.

Here a diverse team of Gray volunteers, including Juan Carlos Ruiz of the Latino Federation, set out to canvass the crowd.

 
Team Fenty has devised an ingenious plan to deflate any guilt white voters might have in displaying signs of Fenty support in the racially diverse crowd: a volunteer who seems not to comprehend English, allowing her to ignore demurrals, and slap a Fenty sticker on now-embarrassed passersby anyway.

 
Not every candidate was focused on Tuesday’s primary.  Here two candidates who won’t have to face voters until November conferred: Independent at-large Council Member David Catania, and Ward One school board hopeful Patrick Mara.



More intrigue for November?  DCGOP chair Robert Kabel chats amiably with a Fenty fan. Will he write in Adrian Fenty on the line for mayor in his party’s primary, too?