We have all heard of the risks associated with smoking cigarettes, but what are the risks of cigar smoking? Are the risks of smoking cigars just as dangerous, or more so? According to the National Cancer Instituted, regular cigar smoking can result in a major health threat. Scientific research has linked cigar smoking with cancers of the larynx, lungs, esophagus, and oral cavity. Newer research also indicates that cigar smoking may be strongly linked to the development of cancer in the pancreas. Doctors also caution that individuals who regularly inhale while enjoying a cigar are also at greater risk of developing lung disease and heart problems.

The health threats of cigar smoking appear to increase dramatically in those individuals who smoke regularly and inhale while smoking. Someone who smokes three to four cigars each day will him or herself at eight times the risk of developing some kind of oral cancer than a nonsmoker. Unfortunately, we do not yet know the health risks of smoking the occasional cigar. It seems clear however that smoking cigars on a daily basis can pose serious health risks.

Many individuals wonder if cigars are as addictive as cigarettes. Many wonder why, for instance, so many people become addicted to cigarettes, and not cigars? The truth is that any tobacco product can become addictive because it contains nicotine. Witness the effects of smokeless tobacco products on individuals. These products, such as chewing tobacco, can become very addictive, simply because they contain tobacco, which in turn contains nicotine. Many cigar smokers do not inhale deeply, thus causing the nicotine to be inhaled superficially. Cigarette smokers tend to inhale, causing the nicotine to be absorbed faster and more readily by the lungs. Even though most cigar smokers inhale the nicotine more superficially, it is still possible to become addicted if the user smokes cigars on a regular basis.

If nicotine is so addictive, why don’t more cigar smokers smoke more often? It appears that more people avoid becoming ‘hooked’ on cigars for several reasons. The most obvious reason is that the nicotine is inhaled much more superficially than in regular cigarette smoking, causing less nicotine to be absorbed by the body. Also, cigars are not as readily accessible as cigarettes. They are viewed by most as a luxury item, saved for special occasions and used infrequently. However, when cigars are smoked on a regular basis, they can become addictive. The health risks of any kind of smoking increase dramatically as frequency of use increases.

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Perhaps it’s because there’s a close cultural connection between great music and smoky bars. Anyone who knows anything about jazz knows that its truly legendary improvisers – Coltrane, Bird, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie – cut their teeth playing in bars so smoky that it’s a good thing everybody was too busy improvising to need sheet music.

Or maybe it’s because both cigars and music are contemplative pleasures. A casual smoker can get a quick tobacco-fix from a cheap cigarette, just as a casual music listener can enjoy the background hum of pop songs on the car radio. But to really enjoy a great performance, or a good tobacco, sitting still and paying attention are necessary.

In any case, music and cigar smoking seem to belong together, and some of the most famous musicians are (or were) cigar devotees – just as, it turns out, one of the most famous of cigar devotees is also a musician. Avo Uvezian, the maker of Avo cigars, is also a respected classical and jazz pianist, a Julliard graduate, and even the one-time official pianist of the Shah of Iran. After a successful musical career based first in his native Middle East, and then in the contiguous United States, Uvezian moved in the 1980s to Puerto Rico, where he opened a restaurant and bar and dabbled in cigarmaking. After customers at his Puerto Rico restaurant told him how much they enjoyed some cigars he’d had rolled himself, from a blend of tobaccos he hand-picked, he opened his own Dominican Republic-based cigar factory, working with noted cigar maker Hendrik Kelner. Now his company makes three million cigars a year, and Uvezian himself still makes music – his first CD, Legacy, was released in 2004.

For another example, consider the great trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who smokes, by his own estimation, four or five cigars a day. Music allowed the Cuban-born Sandoval to rise to fame in his native Cuba – and to defect from that country in 1990, during a long stint playing concerts in Europe (he now lives in Florida). Sandoval has played the horn for Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, Gloria Estefan and Johnny Mathis, Michel Legrand and Frank Sinatra. His technically flawless playing has resulted in his being the kind of musician whose work is often known by people who couldn’t name him – he is brought in as a session musician by some of the world’s finest and best-known (see above), and he often scores movie soundtracks. As his work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Leningrad Philharmonic prove, he’s even proved able to handle the rigors of classical music as well as jazz – sometimes doing both in the same concert.

The cigar-music connection is especially strong in Cuba, known as one of the world’s cigar capitals. Both cigars and music are staples of island life (the cigar remains one of the island’s most prominent exports), and the strength of both in Cuban culture depends partly on the nimble and intelligent blending of elements from everywhere – wrappers and fillers from different parts of Latin America, rhythms and melodies from the African coast, South America, US pop, Western European classical, etc. In other words, Cuban cigarmaking and Cuban music have both survived, and flourished, by mixing and melding.

For generations, cigar rollers were entertained by the sound of paid musicians or by music from the radio. (This tradition continues even now in the Dominican Republic, where workers at the Arturo Fuente factory, among other places, are treated to the work of performing musicians.) With this tradition in place, it’s no wonder that some of Cuba’s music legends got their start as cigar-factory entertainers; and since tobacco smoking has been a part of Latin American life far longer than it has in some other places – Columbus’s sailors noted it being smoked in what is now modern Cuba in the year 1493, so there’s many more centuries of lore to draw on its psychological and emotional associations are deeper and richer, providing better material for songwriters to mine. Thus famous Cuban songwriter Beny More, himself a former entertainer for the cigar-factory workers, touches on the song in a number of his classic compositions.

Cigar smoking is all about shared pleasure. After all, it swept Victorian England and became a national pastime in part because it gave men something to do with their hands while they talked after dinner. And it took off during the so-called “cigar boom” of the 1990s in part because new publications, online forums, cigar clubs, and other social venues allowed cigar smokers to talk about their passion.

So it’s no surprise to find cigar-related events all over the social calendar of smokers around the world. In addition to the lavish, expensive Big Smoke conventions put on by Cigar Aficionado magazine – at least two a year, in Las Vegas and New York City – there’s the Ybor City festival in Tampa, Florida, free and open to the public. And that’s just November. Check out a few other, more-exotic possibilities from all over the globe.

The Dominican Republic is the world’s largest source of premium cigars, surpassing even Cuba (from which many of the country’s cigar-making families and technologies emigrated during the years after Castro). La Aurora, Davidoff, Arturo Fuente, and La Gloria Cubana, among many others, all operate there, and as of 2007, it has its own yearly cigar festival as well! Taking place in Santiago, the two-day Procigar Festival (the first of which took place March 5-7, 2008) featured cigar factory tours, visits to tobacco fields, chances to hobnob with some of the world’s greatest cigar makers, and cigar-and-liquor matchups. Companies such as La Aurora, General Cigar Co., and Tabacalera de Garcia, among others, participated, and the inaugural bow was successful enough to motivate a second – to be held February 16-20, 2009.

While you’re there, if you go, you may want to check out some of the other sights offered by this important Latin American cultural capital. The Dominican Republic was the first place permanently settled by Europeans anywhere in either American continent – the oldest cathedrals, universities, and European-made roads can all be found there. Santo Domingo, the country’s capital, butts up against its southern coast, offering breathtaking views (the Procigar Festival takes place far further north, in Santiago, but the country is not super-large in total area). Four mountain ranges decorate the country; the Cordillera Central (“Central Mountain Range”) approaches Santiago, so visitors to the Procigar Festival could also schedule a day trip to see Pico Duarte, the jewel of the Cordillera Central and the highest peak in the West Indies (over 3000 meters). And, of course, Santiago is itself located in the Cibao valley – between the Cordillera Central and Corillera Septentrional (“Northern Mountain Range”), which run parallel to each other – and it’s this rich and fertile area that houses most of the country’s farms, including its tobacco farms.

Or you could follow in author James Joyce’s footsteps and visit Zurich, Switzerland, where the expatriate Irish modernist polymath-writer completed large sections of his surreal novel Finnegans Wake, and where the Whiskyship sails every November. (What is it with November and cigar events?) This whisky-tasting event, which also offers three hundred premium cigars for the sampling, allows those with sharp noses and tastebuds to enjoy single malt whiskies from all over the world, and to enjoy the companies of folks with similar tastes. The 2008 Whiskyship will be the tenth such event. Switzerland, of course, features all sorts of other attractions – among other things, there’s the James Joyce Foundation, but also, you know, mountains and pristine lakes and thousands of years’ worth of European scenery – and would be worth a visit regardless.

Another possibility – albeit somewhat closer to home, at least for North American smokers – is the Nebraska Cigar Festival in Lincoln. Taking place in late November (which pits it against the Ybor City Festival and the two CA Big Smokes in drawing the attention of Midwestern cigar fanatics who don’t feel like going to Zurich), the one-evening event brings in cigars, munchies and a pair of drink tickets for those willing to shell out the admission fees and deal with early-winter Midwestern cold.

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There is a huge opportunity for e-commerce or online shopping in India to shop for item especially for father’s day. You can select one or two from the list given below:

(1). Amar Chitra Katha Pack of 50 Comics

Amar Chitra Katha, founded in 1967, is a household name in India with more than 86 million copies of illustrated classics sold to-date. The imprint has published more than 400 titles in 20+ languages. It is the best-selling children’s publication. Amar Chitra Katha : The Glorious Heritage of India is narrated through this unique collection of illustrated books of traditional, Mythological & historical Indian stories These are the stories that we have been hearing from our Grandma for so long. Now it could be an ideal choice for your kids to read stories & correlate the present with their rich past. This pack contains an assortment of 50 titles from various categories like Mythology, Epic, History , Humour, Jataka and leading luminaries of India.

(2). Tintin Pack of 21 Comics

This pack contains 21 Tintin comics. The titles are King Ottokar’s Sceptre, The Seven Crystal Balls, Flight 714, Tintin in America, The Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Black Island, Tintin & the Lake of Sharks, Red Rackham’s Treasure, Prisoners of the Sun, Destination Moon, Explorers on the Moon, The Red Sea Sharks, Tintin in Tibet, Tintin and the Picaros, The Castafiore Emerald, The Land of Black Gold, The Secret of Unicorn, The Crab With Golden Claws, The Calculus Affair, The Broken Ear AND The Blue Lotus.

(3). Shrimad Bhagwad Gita – Set of 6 Audio CDs

The content of the text is a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna taking place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra just prior to the start of a climactic war. Responding to Arjunas confusion and moral dilemma, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and prince and elaborates on a number of different Yogis and Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to Hindu philosophy and also as a practical, self-contained guide to life. During the discourse, Krishna reveals his identity as the Supreme Being Himself (Bhagavan), blessing Arjuna with an awe-inspiring glimpse of His divine absolute form.

If you want to buy books online author suggests you some online books store to buy books at very low cost.

A fine cigar is one of life’s luxuries. Just open a fine mahogany humidor, select a fragrant private-stock cigar, and light up. The experience is one that is memorable and enduring. The reason for this is because our sense of smell is the sense that is closest related to memory in the human brain, and the aroma of a fine cigar will be just that.

In a time when we must reflect on what we can do with what we have and what we have to offer, it is a luxury that can be truly appreciated and enjoyed. There’s a reason behind the saying, “A fine cigar gets you through every major life event.”

Selecting cigars to give as gifts for the holiday season is also a way to show that you have every expectation that the future will be bright. There are many ways to buy cigars to give as holiday gifts:

1.Purchase from online companies that enjoy great reputations and will deliver at a discounted rate. Make sure you will be given notice as to the conditions of delivery, so that the cigars arrive fresh and are not dried out or damp.

2.Go to a local tobacconist. Enter their walk-in humidors and purchase some fine cigars that way. Reputable dealers will be happy to supply you with information regarding the type, size and style or cigar for your budget.

3.Going to a newspaper stand or a drugstore to purchase cigars is not a bad idea. There are some very reputable brands that are carried by such sellers; however, you must make sure that your purchase is fresh and offers a good quality cigar. These will not be the locations to find premium or super-premium cigars.

The persons who will appreciate such a gift are:

1.Professionals who have done a great job like your broker and your lawyer.

2.The postman, gardener, janitor or mailman in your building. You must make sure they smoke cigars, and if they do, they will treasure and appreciate the gift. Cigars will go much further than cookies or fruitcake in this regard.

3.The people in your life who matter and who might enjoy support. Enclose a note that says “Times are tough, but you’re tougher.”

4.Musician and artist friends who appreciate the challenges of unstable economic times. These types of people are often without funds to purchase fine cigars and will be appreciative of the luxury of a fine cigar.

Whatever the reason for giving cigars as a gift, your budget can include either one cigar or a box of 10 or 20 or more. The gift is consumable and biodegradable because cigar tobacco is the finest and most chemically pure of all tobaccos.

There is nothing like knowing that you are giving the best, and a fine cigar is an outstanding way to keep friends, clients or sponsors well appointed toward you and all your endeavors.

Walking through Paris in search of new tips and hot-spots for readers of paris-eiffel-tower-news.com, I realized I’d neglected one its most classic locations, despite the fact that I often take time to skulk around the “bouquinistes” (second-hand booksellers) of the banks of the river Seine.

Stretching out for over a mile in the center of Paris with the Cathedral of Notre Dame as a backdrop, and with the famous narrow streets and restaurants of the Quartier Latin a stone’s throw away, this has to rank amongst the top of any list of classic Parisian experiences.

Relics of a Bygone Age

To me, nothing embodies Paris’s essence more than the Seine’s bouquinistes, who have been “part of the furniture” for hundreds of years now. They are completely unique to Paris: I know of no other city in the world which can boast such an array of book traders.

The first bouquinistes appeared as early as the mid-16th Century, when they would trade their goods from carts, more often than not surreptitiously, as they would sell illegal Protestant pamphlets during the Crusades.

It was after the French Revolution, however, that the bouquinistes of the Seine really began to prosper: they had access to entire libraries confiscated from the rich, although it was not until the end of the 19th Century that they were granted the right to permanently bolt their stall boxes on the stone wall of the river banks.

After 1952, the size of the boxes and even their color became officially regulated.

From Current Publications to Priceless Antiques

Today you’ll find the bouquinistes’ stalls stretching out for over a mile along both sides of the Seine around the Ile de la Cite, from the Pont Marie to the Quai du Louvre on the right, and from the Quai de la Tournelle to the Quai Malaquais on the left.

In this idyllic setting and with Notre Dame as the backdrop, you can dig up all sorts: antique prints and engravings, old issues of Paris Match (a major national news magazine), maps, old books, very old books, rare books, comic books, posters, postcards, souvenirs and other odds and ends.

The stalls themselves essentially consist of boxes bolted to the stone wall of the river bank, which are locked up at night. Although some of their goods nowadays are strictly for tourists, there are still plenty of rare and priceless items for the serious connoisseur.

You never know what you’ll come across whilst rifling through the bouquinistes’ collections, and if they don’t have what you want, some even say they’ll find it for you; it is their trade that keeps treasures in circulation that might otherwise perish.

There is even a well-know anecdote told in Alexander Wollcott’s While Rome Burns, recounting the time when novelist Anne Parrish found a copy of Jack Frost And Other Stories at a bouquiniste. It was her favorite childhood book back in her days at a Colorado Springs nursery, but she’d not managed to see a copy of it until then. The tale goes that, whenshe showed her finding to her husband, he opened it to find inscribed on the flyleaf, “Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs”.

Today the bouquinistes of the Seine number around 250, and their trade is well regulated: they must be open for business a minimum of four days a week no matter the weather or foot traffic, and no more than one box out of four is permitted to contain “souvenirs” – the rest must be literary material.

Interview with a bouquiniste

Some of the bouquinistes are chatty, others less so, but I always manage to land on one who likes chin-wagging as much as I do. I was lucky to strike up a conversation with 64-year old Allain Ferlich, a veteran of 30 years on the Quais.

Smoking a Dominican mini cigar and leafing through an old copy of La Gazette (the first weekly magazine ever printed in France, back in the 1600s) as if it was this week’s Paris Match, he seems to know every other person walking past his stall. “There are no set hours,” he tells me, “and I’m not afraid of the heat or the cold. I love to read, I’m talkative and I’m curious. So this is perfect for me.”

Chez Ferlich, the definition of “old” seems a little different than at the average bookseller’s. I see him flip through a book printed in 1943 which doesn’t even make the cut. Most of his books are works of art in themselves: beautiful, gold-lettered, leather-bound volumes written by authors such as Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola.

Sadly, Ferlich is on the point of retiring. Once he is gone, it will be up to the City to decide who gets his spot. “They have a waiting list of one or two hundred people waiting to do this,” he tells me.

An Endangered Species?

Just like the Panda, bouquinistes are a race in threat of extinction. For one thing, the underground tour bus park under the Carousel, next to the Louvre, has reduced foot traffic along the Quais quite considerably.

Then there is the internet, the biggest bookstore with which none can compete, encroaching on their revenue. This has forced some of the booksellers to turn to the more remunerative sale of tourist souvenirs, miniatures and trinkets.

But for those with a passion for books and who value the hunt as well as the book’s “pedigree”, the bouquinistes will always be irreplaceable – so don’t forget to drop by and keep one of Paris’s oldest pieces of heritage alive (and free from tacky tourist trinkets).

This is my FIRST EVER Cigar I have smoked. It was very enjoyable.

A novel based around real estate in Miami, I was not convinced that I would enjoy it. I had thoughts of tawdry love affairs among realtor’s, and board room struggles between power brokers. But, instead I found a hugely entertaining, and side splittingly funny novel that makes me chuckle every time I see the cover. This is humor at its very apex. Humor is a hard genre to be successful in but this author definitely has ‘The Write Stuff.’

Alan Rolnick has created a vignette of life in Miami with Landmark Status that deserves a spot on the best seller list. The characters are wild, bent politicians, bent land developers, and even a Ponzi scheme thrown in for good measure, and what finer setting than Miami?

The hero in our story is attorney Steven Benjamin Bluestone, Benjy to his friends. Benjy is a delightful character, and as he explains early in the book, he became an attorney because his father was one, but he has little interest in wrangling and courtroom drama preferring the more sedate type of lawyering that involves smoking Cuban cigars and ogling young ladies! He avoids at all cost the world of Real Estate, ‘Dirt Lawyers’ is how he describes them.

Unfortunately for Benjy an old client returns, one who had used his services in a divorce (something else that Benjy doesn’t do), and persuades him to assist in a ‘dirt deal’. If Benjy has a fault it is not being able to say no, when ex client, and friend Walter, who also happens to own one of Benji’s favorite watering holes needs ‘dirt help’, he leaps, albeit reluctantly, into the ride of his life.

The rather decrepit Century Club that Walter owns has suddenly become a much sought after piece of dirt. And there are few lengths that an unscrupulous developer will not go to secure it’s ownership.

The characters that Alan Rolnick has created are wild. But they are so well crafted they take on a reality in the readers mind. From the accident prone Benjy, to the money hungry mayor Oscar Torres, the even money hungrier would be land developer Chuck Steinbeck and his slightly aging trophy wife Evelyn, they are all so well described I can guarantee you will love them. And these are just the beginning, we also have love interest from the Mayors niece Delia, we have Raj the Cigar Man, oh, and of course Rico the bungling bodyguard!

This is a riotous book, you are laughing on page one, and you are still laughing on the last page. There are cars wrecked, planes burned, Voodoo curses, even cemeteries desecrated, and this is all achieved with a dark humor that I find hard to believe comes from a first time author. This is also a book that would transition easily into a very very funny movie. And I did note that Alan Rolnick is not only an attorney, and an author, he is also a director, so come on Alan, make it happen!

I want to light the cigar so the smoke just roles right out of it and you don’t have to really suck on it to get any smoke. I find it easy with smaller cigarillos but can’t seem to light get my cigars right.