Yeah, I'd feel comfortable with this crowd...

So I get this email last night:

You are cordially invited to attend our third "Cigar Tasting & Cocktails" on Tuesday, May 16, 2000 from 6:30pm to 10pm at The Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. This unique event is a place to gather and have fun with your friends as well as make new friends while enjoying samples of cigars and drinks from our extensive array of exhibitors.

We are please to announce the participation of more than 30 leading brands of cigars manufactures. Your ticket price includes a cigar from each brand exhibiting.

Another highlight of the evening will be enticing dishes prepared by leading Dallas area "cigar friendly" restaurants. They will be serving foods for which they have become famous.

An impressive selection of premium Cognacs, single malt Scotches, Bourbons, fine wine, beer and many other premium spirits will be available to sample.

It's not just poorly written: what computer database query popped my name out as a good candidate for a cigar monstrosity? With this crowd, a cigar never is just a cigar: it's an alpha-male privilege indicator, and a way to grasp pathetically at a few of the vestiges of overt male-domination of public space. At the height of the cigar craze a few years ago, you could barely go eat in Dallas without running into one of these blowhards.

As bad as these events are on the surface, it's even worse when one of these cigar-munching, white male doofuses gets started on Cuba and how important it is to lift the embargo so they can get the really good cigars. It's always boggled my mind that these types support the lifting of the Cuban embargo because they don't like Dominican cigars, but when asked about raising the embargo for human rights issues, they'll give you an earful of communism-this and democracy-that. Bah!