Pop Culture Update 3/24/06

Recent pop culture events that hit the headlines or just plain intrigue.

Betty and Veronica in a burqua? Archie with a beard? And Spider-Man will soon be climbing pyramids.

We can hope that such sharing of Americana can promote, on some level, an understanding of cultures.

From Teshkeel.com:

Teshkeel Media Group, KSC, and Archie Comic Publications, Inc., today announced a new publishing partnership to bring Arabic-language Archie comics, digests and magazines to the Middle East region. The announcement was made by Naif Al-Mutawa, CEO of Teshkeel, and Michael Silberkleit, Chairman of
Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

Teshkeel Comics releases the first Arabic title from Marvel Comics in the Middle East

After significant buzz surrounding Marvel Comics' expansion into the Middle East, Teshkeel Media Group has begun its licensed publishing program with the release of the first ever issue of Spectacular Spider-Man in Arabic.

Rekindled romances, aren't they grand?
From CNN.com:

Desperate Housewives actress Nicollette Sheridan and singer Michael Bolton are engaged, Sheridan's publicist confirmed Wednesday.

Sheridan, 42, and Bolton, 53, dated for several years in the 1990s and rekindled their romance last year.

Although I take exception that such decrease is because of that tobacco settlement. Try being a smoker and contacting your state for assistance in quitting the habit. Something that settlement was supposed to enable. The state people have no idea what you are talking about.

Be that as it may, I cannot imagine that the American populace hasn't cut down on smoking since 1951. If nothing else, it's hopeful that adolescents, the most vulnerable to beginning the habit, are veering away from a lifetime of derision, smoky homes and cigarette-dented pocketbooks.

From the WAPO:

Progress in the Smoking War

THE NUMBERS ARE dramatic — and encouraging. Americans smoked fewer cigarettes last year than any time since 1951, when the population was half what it is today. Cigarette sales dropped 4.2 percent in 2005 alone and 20 percent since 1998, according to data based on cigarette sales tax figures and compiled by the National Association of Attorneys General.

The state attorneys general have an interest in proclaiming progress in the war on smoking — they attribute much of the decline to the effects of the $246 billion settlement the states reached with the tobacco industry in 1998 — and it's possible that the study didn't capture some cigarette sales, such as those conducted over the Internet or through the black market

Article Author: Patfish

Pat Fish is a pop culture and political pundit. When she’s not working on her own blog she contributes regularly right here on Blogcritics.
Pat lives in Delaware with her husband. They are owned by four cats, two dogs and one adorable granddaughter. …

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