I stopped smoking years ago but Mark Block has reminded me about how great it felt to smoke after a big meal, and to stand at a bar and drink and inhale for hours on end. Mark Block is the coolest guy I've seen in politics in years.  And his client is pretty cool too. Block has made me sentimental for the camaraderie among smokers where any stranger was willing to provide a cigarette to anyone who asked (without regard to sex, race, sexual orientation or county of origin).  That camaraderie seems even more intense these days with smokers relegated to dark, frigid corner outposts circling around an upright ashtray like 1930's hobos cooking beans around a campfire. Lighting a cigarette for a woman was an ice breaker that no teenager could be without, and when on the rarest of occasions, a woman decided to light yours, the moment was almost rapturous. Millions of GI's, a Lucky or Camel dangling from their lips, killed and were killed so that baby boomers could inherit the 20th...(Read Full Post)