Comments on: What do you think of this?

By: lotus

lotus — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:26:29 +0000

Over at MSCrimDefLawBlog, Kevin Frye makes this interesting observation re the Amethyst Initiative:

Of specific interest locally is the fact that both the Rhodes College (located in Memphis) President and the Millsaps College (located in Jackson) President are signatories. Absent is the signature of Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat – Ole Miss is locked in a press battle fighting its party school image (after ranking 2nd on this year’s Princeton Review “Top Twenty Party Schools” list) and is focused on “changing the culture” of alcohol on campus and in Oxford. Personally, I’d like to hear what Chancellor Khayat’s thoughts are on this matter. You don’t have to spend much time in Oxford before you realize that persons between the ages of 18 and 21 are drinking regardless of the law.

By: lotus

lotus — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:08:09 +0000

Rodney, how awful — both the personal and the societal stories you tell.

But I hope Tiffany can make her full comeback before long, and that this incident’s aftereffects include somehow leading her to an even better job opportunity.

As for the “lager-louts” I keep reading about in England (also visiting Spain, Greece, etc.), all I know to call the phenomenon is “a roaring shame.” It seems a mark of despair, and I don’t understand why and how that took root in Britain of the Blair years.

By: Rodney

Rodney — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:55:33 +0000

Thanks for your good wishes to Tiffany, my daughter, Lotus; she’s physically over it but withdrew her teaching application at the local school because of fear of the girl’s relatives.
As for the big picture, who knows? Drink has always been a means to an end for a lot of people and societies imho, a context which allows the revelation and release of emotions suppressed or assimilated in daily sober behaviour. For some this is laughing and dancing into the night on champagne, for others it’s a deliberately attained psychotic state in which they will set fire to a tramp.
Is it “In Vino Veritas” or “the drink talking”?
Whichever, children of an age at which they used to be victims of others’ alcohol abuse are now becoming the abusers.

By: lotus

lotus — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:33:38 +0000

Good point, Rodney. You know, I can’t get over the wild-in-the-streets stories of British teeners these last few years — has this been coming on for a while, and I’ve only just noticed, or is it really as recent a development as it seems? What do you make of it — what’s behind it?

(Hope your daughter healed well and quickly, by the way.)

By: Rodney

Rodney — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:21:26 +0000

As you may know, we have 18 as the legal limit to drink in public houses and bars in England, although one can consume alcohol in a restaurant at 14 with one’s parents’ consent.
We have a large number of young teen drinkers (typically in the park with Kwik-E-Mart rotgut cider and “alcopops”) and increasingly aggressive late night scenarios with notable increases in violence and drunkeness in young women. In our small rural town centre one of my daughters was recently beaten to the ground by a drink crazed girl whilst walking home . (A repeat offender, she got community service. A couple of months earlier, a local man died after being attacked by two teenagers who had been drinking all day. They got 3 years.)
I’ve always enjoyed alcohol and getting a bit pissed, but now there seems to be so much aggressive behaviour that I rarely go for a late pub drink.
Just getting old, maybe.
Whatever age limit you choose, it will always be seen as a challenge to those below it.

By: GlitterGirl

GlitterGirl — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:37:19 +0000

A1A, I agree. The AA problem must be handled at home. In lurking around online I seem to find conflicting stats on highway accidents/deaths involving 21 yrs and under and alcohol. That was the issue Reagan used to up the drinking age limit in ’84.

By: A1A

A1A — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:49:47 +0000

Duckweed at 3,

They’ll get it anyway. Alcoholism is an insidious disease that prohibition will not cure or stymy.

By: duckweedpond

duckweedpond — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:35:49 +0000

Drinking was never prohibited in my parent’s home. I do think that killed much of the curiosity about it and neutralized some of the impulse to try it outside our home. Didn’t really care for it and didn’t drink til much later. Don’t know what you do about kids who are predisposed to alcohol addiction, but I don’t think outright prohibition is the answer to that issue.

By: GlitterGirl

GlitterGirl — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:56:18 +0000

We can send them to war to die for their country at 18; a beer or two doesn’t seem such a huge deal. I also put a great deal of trust in the academic world to have a pretty good handle on this issue.

By: op99

op99 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:54:57 +0000

The problem drinkers will drink underage in any case, legal or not. Why penalize the kid wanting an occasional beer, or a glass of wine with dinner, like, oh, say, WE do?