TheAgitator.com
Morning Links
Thursday, June 26th, 2008• Ninja shuts down school.
• Amazing photo of an abandoned theater.
• 650,000 minors get alcohol from their parents. The horror! God forbid parents responsibly introduce alcohol to their own children at an age less than the arbitrary 21 dictated by anti-alcohol fanatics.
• Meanwhile, Time actually publishes a sensible article on underage drinking.
• In Colorado, it is illegal to collect rain. You’re also only permitted to use tapwater for a single purpose.
Who is surprised by the underage drinking report? They must have had very sheltered teenage years. Seems to be exactly what I would expect and it really isn’t particularly shocking or surprising or cause for alarm.
Illegal to collect free stuff that falls out of the sky? What if manna had fallen in Colorado, would the Israelites have starved?
Anywho, on the underage drinking, I’ve been drinking since I was around 3. My grandfather would hand me a plastic cup with about 1/2 – 1 ounce of beer in it at every family gathering since I have the use of reason. When I was 10 or so, I started to get my own beer (just one) at family gatherings and I was allowed to have a glass of wine with dinner if my mother was having one (my dad has never had a drink, that I know of). And, you know what? It taught me limits and boundaries. I learned that you don’t have to binge drink to feel a little drunk and that moderation was the answer. When I was in HS and all my friends were binge drinking and getting drunk, I was usually the voice of reason and the one who wasn’t acting a fool.
Why not let a parent decide so long as the child isn’t abusing alcohol?
The SAMHSA report is pretty funny when you see how they mined the data. Made it seem like we have an epidemic. My fav stat:
More than half (53.9) of all people aged 12 to 20 engaged in underage drinking in their lifetime, ranging from 11.0 percent of 12 year olds to 85.5 percent of 20 year olds
Hmm…something tells me prohibition just ain’t “working”
Of course, the 20 being “underage” ONLY apples to the US! Most countries are 18 or less, unless absolutely prohibited by law for anyone of any age.
If I could have bought a beer at 18, would I have spent those years sneaking around drinking bottles of MD 20/20 and causing trouble? I think not.
Pirates > Ninjas anyday.
Excellant article. Now lets see how long Mr. Cloud gets to keep his job. MADD gets wind of this they will be calling for his head on a pike. My parents allowed me to have beer (under certain conditions) from the time I was 16. Later on as I got older, I was the guy who made sure everybody else got home.
Dude, ninjas rule because they flip out and kill people.
I’m with Mike on this one. Pirates are the highest being one can attain.
– RAmen
Can anyone else get that Colorado rainwater article to come up? I just get a blank page.
Pirate
Ninja
00-number agent
Test pilot
Spy
Crusty old sea captain
Crusty old dean
Soldier
Tailor
Tinker
Serf
Dallas Cowboy
“…an abandoned theater.”
That’s heartbreaking to me. I’ve worked Victorian proscenium houses all over this country for three decades, and I love ‘em all dearly. Some of my favorite spaces in the whole world. I’d live in one if I could, and did, in fact, in my starving-artist days.
I always hate to see one come to that.
As I grew up in CO I can explain the reasoning behind banning the use of rain water. CO gov’t sells a lot of the water rights of the rivers to other states. During the 90’s CO got a lot more rain and snow than normal so the gov’t sold even more of the water flow. Now that the weather returned to normal more water has been sold then flows out of CO. So if they can prevent people who collect rain water to water their lawn etc. More water can flow downstream and the gov’t can make their money.
Does the light beam in the theater pic show where the Ark is buried?
The theater reminds me of the Historic Orpheum Theater in Memphis that was restored a couple of decades ago.
I’ve always wondered about water rights. Where does one draw the line at ownership?
If it were possible to collect the evaporation off the oceans and prevent rain (more or less) would ownership start there?
Yeah, water rights in the west have a perplexing weirdness to those from areas with more rainfall and no shortage of water. They’re terribly complicated. You can own your property and yet not own or even be able to use the water on it.
I don’t pretend to understand all the intricacies of it. Wars have been fought over water in the west and people have died over water. It’s extremely important in an arid climate. Farmers and ranchers have had to deal with these issues for years (I have ranching kin in CO) and it seems that it is just now trickling down (pun intended) to your average homeowner in the city and suburbs. When populations in the west were small it didn’t matter if a guy in town was saving his rainwater but when there are millions of people saving that rainwater it becomes an issue to those downstream who actually own the important and expensive water rights. Right or wrong, it’s money out of their pockets.
It’s a good idea to drink with your teenagers to find out how it effects them and how they react to it. Everybody’s different but you can pretty much tell what kind of drinker somebody is early on. I certainly wouldn’t want them geting plastered the first time with a bunch of other plastered kids being the only one’s around. Realistic approaches make way more sense than preaching abstinence and waiting for that dreaded phone call in the middle of the night.
And then the link @ the top of the ninja story is…an ad for SAMHA! “Start talking before they start drinking.” That’s the idea: get the kiddies so bored they can’t wait to break into your liquor cabinet and get faced.