BBC commentary on American values

[cannon_fodder]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6747807.stm

A woman throws a party for her 16 year old and their friends.  She is a teacher at the local high school.  They take their keys and block the driveway (locking the cars in) with their car. They then serve beer to the 16 year olds.

Cops show up, mom and dad are arrested.  Mom is in prison for 2+ years.
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The BBC thinks this is totally off the wall.  They make some very interesting comments on American values in general and overall I think they have some good points.  If nothing else, its an interesting outsiders look at life in the USA encapsulated in a single news story.

[mr.jaynes]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6747807.stm

A woman throws a party for her 16 year old and their friends.  She is a teacher at the local high school.  They take their keys and block the driveway (locking the cars in) with their car. They then serve beer to the 16 year olds.

Cops show up, mom and dad are arrested.  Mom is in prison for 2+ years.
----

The BBC thinks this is totally off the wall.  They make some very interesting comments on American values in general and overall I think they have some good points.  If nothing else, its an interesting outsiders look at life in the USA encapsulated in a single news story.

It is indeed curious to see ourselves and our country and culture through different eyes.

[NellieBly]

Other countries think we're puritanical morons? Nothing new. We are.

[Conan71]

Several comments:

One- I really don't give two sh!ts what the BBC thinks of American values.  They constantly rag on America.  C'mon guys, we jacked you out of your colonies 231 years ago- get over it.

Two- Idiot parents in a 6000 sq. ft. mansion have a beer bash for a bunch of 16 year olds.  Real bright.  And she's a school teacher who has taught some of these kids- even brighter.

Three- 27 months for serving beer to said minors when there appears to have been no injuries, other than a few dead brain cells is excessive and costly to the tax payers of Virginia.  They should just make her clean out horse stalls for 27 months at the local fairgrounds or pick up trash.

[shadows]

71:
If you have been reading the articles in our present papers you would come to the conclusion that the teacher was preparing the 16 year olds for their college coed dorm experiences.   Pull up the article in the world "Ivy Leaguers fight campus  sex attitude".  There has been another article in the past week also.  A simple search of this internet will provide you ample sources of DVD's made by amateurs in the colleges and sold to producers of the disks.

Today, as it is in the eyes of the beholder, we establish the rule of the moral majority that no longer exist.   Various groups that establish the age requirements of the activities, are not concerned with the providing a home life for their off springs.

The article only points out how disorganized the colonies have become.      

[mr.jaynes]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71


I really don't give two sh!ts what the BBC thinks of American values.  

I have always found examining other viewpoints rather fascinating, even from the BBC. There are these things they seem to notice that I would not have caught otherwise.

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

Other countries think we're puritanical morons? Nothing new. We are.

That by and large depends where one is. In New Orleans or South Beach or New York or LA or even Vegas, these cities seem more open in so many ways. Some may consider me a complete hedonist (and in some respects, they may even be right on the money), but I'm willing to bet in Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam or Paris, I'd be considered a total prude.

quote:Originally posted by shadows

Today, as it is in the eyes of the beholder, we establish the rule of the moral majority that no longer exist. Various groups that establish the age requirements of the activities, are not concerned with the providing a home life for their off springs.

I think in this case, they are too busy setting down guidelines for everyone else's children, that they either don't have the time to provide a moral foundation for their own kids, or they are simply too lazy to raise them personally.

[cannon_fodder]

Interesting article from an American, making the same basic point:
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:28479

I much more agree with the American perspective.  Not to mention he has some damn funny lines in there: finding a 20 year old that cannot drink as much as he wants to is like "finding the virgin in a sorority house."

Classic.

[NellieBly]

An American's look at the same issue.

Fat, Drunk, and Stupid

It's no way to go through the legislature

Next time you're in a Charleston bar and you see a young man just back from Iraq — a young man of say, 19 or 20 — be sure to mention to him the new, unseen threat he faces now that he's back home. It's not an IED or a roadside bomb. It's a kegger.

The South Carolina legislature has just voted to crack down on that scourge of humanity, the keg. They've sent the governor legislation for an NSA-style tracking system for kegs found at frat houses and college parties. Kegs that might actually be used to serve a 20-year-old ... a BEER!

Oh, the humanity.

In South Carolina, being old enough to get married, get a credit card, and get shot at for your country used to mean you were old enough for a cold one on King Street. Then America went all stupid.

The purpose of raising the drinking age was to reduce drunk driving by teenagers, the theory being that kids would stop drinking beer because it was illegal. There used to be another theory about teenagers not having sex if we told them it was naughty.

Both theories have enjoyed the same level of success.

Yes, the overall crackdown on DUI, and the added social pressure over the past 20 years, has reduced drunk driving rates across the board.

But is there a single 20-year-old in America who isn't drinking exactly as much alcohol as he wants right now? If you find him, please put him on immediate display in the same "Museum of Unseen Marvels" with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the sorority house virgin.

Michael Haines, director of the National Social Norms Resource Center at Northern Illinois University, tries to tell neo-Prohibitionists that "where there's strict enforcement, those who continue to drink do so in more dangerous ways. It changes the location to a more dangerous location. It changes the consumption to more rapid consumption. Or they change substances. Instead of drinking beer they smuggle in a half pint they can drink in the bathroom."

It is patently stupid to say that a college student is too young to drink a beer. That's why supporters of this draconian dopery avoid saying it. The new Puritans of the Left, like Sen. Joel Lourie and Rep. Ted Pitts instead throw around phrases like "minors" and "teenaged drinkers."

Yes, a 19-year-old is, mathematically speaking, a teenager. But calling a 19-year-old corporal who's spent 12 months in Al Anbar province a "minor" isn't only insulting, it's idiotic. I would love to see a member of the legislature walk up to that young man at a bar, grab the beer out of his hand, and say "Sorry, boy, you're too young to handle this Miller Lite."

Fortunately, a few rational voices are beginning to confront this painfully irrational policy. John M. McCardell Jr. is the former president of Middlebury College in Vermont. He's created a nonprofit called Choose Responsibility to encourage a return to six-pack sanity. One idea would be something akin to a "drinking license" for college students who are at least 18 years old.

Whenever someone passes a law limiting the freedom of adults — and remember, in every legal sense an 18-year-old is an adult — I ask two simple questions: What's the bad thing that's happening that the government wants to stop, and can the government stop it without doing even more damage along the way?

The 21-year-old drinking age fails both tests. There's absolutely nothing bad happening when an 18-year-old has a beer. If he has a beer and drives, that's a different story, but it's no different from the 38-year-old drunk driver.

Cracking down on drunk driving is public safety. Cracking down on drinking itself is a public nuisance.

[Conan71]

Don't snicker too hard.  Oklahoma had a keg tracking bill on the table three or four years ago.  I can't remember if it passed or not.

[cannon_fodder]

It did Conan.  But the law doesnt apply if you own the keg.  I own 2 full sized kegs so I do not have to pay the deposit nor have them tracked.  Just trade the keg out and I'm good to go.

Stupid, stupid laws.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Several comments:

One- I really don't give two sh!ts what the BBC thinks of American values.  They constantly rag on America.  C'mon guys, we jacked you out of your colonies 231 years ago- get over it.

Yeah, I guess the BBC people should just sit down and shuddup... and leave the reporting on American values to fine, upstanding journalists like CNN's Nancy Grace... imagine if she'd interviewed Elisa Kelly... [xx(]

Hmmm... I keep being told by conservatives that BBC = anti-American liberal... NYTimes = liberal... Washington Post?  Of course, Liberal.  The German press?  Oh, yeah... they're uber liberal... and the French media?  The answer to that question starts with a big fat freedom-fry hating 'L'!!!

And there's that bastion of liberalism, the Jerusalem Post...  http://blogcentral.jpost.com/index.php?blog_post_id=1195

And of course... we all know that liberals HATE America...   /sarcasm.

The criticism and befuddlement in that article are warranted.  We send kids off to war in Iraq who can't get a beer here... our values change... the biggest reason I support the drinking age at 21 is because of the prospect of teenagers drinking and driving...

Do I think the mother who let 16 year olds drink at her home was at fault? (not unlike a party I remember back when I was a kid in Owasso where the exact same thing happened and NOBODY went to jail for it)... actually, yes.  

But does the punishment fit the crime?  Nope.  Do situations like the one mentioned in the BBC article reflect a puritannical hypocrisy?  Yep.  What I've always liked about watching/reading BBC in particular is their insistence on putting situations like this in some sort of reasonable and historical perspective......

quote:But what Elisa Kelly does know is that she will be here for two-and-a-quarter years.

It is a relatively short sentence compared to the murderers and rapists with whom she paces around the narrow, pit-like courtyard once a day for 10 minutes.

You might argue that Elisa Kelly, who shares her cell with nine other inmates, is lucky, because her original sentence of eight years was slashed to 27 months after a lengthy and costly appeals process which finally hit a dead end when the US Supreme Court refused to hear her case.

quote: This country boasts a multibillion dollar porn industry that dwarfs the GDP of most developing countries.

The evening news is cluttered with adverts for erectile dysfunction: "If your erection lasts for more than six hours consult a physician."

But there were howls of outrage when the singer Janet Jackson allowed her left breast to be exposed in a "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl half-time show in 2004.

A friend of mine was lambasted by an elderly gentleman on a deserted beach in North Carolina for allowing her three-year-old son to roam naked in the sand.

It's always nice to get a third-party's perspective on things, especially for an American soccer fan like me who gets sick of the constant drumbeat of baby-boomer sports reporters who've effectively deified baseball, football and basketball...

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,10488,1671387,00.html

quote:Steven Wells
Thursday December 22, 2005
Guardian Unlimited

The Best Crowd Heckle Ever Award goes to ... American fans at the US v England friendly in Chicago. Not only did they sport T-shirts proclaiming "Tea is for pussies", "Beach Boys kick Beatles' donkey", "Beckham is a Fairy", "FDR can't save you now", "Magna Carta this..." and "We own Man U", but - led by a drummer - they taunted David James for an entire half with: "We Have Dentists!"
Boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
Boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
Boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
Boom boom boom-boom-boom
"We Have Dentists!"
Boom boom boom-boom-boom.

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The Best Misuse of the Word "World" by an American Award was bitterly contested. In fact the judges heard both the New England Patriots and the Boston Red Sox referred to as "world champions" so many times that they began to lose the will to live. Runner-up was Canadian TV programme Global Football Show which - get this - shows Canadian american football and American american football. Woah. But the award goes to ... the Dallas cheerleader who said (and I quote): "The Dallas cheerleaders truly are role models, not just for Texas but for the whole world!" Aye, lass. In the fish-gutting sheds of Grimsby, they speak of little else.

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The Rock Hudson Award for Emphatic, Straightforward and Totally Unquestioned Sportz Heterosexuality goes to ... the NFL flagship show Monday Night Football. Which is as camp as a goose in pink spats. Not only do we get a muscular dude with a neat beard and tight T-shirt in a cowboy hat singing about how much he adores the "bumpin' an' the shovin'" ("I like it! I love it!" he shouts repeatedly) but the half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth and thirty-secondth time adverts are so camp they make the all-male cast production of Evita On Ice look as butch as a mortgage broker making out with a lady. The best ad features a hard-bodied, mean-eyed homeontherangeosexual dude (also wearing a neat beard and a cowboy hat) who, when taunted by a couple of fat, ugly and obviously heterosexual redneck truckers, slaps a rock-hard, foot-long slab of truck engine metal on the table. Causing the porcine breeders to gasp in envy and admiration. No metaphor there, then.

Porcine breeders?!?  Not the kinda stuff you'd read in one of Jay Cronley's columns...

[cannon_fodder]

"Aye, lass. In the fish-gutting sheds of Grimsby, they speak of little else."

Classic.