I was captain sobriety throughout high school and college and even then I knew that we needed more sensible alcohol and drug laws in this country. So much of what I saw was a result of the scarcity of alcohol and marijuana that it created a much higher value on those things than they were actually worth. Kids treat beer like the friggin’ blood of Christ: you can’t, can’t leave any left over at the end of the night—it will go to waste! So any sense of being able to self-regulate their intake, or to actually evaluate the aesthetic (taste, aroma, etc) quality of the beer is secondary to this forbidden “let’s get hammered and make sure to drink it all!” quality of the beer.

If we didn’t have the laws in this country that we do, we wouldn’t have Budweiser or Coors.  If kids weren’t so desperate to get their hand on alcohol—any alcohol—that they had to buy the cheapest, most readily-available crap—then they wouldn’t adjust to the taste of our nasty piss beers in their youth and still think it’s acceptable to drink in their adulthood. I’m not against cheap beer: but it still has to be good and I think a lot of Americans just don’t know this.

Parent of teenager here.

We are headed abroad for a holiday soon.  I told him that he might be able to legally drink in some places that we will visit. He isn’t interested. 

Kids, some as young as 12 or 13, drink heavily out back of our house in the woods, and we see the stupid irresponsible all the time.  The kids have long harvested cans and bottles after binges and benders and made good money on the returns. 

In our own home, we also are free with the samples at meal times, if mom and dad are having beer/wine, then kids get some if they like (usually, they don’t). Younger son likes stout and Trader Joes fizzy saki, and they will both sip a dram of warm saki on a cold night.

When we have massively overdone it at the neighbor’s christmas party, hangovers have been highlighted, not hidden.

Somehow, the boys remain uninterested in drinking for drinking sake.  If they want some, they can ask.  They just don’t.  No forbidden fruit - go with good stuff in moderation, usually with food or social whirl.

I might add that we are not so out there as may be believed - each of our sons has at least two or three friends who frequently visit relatives in Italy and Greece.  They drink wine with dinner like everybody else.

(Which is why the ending where everyone marries their high school sweetheart was so jarring, because it was an unrealistic touch in a generally realistic characterization pattern.)

In all fairness, that’s more a fan-service shout out and storytelling tool.  If the epilogue had Harry married to the cute witch he meets in college, Hermione settles down with a co-worker at the Ministry of Magic, and Ron is on his second divorce, and all this goes entirely unmentioned in the last seven books, you’d have people pissing their britches about the other forty-eight books J.K. Rowling has stashed in her attic that she refuses to publish because she hates her readership.  It would drive the fanbase more nuts than it already is.

Everyone marrying their high school sweethearts gives the books a sense of closure that the readership demands.  Even if it is completely unrealistic in the romantic sense.  I mean, even in the storybook sense, Ron and Hermione and Harry went through new dates every five or six chapters.  :-p I wouldn’t worry too hard about that.

My parents introduced me to drinking—a glass of wine with a special meal, though the wine wasn’t very good.  They never treated it like forbidden fruit, and I was a fairly light drinker in college and up to this point.

What I do wish is that we had urban planning that would enable us to make the driving age higher.  And that in places like Boston, that the mass transit systems would stay open until 30 minutes after the bars closed, rather than stopping before they closed.  We still encourage driving drunk if we make it impossible to get to and from bars without driving.

As a Quebecois, the only visible effect I’ve seen of the USA age 21 limit is throngs of stupid 18-19 year old ‘bro’ teenagers coming up over the border to Montreal to binge drink, then act like jackasses and get into fights with locals.

Whereas up here, most of our teenagers are done with the binge drinking bs by the time they’re 15.

Just out of college here. I lived in the arts house on campus, which involved a lot of drinking and drug use, and because of our nonstandard appearance and parties, we were often targeted by cops for underage drinking who ignored the heavier drinking and drug use of the preppy girls across the way (who were our friends - nothing against them, we just got a lot of flack and they didn’t).

But here’s the thing. Our parties: feminist. We policed our own social gatherings, made sure no one was getting drunk, scared off creeps, and did our best to make sure that women weren’t being date-raped, drugged, or coerced. No one was driving home drunk. There was no violence. It was just college students, letting loose and being…college students.

I’m very concerned that the most recent movie glamorizes the drinking of poisoned mead.  Won’t anybody think of the children?

BlackBloc, we fully intend to take our sons north for their 18th birthdays.  That way, they can enjoy adult environments whether or not they wish to partake.

The other problem with the 21+ drinking age: it has completely destroyed the Boston music scene.  Not so much the rise from 20 to 21, but the enforcement.  I used to sneak into the Rat at 17, no problem - the only people they ever stopped were suburban teens who though they could look older by piling on the makeup.

Treat alcohol like the forbidden fruit, and it acquires an allure that all but guarantees people we say shouldn’t have it will want to get it. It becomes an all-consuming passion because we’ve made it this forbidden thing.

When I was a wee lad, somewhere back in the dark ages, my folks never made a big deal about drinking. If they were having something and we wanted to taste it, they’d let us. And if we liked it enough to want one of our own (which hardly ever happened), they made us one (doubtless nowhere near full-strength). So having a drink was never a big deal when we were in high school or in college. And while I do enjoy going out after class with my fellow students and faculty colleagues now and again, and having some nice wine with a good dinner out, I can also go weeks without ever touching an alcoholic beverage. It’s a pleasure I indulge when I feel like it—and if I don’t, I don’t think about it.

Unless Hogwarts was somehow transported to Iran or the KSA in the current film, or one of the protagonists is also a degenerate alcoholic (none of which I remember from the books), these safety moms might want to focus their concerns and energy elsewhere. Sheesh!

Somehow, the boys remain uninterested in drinking for drinking sake.

Go and figure. Could it be that you’re actually taking an interest in your kids’ lives and parenting by example and demystifying drinking rather than looking to blame everything on the entertainment industry.

Treat alcohol like the forbidden fruit, and it acquires an allure that all but guarantees people we say shouldn’t have it will want to get it. It becomes an all-consuming passion because we’ve made it this forbidden thing.

And this was pointed out over, and over, and over again to idiots like Chafetz who helped saddle us with the stupid 21 y.o.drinking age. How nice that he’s now, ineffectually, repenting. Fuck him.

The idea that banning something might encourage abuse of it is counter intuitive

That’s not counter-intuitive at all. That’s practically a law of nature.

The other problem with the 21+ drinking age: it has completely destroyed the Boston music scene. Not so much the rise from 20 to 21, but the enforcement.

Including the extra-legal enforcement by straight edge fuckheads, I expect?

Boston sXe hardcore has… a reputation.

Long time reader here…great post, Amanda. I haven’t had a chance to see the new Harry Potter film, so I can’t speak to the portrayals of alcohol use in it. But if you (or any of your readers) are interested in learning about the effort to re-think Legal Age 21 and the culture of underage binge drinking in this country, please visit Choose Responsibility at http://www.chooseresponsibility.org/ [CR] .believes in a moderate approach to alcohol education that would actually empower 18-20 year-olds (and their parents) to make mature, reasonable decisions about alcohol. Our current all-or-nothing binge culture isn’t working, and it’s time to consider a change in the law.

John McCardell, the President of [CR], had an essay in the most recent issue of The Atlantic about this very issue. Check it out here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/ideas-drinking

I’d suggest another thing that’s changed dramatically since the 80s, and that’s how TV approaches the subject of drinking.  I remember when characters that weren’t supposed to be derelicts on TV rarely, if ever, drank.

Oddly, in shows before the 1980s, non-derelict TV characters were often portrayed as drinking ... sometimes quite frequently (if not to the point of drunkenness).  The Jeffersons, for example, would always offer guests a drink.  I seem to remember (from watching reruns ... I was born after the 1960s) social drinking being depicted in many 1950s/early 1960s era sitcoms as well.

In general, I find the “oh noes, the moms and teens are drinking” worries from the “everything was so much better in the old days” crowd to be somewhat odd.  Perhaps my stereotype of the 1950s is off, but I thought housewives stereotypically always had a drink whenever they got together and teen drinking wasn’t such a big deal back then.

Totally agree that alcohol should be demystified. My boyfriend tried to raise his daughters (the youngest of whom just turned 21) with that attitude, making wine available for special dinners and teaching them about the aesthetics and traditions involved. It worked. They’re all very responsible with alcohol.

His father was an alcoholic, so he was also up front with them about that issue, too. For example, he has certain rules for himself, like never drinking alone, and he shared those with the girls as well.

He also made it very, very clear that if they were ever in a drinking/driving situation, he would come get them himself or he would pay for a taxi.

It all seems like common sense to me.

Hey, there’s legit value in Coors. Not all good beer is expensive. But yeah, Bud sucks.

So in america you can’t drink ANYWHERE until you’re 21? Wow. Where I come from (England) the legal drinking age is FIVE. It is only illegal for an under 16-18 year-old to drink alcohol **on licenced premises**, anyone over 5 can drink it elsewhere, say, at home. You have to be 18 to buy it. You can drink it at 16 on licenced premises, as long as it is with a meal. I’m always pretty amazed at these US laws. They seem way too harsh.

I’m not trying to imply that Britain doesn’t share some of the problems with binge drinking that the U.S. does.

that’s the understatement of the year.

I can’t drink the stuff. The cheapest American Chug Beer I can drink is Yuengling, and that’s a local chug from Philly. I tried drinking a Rolling Rock once and I couldn’t even get past the neck before I felt nauseous. I was able to keep a Molson down once, but I just can’t do sour american pilsners.

According to Dr. Steve Brule, wine was invented by the Romans for orgies and orgies are not too much fun if no one wants to do it with you.

I’m not sure where the idea of the age for having a drink with a meal in a restaurant being 16 comes from. That’s what Wikipedia has it as, but I’ve always understood it as being 14, and so have all the waiters/waitresses we’ve checked with when we had our kids in tow. Also, it only applies to beer or cider, not to wine or spirits.

In fact, we had to change tables in one place once, as the waitress told us that the table we were sitting at was technically in ‘the bar’ rather than ‘the restaurant’ (same menu on offer in both - this was lunchtime), and so our 14-year-old could only have a beer with his meal if we moved!

Anecdotal evidence only, but both my sister and myself were introduced to alchohol gradually, from a fairly young age, by our parents, and neither of us has ever drunk enough at one time to even have a hangover, or throw up, let alone pass out. I can’t say the same for friends whose parents were more strict.

A lot of the ill effects of being a legal driving age and a legal drinking age would be nullified via better public transport, having agreements with parents to get kids home no questions asked (instead of the alternative of driving home drunk to try to avoid detection of any drinking, or staying in a less than safe situation, etc.), etc.

I do think there is a difference between the glass of table wine with dinner with parents versus getting drunk around friends. Although de-mystifying and changing the scarcity level of alcohol such that we’re only talking tipsy and silly with friends versus alcohol poisoning is important. I say this because I was also raised where alcohol was available in the house and where my parents didn’t bat an eye if I wanted a beer with dinner or whatever, even when I was under 18, much less 21. Not being that interested in a rather chaste glass of wine with parents at 18 is different from not partaking in a couple of shots when at a house party at 19. And with higher stakes. I certainly went through periods wherein I drank to excess. How much of that was influenced through the greater cultural model of “oh my god, guys, we need to drink a lot at this party because we’ll never know when another party and drinking opportunity will occur!”? I don’t know. And how much was nullified by my upbringing, such that I didn’t feel the need to drink EVERY weekend or as much as I possibly could? Don’t know either.

I certainly don’t think the alternative of portraying all alcohol use as the devil is appropriate either.
It is in the same vein as trying to tell all teenagers that they should wait until marriage, after college, to have sex when all around them, in movies to their friends to their parents, people have sex and aren’t in ruins and miserable. While certainly there are plenty of teenagers that are not thrilled about the first circumstances that they had sex and there should be more efforts towards encouraging healthy, educated ideas about sex prior to jumping in, it is just not a realistic goal to say absolutely none for what, at the time, feels like forever.

I too had a problem with the epilogue of Harry Potter, but I kind of accepted the relationships for the reasons that zifnab stated, but the real problem with the end was Hermione becoming an auror, something she had no particular interest or affinity for.  She was meant to be in the wizangot.

My Dad introduced me to responsible drinking by drinking Shandies (half beer, half Sprite) with me from age ~15 up, and full strength beer after I was 17.  One of my fondest memories of my Dad is of walking home from a gathering of his friends, both of us quite buzzed, trying to maintain a dignified front to each other and finally admitting we were both a little unsteady.  It was one of the many little moments of transition to adulthood that happen over the course of your teenage years.  That’s the thing that the moral scolds completely miss - the teenage years are by their very nature transitional.  If you don’t model and encourage responsible behavior appropriate to mature adults you end up mollycoddling kids right up to the edge of adulthood and then abandoning them with only their similarly clueless peers to serve as role models.  You don’t teach someone to swim by throwing them off a boat in the middle of the Atlantic.

In the movie, Our Dear Students are at a Christmas party hosted by a teacher.  They serve champagne.  Nobody makes a big mention of the fact that it’s REAL champagne or that it’s not sparkling grape juice or a Fizzy Lifting Potion.

The Big Three go to the Three Broomsticks and have butterbeer, as they have since the third (?) movie, but no one ever clarifies that butterbeer is BEER or if it’s a ginger beer or rootbeer-type soft drink.

The drinking in these movies will fly over most kids heads.  Unless, of course, their parents are screaming about OMG TEEN DRINKING!!!

The kids are wizards, after all.  They can be dropped from towers and just break a wrist.  Alcohol probably doesn’t affect them the same way either.

Illinois is trying to make a law that makes it illegal to serve your own children alcohol.  Seriously, WTF, Illinois?

Poor Daniel Radcliffe came to NY to do a tour of “Equus”.  He was excited, until he found out the drinking age here and realized he couldn’t go anywhere.  Cause, yeah, TeanAndCrumpets, the national drinking age is 21.  You can vote, enter legal contracts, get married, and die in Iraq serving your country, but you can’t have a beer or a glass of wine.

As a Quebecois, the only visible effect I’ve seen of the USA age 21 limit is throngs of stupid 18-19 year old ‘bro’ teenagers coming up over the border to Montreal to binge drink, then act like jackasses and get into fights with locals.

Whereas up here, most of our teenagers are done with the binge drinking bs by the time they’re 15.

I think that’s a culture thing as much as a law thing, though. The drinking age is 18 in Alberta, too, but you get a lot of 18-year-olds, especially at Universities, who can’t or won’t drink remotely responsibly. Not as bad as in the states, but it’s definitely not just Americans. People are a lot more uptight about underage drinking here than out east.

Another pertinent alcohol issue: I really think that if the US isn’t going to get on the metric bandwagon, they should switch to British imperial. You can’t order a real pint in most bars in the US, and that’s a shame (you also can’t get a real pint in most places on the west coast in Canada for some reason).

I’m not against cheap beer: but it still has to be good and I think a lot of Americans just don’t know this.

Some people just don’t have good taste.  Good quality beer is an acquired taste.  It ranges between sour and bitter, and many people just don’t like it, much like how many people prefer Hershey’s over real chocolate.  American <strike>swill</strike> lager is unoffensive and appeals to the lowest common denominator.

The other problem with the 21+ drinking age: it has completely destroyed the Boston music scene.

I was heavily into music as a teen.  It killed me not to be able to go to shows.

British drinking culture certainly isn’t that healthy: there’s a northern-European weekender culture that encourages nights out on the piss. But the age limit is sensible, and kids generally have their furtive boozing at 16/17 and grow out of the desire to binge by the time they have a couple of years at college or work. (On the other hand, you’ve never seen Friday night partying until you’ve been around the Dutch.)

One thing I did notice: while British students get drunk in the relatively controlled space of their college bars, American students get stoned in their rooms way more than their British counterparts.

And the temperance movement is alive and well in the US—if you look at the NYT’s short-run Proof blog about alcohol and culture, the number of outright prohibitionists who showed up in comments is pretty remarkable. I can understand the emotions involved, because American booze culture contributes to ruined lives, but you’d think that people would have learned from the last time they tried to ban it.

Yeah, my parents introduced alcohol to me pretty early. My dad made beer in the basement, and my brother and I were sampling shot glass sized steins of it when we were four or so. By the time we were twelve we were allowed to have a few sips of single malt Scotch. My parents’ plan was pretty well executed. They tried to instill expensive tastes, so we couldn’t afford to binge on anything we liked.

I think it actually had more to do with them providing reasonable role-model behaviour before we turned 19, though their drinking has gotten heavier over the years.

My daughter is just about three, and wants all the alcohol she sees us drink. Luckily, she doesn’t know the difference between gin and water yet… my parents pour gin for themselves, and water for her in a little shot glass. She loves it. When we go to restaurants, we get margaritas for the adults and a virgin one for her in an identical glass. I think her taste for alcohol is really just a desire to do whatever the adults are doing, so we let her think she’s doing the same.

She’ll get an honest sip of wine at communion in church, and sometimes a sip of beer or a dipped finger of something harder. Overall, I plan on following the same model as my parents. Worked pretty well for me and my brother.

As for the Harry Potter movie, I didn’t even think about the fact that they sat down in the pub for a pint until reading this article. It just seemed so normal to me, probably in part because I’ve been drinking beer for longer than I can remember. I did notice that Hermione drank hers a lot faster and seemed a little tipsy, but I just thought that was cute because she’s normally a lot more straight-laced than the others.

****Some people just don’t have good taste.  Good quality beer is an acquired taste. ****

If it’s an acquired taste, it seems to me that by definition it isn’t good.

All beer is swill.  it’s just an alcohol delivery system.  No one would drink it if it didn’t get them drunk.

keshmeshi—Taste isn’t something inborn, it’s something acquired, and usually things we have primary exposure to become a part of our accepted aesthetics. I’m one of those assholes who buys arugula and fancy cheeses and strives to make local organic meals and only use high-quality ingredients, etc etc. But I myself admit that even though we have amazing homemade mac-and-cheese recipes, every once in a while I reach for the box of Kraft Powdery Cheez Goodness because I practically grew up on it. It’s grandfathered in. I don’t think about the chemical taste, the fact that I’m really just eating half a stick of butter, or the fact that the “Cheez” is in no way shape or form related to actual food. But I don’t care, because when I was younger, I ate it and part of me just accepts it. I can’t even eat the Annie’s—it’s gotta be Kraft if it’s going to be boxed mac n’ cheese.

I really believe that this is why adults drink piss beer—it’s because they drank so much of it when they were teenagers because it was all they could get their hands on (beggars can’t be choosers), that they just accept that it’s what you drink because it’s what they were “weaned” on.

All beer is swill.  it’s just an alcohol delivery system.  No one would drink it if it didn’t get them drunk.

Umm…. no. I quite like the taste, as does my daughter, my wife, my parents, my brother, and several friends. I drink it because it is very refreshing on a hot day, and I like the taste.

My parents had a tendency to portray alcohol as “too much for you to handle.”  I’m sure they were attempting to convey the damage that being drunk does to one’s judgment and reaction times, but they managed, somehow, to hit the same condescending tone as every sexist jackass that ever said/implied “this shop class/power tool/minor car repair job/heavy thing/computer fix is too much for you to manage, little girl/little child/young lady.”  Thus “mastering” alcohol became a measure of adulthood—-I got the (very unintended) message that maturity or strength can be measured by the extent to which you can handle alcohol.

So I took every opportunity I could to “brag” for some time, both before and after I turned 21.  Family dinners where Mom and Dad brought the wine out, or the liquor, I downed all they’d let me have and grabbed for more, and somebody’d tell me I was drinking too much, and I’d take that to mean I hadn’t done well enough, and if somebody’d just fucking LET ME DRINK MORE I’d show them I could . . . well . . . drink more.  Bar, or restaurant serving alcohol?  Three drinks, four drinks, five drinks over dinner, look at me, I can drink four glasses of wine and a whiskey sour!

I don’t know when, precisely, I got over it, or how, but I wish they’d known to communicate that their disdain for how well I was downing booze didn’t mean I wasn’t good enough at it to be considered a real adult.  That “moderation” means acting smartly, not admitting defeat.

Oddly, in shows before the 1980s, non-derelict TV characters were often portrayed as drinking ... sometimes quite frequently (if not to the point of drunkenness).

I’ve just picked up the Banacek series on DVD (1972-73) and everyone is always drinking.  Admittedly the show revolves around the upper social classes (the ones who would own individual things worth millions, which Banacek has to find) so having a well-stocked liquor cabinet isn’t a stretch, but everyone has one, even in offices.  Drunkenness, however, doesn’t get a positive light: if it’s a male character who is tanked, they’re usually belligerent and acting stupid.  If it’s a woman, she’s usually seen as giggly, and acting stupid.

If it’s an acquired taste, it seems to me that by definition it isn’t good.

All beer is swill.  it’s just an alcohol delivery system.  No one would drink it if it didn’t get them drunk.

I think about it like coffee or tea, which are also acquired tastes.  I drink nice tea and nice beer.  I don’t drink coffee because I don’t like it, ditto bad beer.

All beer is swill.  it’s just an alcohol delivery system.  No one would drink it if it didn’t get them drunk.

Comment threads are just a troll delivery system. People wouldn’t comment if it didn’t get them trolled.

Bruce from Missouri, if you don’t like beer you can just drink wine or cocktails or straight liquor.  If you don’t like beer, don’t drink it.  I like beer, but I suppose I am lucky, living in Sacramento where there are at least half a dozen local micro breweries, one within walking distance of my apartment and three more in easy biking range.

Yeah, I tend to drink either for the taste (whiskey) or both for the taste and to get mildly buzzed.

Anyways, I didn’t start drinking until my mid-20s, and I really didn’t miss anything.  But it wouldn’t have been bad at all for me to have the occasional drink at parties.  It’s this culture of binge drinking—really, a culture of binge anything is bad—that’s so awful.

And I didn’t find the high school sweetheart marrying stuff bad at all; given the intensity of their experiences, it made perfect sense to me that the main characters would end up pairing off.  It’s not exactly surprising that one has built up a bond of trust with a person who’s saved your life multiple times (and vice versa) while struggling together to defeat a terrible evil.  Seems like that’s the sort of thing which would translate well into a long-term romantic relationship.

@TeaAndCrumpets
US laws on youthful drinking vary.  It’s an overstatement to say that “in America you can’t drink until you’re 21.”  In some states that’s true, but most states ban the SALE of alcohol to underage customers (and also the sale to over-21 intermediaries who are buying booze for teens) rather than the FURNISHING.
As for Amanda’s post, I agree, but the AMA has found that raising the drinking age to 21 significantly decreased the rate of teens’ dying in car crashes.  Amanda responds that we could achieve the same effect by cracking down on drunk driving, rather than drinking by itself.  But apparently law enforcement isn’t willing to do that work.

I’ve talked about this subject in this comments section before and I feel it necessary to bring it up again:  The ridiculous U.S. drinking age is a part of a pattern that has been going on for a long time with (mostly affluent) parents desiring to extend the “childhood” of their progeny as long as possible.  And it’s never been about protecting the kids.  It has always been about parents milking their status and maintaining control in their kids lives.  About a year ago I was home from work watching GMA and Meredith Viera was interviewing a college health expert.  Meredith was SHOCKED to learn that parents don’t have access to their children’s college health records.  Imagine that!  She was all “But I’m paying for her education!”  The expert reminded her that people over 18 are adults.

As for Amanda’s post, I agree, but the AMA has found that raising the drinking age to 21 significantly decreased the rate of teens’ dying in car crashes.  Amanda responds that we could achieve the same effect by cracking down on drunk driving, rather than drinking by itself.  But apparently law enforcement isn’t willing to do that work.

I don’t trust the AMA as far as I can throw them and, besides, how do we know that the decrease wasn’t due to drunk driving enforcement?  Drunk driving accidents have gone down overall.  Actually all crashes have gone down due to a variety of factors:  Safer roads, anti-lock brakes, etc.

“As for Amanda’s post, I agree, but the AMA has found that raising the drinking age to 21 significantly decreased the rate of teens’ dying in car crashes.”

Yes, they’ve done a very thorough job of documenting correlation.  If only correlation was causation, they’d have an exceptionally good argument.

Especially, as mentioned, given the fact that the rates have gone down equally fast in Canada, and we didn’t raise the drinking age(s).

Illinois is trying to make a law that makes it illegal to serve your own children alcohol.  Seriously, WTF, Illinois?

This may be for the same reason that Connecticut recently made it illegal to be in the same room as an underage drinker: to clamp down on liberal and/or negligent parents who allow high-school parties at their homes.  The (predictable) effect has been staggeringly bad for college students.  University campuses are no longer willing to accept liability for underage drinking, so students naturally drink harder alcohol in greater quantities at less well supervised venues off-campus.

Well, Bruce, I was going to tell you you’re a moron, but I see my point has already been amply made.

....

You’re a moron.

All beer is swill.  it’s just an alcohol delivery system.  No one would drink it if it didn’t get them drunk.

Someone needs to pay a visit to Portland, where I will personally take them on a taste testing trip of the finest beers the Pacific Northwest Has to offer. They are far from swill. Having just been to the Portland Beer Fest this weekend, and sampled many fine brews, you are in for a surprise.

DonnaDiva and preying mantis, I’m with you—I don’t trust the AMA either.  They have never been on the right side of any issue; as we speak, they’re busy fighting health care reform.  But they *did* claim not just correlation but causation.  I mentioned their view not to endorse it but to point out an obstacle to what Amanda recommends: in our country, the medical establishment says it’s Public Health! and Science! to keep the drinking age high.

The purported reason for 21 everywhere was the problems of drinking and driving.

Raising the booze age only made that worse because it all went underground.

Perhaps they should just raise the driving age?
——————————————————————————————————-

I was recently on a business trip in Portland, OR and led an expedition over to the Bridgeport Brewery.  Somebody asked me how long I had been going there.  My answer: since it opened.

Then somebody did the math ... I was 18.  If you loved good beer and, at that time, made the trip out to an odd corner of the city, it didn’t matter how old you were.  It wasn’t the place to go to get drunk.

Unree, the AMA is hardly viewed as a public health institution, at least not on the inside.

They are a Physician’s Union.

My college, during my first year, had an ‘open-door’ policy - the dorm staff wouldn’t report underage drinking, but you were expected to drink with your door open so that if anything went wrong, people trained in dealing with it would be aware that they should help.
For reasons unknown, this policy was abolished my sophomore year (dorm staff were now obligated to report underage drinking and/or confiscate the alcohol). In the three years following that change (I stopped tracking it after that), the rate of hospitalization for alcohol poisoning on campus went up by a factor of 8. Making alcohol use more clandestine increased alcohol abuse by 800%. The idiocy underlying these policies is so obvious that it’s shocking that anyone thinks a drinking age of 21 is a good idea.

Wow… that hit a nerve.  I was just taking a little poke at beer-snobbery, and some people get REALLY bent. You’d almost think they were feeling judged for drinking, which was not my intent. But, anyone who reacted that strongly to my comment might need to take some self-reflection.

I really wasn’t expecting any reaction to my comment, I’m shocked at how personally some people seem to have taken it. I just think that if something is an “acquired taste” that maybe that means it’s not very good. If you didn’t like it the first time, why would you go back for seconds?

I’ve been known to drink a beer or two, or wine or whiskey or whatever, but I don’t drink it because it tastes good.  And I certainly don’t get expensive micro-brews just so I will look cool while drinking.

You may drink beer NOW because it tastes good to you NOW, but that’s not why you drank your first beer. Next, you are going to tell me that people smoke weed for the taste.

And Emmett, you might want to put down that drink until you settle down.

If kids weren’t so desperate to get their hand on alcohol—any alcohol—that they had to buy the cheapest, most readily-available crap—then they wouldn’t adjust to the taste of our nasty piss beers in their youth and still think it’s acceptable to drink in their adulthood. I’m not against cheap beer: but it still has to be good and I think a lot of Americans just don’t know this.

Q: How is American beer like sex by an aquarium?
A: It’s fucking close to water.

I got the impression from the books that butterbeer was, in fact, very mild, to the point where the wizarding world didn’t think it actually constituted an alcoholic beverage (they started letting kids drink it when they were thirteen, after all, even though stronger drinks were prohibited). The kids in Harry Potter weren’t drinking much at all, really.

As for Amanda’s post, I agree, but the AMA has found that raising the drinking age to 21 significantly decreased the rate of teens’ dying in car crashes.

Drunk driving went down for all age groups, so I’m skeptical that the correlation is causation.

Even if car crash drunks went down, how much did alcohol poisoning go up?

You may drink beer NOW because it tastes good to you NOW, but that’s not why you drank your first beer.

Actually, I didn’t like my first sips of beer because they were shit beer.  I did, however, finish my first Guiness.

The willingness of the NY Times to indulge hysteria about even mild amounts of alcohol use goes right back up to what I’ve been saying about how “health” is a cover for people to get self-righteous about a whole host of things, including weight and sexual behavior.  It’s ridiculous.

Here in WI, the law is that people under 21 (and I’m guessing over a certain age) can order drinks if they’re with their parents. Thoroughly reasonable, if you ask me. Also very useful when your whole family just left a dry, boring wedding and headed to a bar and even though you’re 22 you forgot your ID…

RE the proposed law in IL to prevent parents from buying their kids alcohol. I don’t know about that specific proposal, but when that’s been discussed here, the reasoning has been that it would prevent parents from enabeling house parties. Those parents have skipped over the “wine with dinner” phase and gone straight to “Well, if I buy them a keg, at least I know where my son/daughter is passed out.” Problem is, a lot of those kids still leave those parties and pass out in a snowbank, because they’re still doing something “forbidden” by their own parents.

My own extended family has a long history with alcoholism, so we learned early on that it was something to be respected and moderated. I didn’t drink until I got to college; my sister had a fake ID in high school, but said she used it mostly to get into 21+ shows. Everyone I’ve ever known who abstained from drinking until they were 21 spent all of their 21st year drinking too much.

As for Amanda’s post, I agree, but the AMA has found that raising the drinking age to 21 significantly decreased the rate of teens’ dying in car crashes.

Another explanation may be the changes in law governing drivers licenses.  High licensing ages and graduated licenses mean that many teenagers can’t legally drive, so there will as a result be fewer accidents and deaths.  Wikipedia says:
“In the past decade, fewer teenagers are getting driver’s licenses. According to a December 2, 2004 Los Angeles Times article, only 43% of American 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds had licenses in 2002. By comparison, the percentage in 1982 was 52%. The rate is even lower in some states (e.g., 9% in Missouri). The decrease in percentages are said to be due to the many restrictions that an average teen must face overall in order to obtain the licenses.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver’s_license_in_the_United_States

Amanda, I would add “safety” to that pile too - be it allowing kids some freedom to move or be unsupervised at home, or wearing “safe” clothing that won’t tempt men to rape.

The public health community raises their kids a bit differently, and it is hard to join in the moral panic when you have colleagues in BC, Montreal, Amsterdam, Paris, Rio, etc. who have kids of similar age to your own.  We compare notes.

I’m pretty sure it’s established that butterbeer is either alcohol-free or extremely low alcohol.  It’s definitely considered a children’s drink.  House elves can get drunk from it, but humans can’t.

Bruce, do you really never enjoy the taste of a wine or beer?  You really only choke it down to get drunk?  That’s messed up, man.  Why bother?

Snowmentality, some of these people would get worked up over our serving our kids sparkling cider in stemware on special occasions or when they drink microbrewed rootbeer out of bottles or mugs when we drink real beer while eating at a pub.  We are “training them to drink” you see!  Evile!

Well, yes, we are training them to drink - responsibly!

“You may drink beer NOW because it tastes good to you NOW, but that’s not why you drank your first beer.”

I say this as someone who can sympathize with people who don’t like beer in general and are unwilling to sample or choke down umpteen thousand brews and variants they hate just to find one they do like:

Oh, fuck you.  Just because you don’t like something, or have never found a type of that something that you do like, doesn’t make you any kind of accurate judge of the rest of the population’s preferences or the formations thereof.

There was one sensible thing about making the US drinking age 21 across the board: it cut down on what MADD called “blood borders,” the problems that occurred when adjacent states had different ages, so younger residents of the state with the higher drinking age would drive to the one where they were legal, drink, and then DRIVE HOME. If the drinking age gets lowered to 18 (which I find eminently reasonable), it had better be across the board instead of piecemeal, or that problem is going to crop up again, no matter how much education about designated drivers is out there.

I liked my first beer.  It was a Sam Adams.

This may be for the same reason that Connecticut recently made it illegal to be in the same room as an underage drinker: to clamp down on liberal and/or negligent parents who allow high-school parties at their homes.  The (predictable) effect has been staggeringly bad for college students.  University campuses are no longer willing to accept liability for underage drinking, so students naturally drink harder alcohol in greater quantities at less well supervised venues off-campus.

And it is mentalities like this which contributes to the drink-all-you-can mentality I’ve seen on so many college campuses from the time I was an undergrad visiting several university campuses to the present. 

As for my case, my parents had me try beer and wine as young as 11 though I really didn’t care for the taste at the time. 

Moreover, I actively avoided drinking alcoholic beverages during undergrad because the people who most commonly got themselves drunk in high school and on various college campuses tended to be upper/upper-middle class frat/sorority types who had far more parent-provided money than good sense, intellect, or even the sense they inhabited the same plane of existence as the rest of us did. 

During that period, I strongly associated drinking alcohol with those whose priorities were frittering their parents’ money away, being loud demanding brats to their parents (i.e. Shouting demands for more stunning sums of money from parents over the phone.), literally partying all the time and getting blitheringly drunk, having the entitlement complex to demand classnotes from others for classes they skipped or were too inebriated to stay awake in because of said partying*, and being inconsiderate jackasses to others in the process…..something which severely dampened my inclinations to imbibe. 

It was only after working for a while that I started to drink even on a social basis.  The fact I enjoyed it in much more friendly considerate company was a big part of this. 

* Experience of several high school classmates who attended Ivy/Ivy-level universities across the US.

I liked my first beer, or so I’m told. I was four, and my father brewed it in the basement. My daughter has been after beer since she was less than a year old. She finally got a sip when she was two (ish), and she still wants more. I’d say she likes it (she doesn’t generally get more than an infrequent sip of mine).

Bruce, it drew a strong reaction because you were saying a drink that many of us enjoy the taste of was swill. Across the board, all of it, swill. I happen to like it. For the taste. I like wine, also because I like the taste. Above all, I like whiskey. For the taste. Alcohol is nice too, but I don’t drink it to get drunk, I don’t drink it in spite of the taste… I drink it because I like the taste AND I like the effects.

Then, in a follow up post where you’re apparently trying to calm things down, you throw out lines like this:

And I certainly don’t get expensive micro-brews just so I will look cool while drinking.

You know what? I don’t drink microbrews to look cool while drinking either. And a hearty fuck you for implying that’s the only reason to do so. I drink microbrews because they taste better and have less additives. My father drinks them because if he drinks beer from the big breweries, he gets terrible headaches, every time. Not so if he drinks the microbrews.

Might want to avoid such sweeping statements about why other people might drink something you don’t like.

I liked my first beer.  It was a Sam Adams.

Lucky. I had to stick to sneaking Pabst from my Dad’s beer fridge! I was 15.

And somehow I didn’t turn into a raging alcoholic. The biggest binge drinkers in college I knew were people from a Southern Baptist, Mormon, and Muslim background in that order. They’re also the cultures that forbid it strongly. No surprise!

BTW, there’s nothing wrong with Pabst or Miller High Life if you’re in the South, in July, and its 95+ degrees. In fact, it’s much better than a microbrew then!

But screw Budweiser and Coors, its never good unless you’re completely wasted already.

As far as I was reading, Butterbeer was the Wizarding world’s version of Root Beer—ie, just cuz it’s got the “beer” in the name, don’t make it beer.

the problems that occurred when adjacent states had different ages, so younger residents of the state with the higher drinking age would drive to the one where they were legal, drink, and then DRIVE HOME.

Just imagine the sexual complications in the Oklahoma of my youth, where for a time the drinking age was 18 for girls, 21 for guys.  How is that even constitutional, you might ask?  Well, it turned out it wasn’t, according to the US Supreme Court.  But it made for wierd situations while it lasted.

Butter beer, by the way, is not fictional—it was very popular several hundred years ago.  Ale, diluted with butter and sugar . . .

Ale, diluted with butter and sugar . . .

Sounds like their version of an Alcapop type drink.

****Bruce, do you really never enjoy the taste of a wine or beer?  You really only choke it down to get drunk?  That’s messed up, man.  Why bother? ****

That’s why I rarely drink. But, I have no moral objection to people doing it. I just don’t know anyone who drank their first drink of any kind for any other reason than to get drunk. And I don’t get the concept of acquiring a taste.

Personally, if I want to get drunk, I tend towards Amaretto sours or other sweet mixed drinks. But, if am catching a concert at a nightclub, and I want to get a little lit, I’ll get the Rolling Rock for a dollar, rather than something four times as expensive. Trust me, most people drink what they drink because it’s cheap, not because they have any great love for the taste. The “one beer with my meal because I like it for the flavor” people are a vanishing minority. I’m from St. Louis…most people drink Busch, Bud Light or Natural Light.  They don’t drink any of those for the taste.

****Then, in a follow up post where you’re apparently trying to calm things down, you throw out lines like this:

  And I certainly don’t get expensive micro-brews just so I will look cool while drinking. ****

Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Around here, Microbrew drinkers tend to be annoying snobby “hipsters”, and I can’t resist the occasional jab. I’m still surprised by the vehemence of some peoples reactions. If someone mocked my drinking habits, I’d just raise a glass and laugh with you.

>backing slowly away from Mathew<

As far as the original point of the post, prohibition is obviously an epic failure. Anytime you make it forbidden fruit, of course kids will take a bite out of that apple at the first opportunity. And the whole Harry Potter controversy just makes me want to tell people to get a grip.

This may be for the same reason that Connecticut recently made it illegal to be in the same room as an underage drinker: to clamp down on liberal and/or negligent parents who allow high-school parties at their homes.

So the kids are still going to drink but now with the benefit of being completely unsupervised.

Nice one, Connecticut.

and die in Iraq serving your country

This is the one that really gets me.  When I turned 18, I was required to go down to the post-office and submit my name to the government, so that they could kidnap me, hand me a gun, and send me overseas to murder other people’s children.  And I couldn’t have a fucking beer after I’d spilled blood for the Military Industrial Complex?  Fuck that.  Thankfully, we haven’t actually drafted anybody in my memory, but still, that really pissed me off, and still does many many years later.

Bruce, this might shock you, but even those “annoying snobby hipsters” that you despise so much don’t base all of their choices around looking cool, including their drinking habits. They could, after all, be just as cool by drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon (a pale and impuissant brew whose principal claim to quality is that it is “better than Coors”) whilst saving money.

In short, get the fuck over yourself. Your cocky attitude and statements like (paraphrased), “If you mocked my drinking habits I would laugh, so why are you getting so stupid and offended when I call you stupid?” only makes you even more of a dick. I mean, we get it - you’re clever and irreverent and you know better than to get upset when people make fun of you, unlike all the idiots who are upset because you’re making fun of them. Because everyone else would totally be mocking you and your habits if you hadn’t started things off with the first burst of dickery. We can only admire your clever, handsome, good-natured, asshole self.

If someone mocked my drinking habits, I’d just raise a glass and laugh with you.

Or, to more succinctly summarize my point: no one mocked your drinking habits, no one here would have dreamed of mocking your drinking habits, and claiming (in a complete absence of evidence) that you would tolerate someone being a dick to you is no excuse for you to be such a dick to anyone else.

I assume that Butterbeer is essentially a shandy/gingerbeer equivalent, a low-alcohol soft drink.

Re. not liking things the first time, olives, anchovies, blue stilton, all need getting used to. Should we never try. And if women who didn’t have a great time the first time they had sex had never tried it again, the human race would have died out years ago.

I didn’t like my first alcolic drinks - they were beer and rum and coke. Over a decade later, I dislike both coke and beer. But I like wine and and whisky. Should I never have tried wine because I disliked the taste of something that tastes completely different?

Ben D. and Stogoe: Pabst Blue Ribbon is my favorite American beer.  I grew up in England on British bitter and East European pilsner, and I’ve never found a “microbrew” I could finish (not for want of trying, either).  PBR has a certain special something. 

Bruce: People are yelling at you because you are a philistine on an intellectual blog.  Humans are not born with a taste for the poetry of Milton and Shakespeare, but we cultivate that taste in ourselves because our elders and betters assure us it’s worth the effort.  And so it is, just as it is worthwhile to develop a taste for all sorts of other things that don’t come naturally - for fine art, for foreign cuisines and, yes, for good beer.

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand grow cold,
But belly God send you good ale enough,
Whether it be young or old!

This only makes the Harry Potter books seem even better to me.  If I have children, I will buy them all of these books.  I will raise my children the same why my parents raised me.  The first time I drank was on vacation in Europe when I was 13.  I was with my parents and they were drinking too.  They said it was fine because it’s a special occasion and we had a bus driver for our tour group who was not drinking, so we would be safe.  When it came to drugs, my mom said that if I use any, I should do it at the house with her around and I could even invite my friends.  I have never even wanted to do drugs and I rarely drink because it has never been forbidden.  My mom offered to get me birth control pills before I even started thinking about sex, which is the most effective time to do it (I actually started using them to delay my period for a vacation and I’ve taken them ever since).  So even though I’ve had lots of sex and even a few broken condoms, I’ve never even had a pregnancy scare.

Our society should encourage responsible behavior instead of just banning anything that might get out of control.  Forbidding 18-20 year-olds from drinking is simply discrimination.  If they can vote, go to war, pay taxes, smoke, and buy porn, they should be allowed to drink.  While we’re at it, I think we should lower the voting age to 16.

Talk about “forbidden fruit”: when Coors was impossible to get in certain parts of the country, lots of beer snobs went to great lengths to acquire it.  Now that it’s widely available it’s considered swill by the discerning beer drinker, I guess.

Unsurprisingly, sales of mid-range bad American beer are falling as a result of the Depression, as people switch from Budweiser and Miller to cheaper off-brands like Busch and Natty Light.  I wonder how sales of beers with flavor are doing?  Bruce is right about one thing: a lot of people drink premium beers for the status, not just for the taste.  It would be sort of interesting to analyze the extent of that behavior.

****Or, to more succinctly summarize my point: no one mocked your drinking habits, no one here would have dreamed of mocking your drinking habits, and claiming (in a complete absence of evidence) that you would tolerate someone being a dick to you is no excuse for you to be such a dick to anyone else****

I was responding to this…where someone certainly did insult my drinking habits, and the habits of millions of others. And really, can we be a little careful about gendered insults in a conversation that has nothing to do with gender?

*****Some people just don’t have good taste.  Good quality beer is an acquired taste.  It ranges between sour and bitter, and many people just don’t like it, much like how many people prefer Hershey’s over real chocolate.  American swill lager is unoffensive and appeals to the lowest common denominator. *****

Which is definitely taking a shot at people’s tastes, in both beer and chocolate. I thumbed my nose at that idea, and the fur started flying. I see it all the time here, people making snobby pronouncements about beer and food.  “Lowest common denominator”, please… If that isn’t an insult, I don’t know what is.

I lobbed a mild insult back over the net, and all the beer and wine snobs freaked. Gimme a break. I’m laughing my ass off. And I’ve got to say it’s seems to be a very easy beehive to provoke, probably because you aren’t used to being called on your snobbery. So I am doing my civic duty and calling you on it. Us working class leftists have had to get used to about having our tastes sneered at by you guys, so suck it up when it comes back your direction.

Don’t tell us that our tastes are crap, and maybe I won’t call you a snob. But if you judge our tastes, don’t be surprised when it comes back at you.

****And so it is, just as it is worthwhile to develop a taste for all sorts of other things that don’t come naturally - for fine art, for foreign cuisines and, yes, for good beer. ****

Well, two out of three ain’t bad. And anyone who thinks I am a philistine is sadly misinformed. My intellect is better than most, thank you very much. I read Shakespeare, but I don’t sneer at people who read Harry Potter—I do it myself. I eat foreign food all the time, but I don’t sneer at people who just want a steak or burger.  Some people are obviously REALLY sensitive about having that pointed out.

Ben D. and Stogoe: Pabst Blue Ribbon is my favorite American beer.  I grew up in England on British bitter and East European pilsner, and I’ve never found a “microbrew” I could finish (not for want of trying, either).  PBR has a certain special something.

It is great when it is 95+ degrees outside on the front porch. Same with Miller High Life. Those are the most widely available real “old style” American beers. Something completey different from light beer, which only has its place at a frat party or when you’re on South Beach, I guess.

Bruce, Pilsner (aka “Vitamin P”) is hipper than microbrews anyways. Also, being a huge troll then saying “gee, people are sure reacting strongly” is a douchey move. When you insult people, it’s not magically calmer and more reasonable than when they insult you back. You’re full of yourself.

I was responding to this…where someone certainly did insult my drinking habits, and the habits of millions of others. And really, can we be a little careful about gendered insults in a conversation that has nothing to do with gender?

What was said was not exactly diplomatic, but give me a break. What if that statement had been made about coffee? High-quality beer (and yes, American light pilsner beers are of low-quality) has a lot of flavor to it, and a lot of people never develop good taste in beer. A lot of people don’t like it all. Guess what? I don’t give a shit. I do recall that post saying that American beer “appealed” to the lowest common denominator. And you said that beer has no appeal at all, and anyone who says they drink for the taste is a liar. Okay.

Which is definitely taking a shot at people’s tastes, in both beer and chocolate. I thumbed my nose at that idea, and the fur started flying. I see it all the time here, people making snobby pronouncements about beer and food.  “Lowest common denominator”, please… If that isn’t an insult, I don’t know what is.

Sorry, you don’t get to hide behind the idea that liking good food and beer is “snobby,” and therefore by definition insulting. I don’t like cheese and microbrews because it pisses you off, and I don’t disparage crappy cheese and beer because it pisses you off. I disparage it because I don’t like it. I also disparage Bjork’s music, because I don’t like it. Personally, if you like it, good for you. Saying that something is disgusting is not a personal comment on your preferences. Though, frankly, if your idea of a delicious meal is Kraft Mac & Cheese or a hotdog* on a fluffy white bun washed down with a can of Bud, well, you’re really missing out on a lot.

I lobbed a mild insult back over the net, and all the beer and wine snobs freaked. Gimme a break. I’m laughing my ass off. And I’ve got to say it’s seems to be a very easy beehive to provoke, probably because you aren’t used to being called on your snobbery. So I am doing my civic duty and calling you on it. Us working class leftists have had to get used to about having our tastes sneered at by you guys, so suck it up when it comes back your direction.

Ah yes, the bullshit claim that saying that Hershey’s chocolate is shit (it is) is an attack on your class, and that anyone who likes high-quality chocolate or beer MUST be a bourgeois middle or upper-class effete snob with their nose in the air about your poor working class leftists. Holy shit. There is no doubt that access to better food is a class issue, but the eating and drinking of shit food and drink knows no class boundaries. You remind me of all the asshole upper-middle class Republicans getting all worked up about how elitist Obama was for daring to eat arugula. It’s a fallacy. There are plenty of people with more money than me with far worse taste. To the extent that your “working class tastes” are being sneered at by your middle-class co-idealogues, it’s in your imagination.

Don’t tell us that our tastes are crap, and maybe I won’t call you a snob. But if you judge our tastes, don’t be surprised when it comes back at you.

Your tastes were not judged, one undiplomatic comment about Hershey’s chocolate and mainstream American beer notwithstanding - apparently you are pretty defensive about your tastes, which somewhat belies your claim that you would be laughing along anyone who made fun of them. After all, were that true it would seem a little bit extreme go on the attack by calling anyone who likes good beer and drinks for some reason other than getting drunk a bourgeois snob. Like I said, I could give a rat’s ass about what you eat. Preferring food that, you know, doesn’t taste like shit doesn’t make me or anyone else a snob.

*I actually love hot dogs, but there’s no denying that they are disgusting and don’t have much to offer in terms of interesting flavors.

People are yelling at you because you are a philistine on an intellectual blog.  Humans are not born with a taste for the poetry of Milton and Shakespeare, but we cultivate that taste in ourselves because our elders and betters assure us it’s worth the effort.  And so it is, just as it is worthwhile to develop a taste for all sorts of other things that don’t come naturally - for fine art, for foreign cuisines and, yes, for good beer.
BABH  on 07/28 at 04:27 PM

^This is satire, yes?

Bruce: I apologize if I came across as sneering when I wrote: “Pabst Blue Ribbon is my favorite American beer.”  I also apologize on behalf of all the people who dissed Harry Potter on this thread (none, as best I recall).

Also forgive me for misinterpreting you when you wrote: “If it’s an acquired taste, it seems to me that by definition it isn’t good” and “I just think that if something is an “acquired taste” that maybe that means it’s not very good. If you didn’t like it the first time, why would you go back for seconds?”  It struck me that these were stupid comments, made off the cuff and without really thinking about them.  But I see now that they were carefully considered, and very smart, and that you’re not behaving at all irrationally and defensively for being called out on them.

Again, you are right to say that many people consume toney products (including Shakespeare) for the status value, rather than because they actually enjoy them in and of themselves.  But you fail to allow for the possibility that some people actually do enjoy the things they claim to enjoy.  That makes you an asshole (non-gendered enough for you?), at least on this issue.

read Shakespeare, but I don’t sneer at people who read Harry Potter—I do it myself. I eat foreign food all the time, but I don’t sneer at people who just want a steak or burger.  Some people are obviously REALLY sensitive about having that pointed out.

You are so full of shit. There’s no sneering at Harry Potter, steaks or burgers around here. I also should point out that the regular commenters here come from a pretty diverse array of class backgrounds. This is either all in your head or you’re a giant douchey troll. The jury is still out.

At my university, officials are hardassed on underage drinking (if someone gets caught by the LCBO, they’ll lose their license to serve anyone . . . for five years). What this has led to is raucous house parties two steps off campus that bring the bylaw police around and annoy the neighbors. I honestly think Ontario’s legal age of 19 is too high (but then I’m 17 . . . and no one invites me to drink with them ). The complaints about Harry Potter sound like people complaining that dinner scenes in family movies show adults drinking red wine. Unclench your sphincters!

This is satire, yes?
mir on 07/28 at 05:14 PM

No, but maybe a little hyperbolic. 

Brewing, not unlike writing or painting, is a craft.  In the ordinary run of things, it serves a mundane purpose in a more-or-less utilitarian way.  Just as writing allows people to store and transmit information, beer helps people without a germ theory of disease stay hydrated without developing dysentery.  In the modern world, it helps people get drunk.  But when crafts are culturally important and practiced at a high level, they can rise to the level of art.

This doesn’t really happen with beer in the U.S. - beer just isn’t central to the culture in the way that it still is in Europe.  Perhaps the best analogy is to brewing’s cousin, baking: in the U.S., both are crafts.  But in Paris and Vienna, you can talk seriously about the art of baking, just as in London and Munich you can talk about the art of brewing.

***and anyone who says they drink for the taste is a liar. Okay. ***

Never said that. People certainly are capable of acquiring a taste for something, including “swill”.

**But you fail to allow for the possibility that some people actually do enjoy the things they claim to enjoy.  That makes you an asshole (non-gendered enough for you?), at least on this issue.***

I never denied that anyone enjoyed anything. I just said that they look down on people who enjoy other things. I have no problem with Arugula or anything else, I eat “good food” myself from time to time but a lot of people do seem to look down on people who don’t share those tastes.

And thank you, for the non-gendered insult—-Seriously, gendered insults have no place on a feminist blog.

I was just amused at how some people really blew up, assuming I said things that I didn’t say, at a 3 line comment I honestly expected would be ignored.

I still don’t see why what I said about acquired tastes is so controversial. If I go to a restaurant, and I don’t like my dinner, I order something else the next time. I don’t order it again and again until I like it.  If you liked your beer the first time, it was obviously not an acquired taste for you.  It is for most people however. And most people acquire that taste because it’s a socially popular alcohol delivery system.

Bored now.

In England kids can drink at home from the age of 5. That said, as a culture we rarely let the kids drink that young. We are still behind the continentals who have a culture of starting the kids off young.

In France kids will be served wine and water at the table. They are expected to drink wine diluted as they grow up, which is great training for when they can have it neat. I don’t believe they have the binge drinking problems we have in the UK.

Interestingly, I’ve found it easier, as I grow older, to dilute my wine. Takes the body out of it to make it more tolerable and prevents me from becoming dehydrated.

It’s worth noting that ‘small beer’ was a dilute beer drunk by adults and children as far back as the medieval era. At a time when the water supply was suspect, a cheap low-alcohol beverage made from boiled water was prized. This was also the beer served to soldier as rations.

I find it funny that Bruce, the Ultimate Working Class Leftist, is pissing on *beer*, of all things. If there’s *one* beverage where acquiring some amount of discerning taste is a part of working class culture, it’s beer, for fuck’s sake. Actual bourgeois fucks still think that drinking beer, even imported or microbrews, is slumming it and being all declasse and subversive. They’re not out there trying to make microbrew sound cool. They think even microbrew is what the proles drink.

Sure if you want to get roaring drunk you still go for the cheap stuff, but if you’re just getting a pint with friends it’s usually Guiness or some local brew, at least in Montreal. Unless our blue collar workers are just so much more sofisticamated than the American ones? I highly doubt it.

Bored now.

Well, it’s your own fault.

I made a decision long ago that I would not drink cheap beer. Cheap beer tastes like piss. I am prepared to pay extra for the flavour and a beverage that will not burn ulcers into my stomach.

I have such mixed feelings about lowering the drinking age.  I agree it’s a terrible law for all the reasons covered here; and yet, as an instructor at the #4 party school, I shudder to think what would happen if the age was lowered overnight.  The 18-to-21 crowd, with their screwed-up ideas about drinking (scarcity mentality, forbidden fruit, etc.) and with sudden, unchecked access to alcohol, would lose their fucking shit.  If the age were to be lowered, the government would need take some serious steps to guide teenagers—and their parents—through the process.

Every semester I get two or three freshmen wanting to write papers arguing for lowering the drinking age.  Most of their arguments are not rhetorically sound, i.e., “but they can do it in FRANCE!” (yeah, well, they don’t go batshit about drinking over there like we do) or “but I’m legally old enough to serve in the military!” (well, maybe that age should be raised, too).  I still recall the one A I gave out on that topic, though—a student who carefully laid out a plan for educational and social programs that would help parents introduce alcohol in the home and foster responsible attitudes towards drinking from a young age.  I worry that, without those measures, lowering the age won’t help anything—it’ll just push the scarcity mentality to a slightly lower age group.

This is satire, yes?
mir on 07/28 at 05:14 PM

No, but maybe a little hyperbolic. 

This doesn’t really happen with beer in the U.S. - beer just isn’t central to the culture in the way that it still is in Europe.  Perhaps the best analogy is to brewing’s cousin, baking: in the U.S., both are crafts.  But in Paris and Vienna, you can talk seriously about the art of baking, just as in London and Munich you can talk about the art of brewing.

BABH on 07/28 at 05:36 PM

Sure, I get the love-of-the-craft thing, and things made tenderly, and with care, are usually better in quality, in my experience. *All* beer tastes just like pee to me, so I don’t have a dog in that particular fight. It was the philistine v. intellectual that stopped me, and the “elders and betters” that made me laugh. At you.

Yeah, like rationality, evidence and common sense will ever have anything to do with American laws on fun things that you put in your body.  Right.

I still don’t see why what I said about acquired tastes is so controversial.

Bruce: I’m not sure it’s so controversial - it’s probably just me with a bee in my bonnet. 

I didn’t like sushi the first, second or third time I tried it.  I’m very glad I stuck it out.  Thanks to an excellent new restaurant in town, I can now get a transporting aesthetic experience at lunchtime for $8 plus tip.  (Of course, I used to be able to get a culinary hard-on for $2.30, but that world class greasy-spoon closed.)

You’ve really never made an effort to enjoy something, or to find out why others enjoy it?  Maybe you just don’t care much for food and drink.  That’s fine, lots of people could care less.  But don’t assume everyone is as indifferent as you to gastronomy.  If you really want to know what the fuss is about, try Brillat-Savarin, The Oyster of Locmariaquer or, since we’re talking about beer, Beer and Philosophy.

But my broader point about acquired tastes extends to things that are actually important - like a taste for literature or a taste for political activism.  You say you read Shakespeare, can I assume you enjoy Shakespeare?  Do Macbeth’s soliloquies give you the chills, does Sonnet 130 make you laugh out loud?  Was this true the very first time you read them, or did you in fact have to work at acquiring a taste for it?  Have you ever gone door-to-door for a political issue or campaign?  Again, did you enjoy it the first time?

Everyone else: Sorry for the rant.  I’m waiting for an important phone call and trying to distract myself.

It was the philistine v. intellectual that stopped me, and the “elders and betters” that made me laugh. At you.

Thanks mir!  You just made me laugh at me, too!  (Though it was supposed to come off a little pompous and condescending.  I may have overdone it.)

I normally hate the taste of beer/liquor and pretty much only drink it to catch a buzz. PBR and Bud Light are the usual drinks because they’re basically water that gets you drunk, but sweet fanciful Christ, whenever I’m thirsty at all lately, I get a craving for UFO Rasberry. I could drink that stuff any time of day whether I’m trying to get drunk or not (nice bonus thought).

So the kids are still going to drink but now with the benefit of being completely unsupervised.

Nice one, Connecticut.

I kinda want to punch everyone in the General Assembly who voted for that and lets their teenage kid/grandkid drink at a wedding/birthday party/holiday.

When I was 12, I had to take an alcoholism quiz in the school’s health class. According to it, I was at high risk—on the basis of one answer, based on having even a sip of alcohol.
My parents offered my brother and I small amounts of their beer or wine when they drank. I thought beer tasted nasty except for one my dad got in a gift package that tasted faintly of oranges. Red wine was tolerable, as a point of interest with spaghetti sauce. This very European version of responsible introduction to alcohol had an interesting effect.

My brother and I grew up seeing alcohol as completely devoid of mystery, and thought getting stupid on it would be awful. My brother is a tee-totaler. I have about half a serving or less when I do drink, because I like some flavors, and want the health benefits of wine, but never drank enough to raise my tolerance levels, and get embarrassingly giggly at about 2/3rds of a serving. Sometimes I like the giggly, but only if I’m sure of my situation.

“I just said that they look down on people who enjoy other things.”

Which attitude was only to be found when you got all defensive and went digging. There’s a difference between expressing an opinion, like, “American beer is swill,” and saying “People who drink American beer are poor, stupid bastards.” Even to say that American beer is marketed to a lowest common denominator, while not the politic way to say it, is essentially a statement of fact, not of judgment upon the people who drink the stuff. I’ll get a pitcher of whatever’s cheapest down at the local watering hold with my friends from time to time. Because it’s lowest common denominator swill, and it’s cheap.

BABH, while brewing is not part of the culture in the United States the way it historically has been in Europe, I don’t think that it’s very accurate to say that brewing does not or cannot have the status of art in the U.S. In fact, the explosion of craft and microbrewing in the U.S. in the last 20 years really belies that. It’s definitely a regional thing - craft brewing and beer culture is best developed in the Northeast, Northwest and Great Lakes (Minneapolis has a good scene) and is catching on slower in other parts of the country, but it’s definitely there. And yes, at least where I’m from, the working class folks will chug down a Bud or a Coors when they just want something cold or to get a buzz, but for the most part, the fact that good microbrewed beer tastes better is widely accepted. It doesn’t have to be anything obscure - just look at the popularity of Sam Adams.

***You’ve really never made an effort to enjoy something, or to find out why others enjoy it?  Maybe you just don’t care much for food and drink.  That’s fine, lots of people could care less.  But don’t assume everyone is as indifferent as you to gastronomy.  If you really want to know what the fuss is about, try Brillat-Savarin, The Oyster of Locmariaquer or, since we’re talking about beer, Beer and Philosophy. ***

OK, I’m going to let myself get drawn back in, BABH…cause you seem like a decent guy, beyond the phrasing in your first comment.  I love food, which you could tell if you looked at me :( . I love a great curry, any number of cuisines (although sushi is still meh to me). But at the same time, I can get just as much enjoyment out of throwing half a pound of ground chuck and a chopped up onion on the skillet. just because it doesn’t have the same cachet does not mean it is not every bit as good.

I gotta admit that I don’t personally get the drink thing. I’ve tried enough drinks in my 43 years to have pretty much figured out that unless I want to get drunk, there is very little reason for me to drink.  To me, all beer is bear piss, and typically, to me, the more high end the beer, the more it tastes like bear piss to me. If you like it don’t let me stop you.

I might read Shakespeare one day, and get just as much enjoyment out of a Janet Evanovich novel the next day. As far as Shakespeare goes, I enjoyed the plays the first time, but I guess as far as the sonnets go, and poetry in general, well, I guess call me a philistine.

High art is great, but their is nothing wrong with comfort food, whether it be (metaphorically) food, literature or drink. Maybe not particularly in this thread, but in general in these comment threads over the years I’ve picked up quite a bit of disdain for that metaphoric comfort food and the people who like it. It’s kind of the food and drink version of people who don’t like any artist that sells more than 5 copies of their record. So, after 6 years of that, I finally lobbed a spitwad, and three or four people reacted with mortar fire and machine guns.

Sex, blasphemy, alcohol, libertarianism—all so much attractive to adolescents because some set of people lose their sh*t about them.

I was 7 or 8 when I had my first taste of wine. It was sour. (By the time I was 14 I could tell the difference between Rhein and Mosel, but the funny thing about learning to drink from winetasting is that you see a bunch of adults having fun while minimizing consumption.)

In college, I got to watch the scarcity thing happen in a very clear way—during my freshman year, social organizations had parties where they could sell drinks one by one, but the next year the city cracked down and forced them to charge a cover instead. Of course everyone had to have at least as many drinks as the cover would have bought them the year before. What’s sad is that the current partial prohibition leaves most people’s drinking habits set in stone by the time they’re legal, but having to drink clandestinely pretty much makes impossible all the social rituals that used to surround alcohol consumption and that served to moderate intake.

Samantha Vimes:
I hate those fucking alcohol quizzes.  They are prohibitionist BS.  Took one myself, and (gasp!) I’m a high risk too because I drink when I’m alone!  Apparently having a drink when quietly reading to oneself at night means that I will be out stealing Thunderbird in just a few days.

Oh, and while we’re at it, fuck MADD, the inheritors of Carrie Nation.

Let me give you a tip, Bruce: on the internet, we don’t know you and can’t see you. Or hear you. If you mean something to be lighthearted and funny, put a smiley in so we know.

Your latest post is perfectly reasonable and doesn’t bother me in the slightest; it was only when you ascribed rather insulting motivations for drinking alcohol that I got annoyed. You may not have been serious, but I had no way of knowing that.

Part of it may also have been that I’d spent large portions of today in a rather toxic forum, so I was quite ready to assume the worst… next time, just make it clear you’re not being entirely serious and you might find a very different reaction.

I found this great cognac which tastes good alone, if a little strong, but is simply wonderful with some 7-Up. That, and a side of brownies, is a great addition to playing video games on a lazy Saturday night.

Maybe once a year will I drink to excess - usually while camping - and perhaps once every two or three months I’ll break out the cognac for a mixed glass or two.

I didn’t drink at all in high school or college: I’d seen so much excess growing up that I couldn’t yet conceive of a truly moderate social drinker. It took marriage, and exposure to hubby’s family, before I got to observe the responsible appreciation of alcohol.

Lotsa classism in this thread.  I especially love the posts that follow the formula of: 1) Brand of alchol ;2) Personal drinking habits; and then, finally, 3) oh yeah those kids what were we talking about again?

And then there’s this little gem: “Apparently having a drink when quietly reading to oneself at night means that I will be out stealing Thunderbird in just a few days.”

Who the fuck would steal Thunderbird?  If you’re going to steal, you’d steal something better; it costs the same, right? But no, the point here isn’t to make sense.  The point is to equate alcoholism with cheapness, criminality, and generally lower quality products, and most importantly to suggest that people who drink “good” alcohol are wildly different from those who don’t.

The same goes for everyone who objected so strongly to what Bruce initially said.  He dared to suggest that the self-identified alcohol elites drink to get intoxicated just like everyone else, and people got their hackles up not because he was wrong, but because they were terrified of being associated with those uncultured and immature slobs who dare be honest about drinking because it’s fun.

“I agree it’s a terrible law for all the reasons covered here; and yet, as an instructor at the #4 party school, I shudder to think what would happen if the age was lowered overnight.  The 18-to-21 crowd, with their screwed-up ideas about drinking (scarcity mentality, forbidden fruit, etc.) and with sudden, unchecked access to alcohol, would lose their fucking shit.”

Honestly, what you’d probably wind up with is a small blip where everyone goes out and has their 21st year a few years early and then settles the fuck down after a few months.  The fact that grad school exists would seem to indicate that we don’t turn 21, drink ourselves into the gutter, and stop being functional humans for a decade while learning how to deal with Demon Rum.  Schools would have to come up with actual programs dealing with alcohol instead of just “Don’t do it or we’ll kick you out/call the cops/cover it up if you’re an athlete.”

My personal experience with underage drinking was that scarcity, illegality, and general finicky taste wrt beer and wine made hard liquor the logical choice.  A big bottle of vodka or rum could be hidden more easily, lasted a hell of a lot longer, and could be mixed with practically anything.  Given that beer is much more the drink of social gatherings, it’s a calculus that would have been discouraged by being able to buy my own damn stuff instead of having to rely on someone else if I wanted a six-pack for the weekend.

nobodyblindedme:

Thunderbird was chosen because of its established public image linkage between homelessness / public alcoholism on one hand and fortified wines on the other.  You’ll note that in your eagerness to accuse me of classism that you kinda missed the point: that so far as alcohol-use reduction organizations (the quiz people, go see a Reader’s Digest for a good example) and neo-prohibitionist organizations (MADD is a prohibitionist, anti-civil-libertarian, money-grubbing, profit-mad nightmare that even its founder has disowned) are concerned there really is very little difference between having a drink quietly to oneself and being a falling-down-drunk street alcoholic.

And while we’re on the subject of classism, what the fuck do you know about what I drink alone?  It could be bargain beer or $500 single malt.  The class assumption is yours.

I agree with preying mantis, with one small caveat.  The challenges faced by commuter schools and residence schools are somewhat different.  I’d also note that the American habit of putting some big schools in “college towns” (eg: Texas A&M;) with minimal public transit and often hostile small-town police forces makes a difference.  By way of contrast: most Canadian universities are in cities, and that makes a difference to the ease of drunken transit and the sophistication of the police response.

First, I made no assumptions about what you drank alone, except to assume it wasn’t Thunderbird, and that it was something you would consider “better” than Thunderbird, which seems a pretty fair inference given the context.

But are you trying to deny that you’re being classist with that post?  Because, “...its established public image linkage between homelessness/public alcoholism…” isn’t helping your case any.  Any popular Lite beer brand has a similar public image of public alcoholism; just watch their commercials.  But no, you went with the one associated with public alcoholism AND being poor, just to drive the image that problem drinkers are poor, or, in your words, “homeless,” all to distance yourself from the undesirables and untouchables.

I don’t disagree with you about the quizzes or MADD though.  Those are worthless.  But keep your classism in your pants if you can.  If you want to show how absurd those tests and criteria are, substituting “getting cirrhosis” for “stealing Thunderbird” would’ve made the point just as effectively.

(Sighs)

Noting objective reality is not classist, nobodyblindedme.  People do not associate lite beers with being homeless, whereas Thunderbird and Night Train and their ilk have that established public image linkage.  The fact that you and I would like it better if such matters don’t have immediate resonance is beside the point: it’s there.  Gallo brothers makes a TON of money selling to exactly that desperate market and the sad, shambling men and women that you see outside the hostels aren’t drinking Glen-anything, are they?

But let us assume for a moment that you’re correct and I’m being classist.  Why?  Because I think that there’s something negative about being homeless and alcoholic?  I wouldn’t have worked in for homelessness groups for years if I thought there was something positive about it.  And, weirdly enough, all of the social workers, outreach specialists and civic health authorities that I worked with thought that there was something terrible about being alcoholic and homeless too.  Weird, that.

But, by all means, enjoy unicorn mountain where not mentioning that negative things are negative in case somebody’s fee-fees are hurt magically makes everything better.  (Ponders.)  No, no, you might be right.  I’m certain, now, after listening to you, that if I immediately stop noting that hapless street alcoholics drink cheap toxic grape sludge then they will all stop drinking it, and a public image linkage between those brands and such sad and sorry ends will disappear in a puff of seeker6079-coloured remorse.

You can send me my pony COD; I won’t mind.

It’s the very attempt to associate and link alcoholism and homelessness that’s the problem you fucking imbecile.

I mean Jesus Christ, the imagery is classist in the same way that using Olde English would’ve been racist.  What part of this don’t you understand?

Yes, that public image of Thunderbird is definitely around.  I’m not denying it.  In fact, I’m basing my entire damn argument on it.

“The challenges faced by commuter schools and residence schools are somewhat different.”

I was actually thinking of programs in the sense that most schools have something (trained counselor, workshops, etc.) designed to help students deal with things like sex or handling money with the overall aim of reducing the incidence of common, easily avoidable mistakes made by (generally) naive populations.  Most schools already tailor those sort of things to the needs of their individual student bodies.

HA HA!  I just won a bet with myself!  I KNEW nobodyblindedme was going to come back with a racism argument!  Thanks, n!  I get to buy myself a book today!  Whoo HOO!!!  You are so pathetically predictable.  My god, I walked away from the computer to do some dishes and thought, “y’know, being called on a stupid argument is going to grate something fierce, and the only way that drip is going to think of is to put my argument beside racism and call them the same.  And ... voila!!!!!!  Yeesh, n, it’s not like I haven’t seen cretins like you in years in and out of social justice organizations: morons who try to win stupid arguments by slapping inapplicable labels on other people, substituting condemnation for their own inability to think.

Here’s the deal on why they’re different:  There is nothing to be avoided in being somebody of a different race; there is something to be avoided in being homeless and addicted to exploitive rotgut wine.  Absent the GOP there are no mainstream organizations dedicated to the premise that it would be a good thing if we reduced the frequency of different races to zero, whereas we are surrounded by noble organizations whose purpose is to reduce or eliminate alcohol and homelessness.

In essence, your arguments (if I can dignify them with such a word—it’s like calling a go-kart with four wheels of different sizes a Cadillac, but never mind) are these:
* Mentioning that cheap rotgut wine that exploits people’s addictions is something unpleasant should not be mentioned lest ye be classist! 
* Stating that homelessness and alcoholism are negative states of existence should not be mentioned lest ye be classist! 
* Stating that homelessness and alcoholism are things to be dreaded and avoided should not be mentioned lest ye be classist!
* Stating that the neoprohibitionists see no difference between homelessness alcoholics and people sitting and having a quiet drink should not be mentioned lest ye be classist!

Thanks, btw.  I will enjoy my book.  See ya in a few days.

Crimes of Paris, I think.  I’ve had my eye on it for a bit.

from wiki

Butterbeer

Butterbeer is the drink of choice for younger wizards. Harry is first presented with the beverage in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Although House-elves can become intoxicated on butterbeer, it has not been stated that there is any alcohol in the drink. In the sixth book, Harry wonders what Ron and Hermione might do at Professor Slughorn’s Christmas party “under the influence of Butterbeer”, indicating that it could porentially lower inhibitions. J. K. Rowling said in her interview to Bon Appétit magazine that she imagines it “to taste a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch”. Butterbeer can be served cold or hot but either way it has a warming effect. Roald Dahl used a similar word play in his book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in chapter 23 when he mentioned the Oompa-Loompas getting drunk on butterscotch and buttergin.

Butterbeer was a real drink made from beer, sugar, eggs, nutmeg and butter back in Tudor times. British celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal recreated the drink for his show “Heston’s Tudor Feast”[26].

Many cultures have a very weak alcoholic brew served during holidays to all ages. I vaguely remember something called near-beer back East which tasted terrible but was served to teenagers. Eggnog and like punches are served with a bit of alcohol. Butterbeer sounds like a version of eggnog.

I’m so tired of this country’s Puritan ignorance over customs of alcohol. Richard Nixon once called the police on Italian neighbors who were dining outside and serving alcohol to everyone at the table, including of course the older children. Whatta smuck.

“Here’s the deal on why they’re different:  There is nothing to be avoided in being somebody of a different race; there is something to be avoided in being homeless and addicted to exploitive rotgut wine.”

Yeah, that would be relevant if my point rested on the fact that being black is a bad thing, but unfortunately my point is that you’re resorting to classist stereotypes.  In that regard, stereotypes about race and class are similar.  This difference doesn’t negate the analogy in this case.

And I’d really like to see where in your original post you were railing about the exploitation of the underclass, because this—“Apparently having a drink when quietly reading to oneself at night means that I will be out stealing Thunderbird in just a few days”—doesn’t really have the tone of a fight against corporate exploitation.

Also:

“* Mentioning that cheap rotgut wine that exploits people’s addictions is something unpleasant should not be mentioned lest ye be classist!
* Stating that homelessness and alcoholism are negative states of existence should not be mentioned lest ye be classist!
* Stating that homelessness and alcoholism are things to be dreaded and avoided should not be mentioned lest ye be classist!
* Stating that the neoprohibitionists see no difference between homelessness alcoholics and people sitting and having a quiet drink should not be mentioned lest ye be classist! “

That’s not my argument at all, but it sure is a purty strawman.  Try reading again.

PS:  Nice try at snatching some progressive-cred by oh-so-casually mentioning that you have done stuff in social justice organizations, but all it really does is scream “BOUGIE BOUGIE BOUGIE.”

Your involvement in these causes should come through in your demeanor and attitude, and belittling the underclass with those negative stereotypes doesn’t really do that.

A couple things nobodyblindedme:

1. People steal forties all the time. They steal other stuff, too, but people don’t automatically go for the expensive stuff. Seriously, ask anyone who works in a liquor store.

2. The “class” component of the comment you’ve torn apart for no apparent reasons seems to my eye to be seeker’s way of lampooning alarmist anti-drinking organisations, who push the idea that if you drink, you will end up an alcoholic and on skid row. The image of “someone stealing thunderbird” in this case was a rhetorical device which seeker used to highlight the ridiculousness of the claims made by anti-drinking organizations, and personally I didn’t read any implication in there that seeker felt he/she was superior to that rhetorical/hypothetical person. The class element was there because anti-drinking organizations claim, falsely, that alcohol will make you poor, which actually had something to do with the point of seeker’s post, unlike the implication you chose to read into it. Now, of course, this is just one person’s interpretation, whereas you’ve got… oh, one person’s interpretation on your side, but hey.

Of course, jumping to massive conclusions about the character of a person based on taking a sentence they wrote on the internet out of context is a really good way to fight against the evils of capitalism, so don’t mind me.

Actually, HonestB, you have two people’s interpretations, because that’s how I read it too. I’ve sat through enough “Drugs/drinking/sex/television/Communism/whatever will end up with you being unable to hold a job and kicked out of your house by your aggrieved parents and then you will be a hobo and then you will start ROBBING BANKS AND GET THE DEATH PENALTY” alarmist crap that I’m honestly ASTOUNDED that anyone could fail to see the hobo wine comment as anything BUT reflective of mainstream alarmist crap.

Mighty Ponygirl

Kids treat beer like the friggin’ blood of Christ: you can’t, can’t leave any left over at the end of the night—it will go to waste!

Or, you can’t leave it over, you don’t know when you’ll be able to get more.

Caren

You can vote, enter legal contracts, get married, and die in Iraq serving your country, but you can’t have a beer or a glass of wine.

My partner’s ex-husband had been legal less than 13 months at his own wedding.

Bruce:

My intellect is better than most, thank you very much.

Are you in MENSA, perchance? Did you get a high SAT score?

seeker:

MADD is a prohibitionist, anti-civil-libertarian, money-grubbing, profit-mad nightmare that even its founder has disowned

About that… (Yeah, it’s FOX, but I know the writer)