Nuts to lower drinking age
Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2008
Remember the controversial Amethyst Initiative by some university leaders who were testing academic waters about dropping the nation’s drinking age from 21 to 18 ? Well, John Malcolm McCardell Jr., the originator of this staggeringly bad idea, is still looking for participants in the project. McCardell, president emeritus and history professor at Vermont’s Middlebury College, recently wrote to university leaders, including Chancellor David Gearhart at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. His correspondence reads in part: “Though we issued more than 2, 000 invitations in July, we have received responses from only a small number of the institutions... and 130 of those responses have been positive. For that reason, I am writing you again in hopes that you will consider adding your name to the Initiative by signing the Presidents’ Statement. By signing you are simply indicating your support for public debate, support based upon the less-than-fully clear evidence that current laws are working or that they are in line with social and cultural reality. I hope you will give this possibility serious consideration....
“ Ours is not an effort to lower the drinking age. Rather, we seek to engage the public in informed debate. To be sure, in choosing language that puts a resolution, or proposition, before the house in traditional debate format—think of the statement as saying, ‘Resolved: That the 21-Year-Old Drinking Age is not Working’ —the presidents might seem to be implying that the age should be changed, but nowhere does the statement call for a specific policy outcome or change.” Huh ? Does that sound as cynically manipulative to you as it does to me ? It appears to me that the agenda is as clear as a jigger of gin.
Gearhart opposed the initiative when it surfaced in the summer. I recently asked him if McCardell’s latest solicitation had adjusted his views to bring them in line with “social and cultural reality.” He replied that he still won’t sign on as an amethyst aficionado.
Gearhart added that he believes that those pushing this idea acted beyond the boundaries of rationality by even publishing this proposal. Actually, I believe the chancellor’s choice of straight talk involved the word “nuts.” I can assure everyone that he didn’t mean beer nuts. Misperception I don’t believe most of us stop to think about the mental or physical condition of those zipping around us until one of them unexpectedly slams into our passenger compartment.
With two teen-age stepdaughters on the verge of joining the legions of the asphalt, I find myself more aware than ever of those behind the wheels of all the fiberglass machines that are continually hurtling toward us at fatality speeds.
It must be human nature that creates the illusion that somehow we are in control. Instead, we wrongly believe that as long as we are doing right, everything will be fine. What a dangerous misperception that is.
According to police, last week Bradley D. Norris, a 19-year-old UA-Fayetteville student from Vilonia, was driving his car on a flat stretch of 1 nterstate 540 when a pickup driven by Richard A. Meinke, 47, of Cabot came barreling toward him while going north in the southbound lane.
Moments later, they met in a grinding, head-on crash that was over in a matter of seconds. Young Norris’ life ended. Meinke wound up in intensive care. Police said that he told them he had mistakenly believed that he was on a two-way frontage road rather than the interstate. At this writing, they were awaiting the results of blood tests before deciding whether to bring charges against Meinke.
My point is that we can never take anything for granted when behind the wheel of a vehicle. We need to be continually scanning for a possible point of escape should we look up and see someone in our face who could become an immediate threat to our existence. Stung Shady ladies in Lowell, the same quiet little community where the Democrat-Gazette’s Northwest Arkansas offices and printing plant are located ? Police in that community sandwiched between Springdale and Rogers recently arrested six women in the second prostitution sting conducted there this year. Police Chief Joe Landers told a reporter that his officers contacted the women by using craigslist. com, the classified advertising site, and local escort services listed in the phone book. From that point, things just fell into place during the annual Bike, Blues & BBQ rally in mid-September. The ages of those arrested and given misdemeanor prostitution citations were 17, 18, 26, 37, 42 and 43. The first sting, which nabbed five females, was conducted in March using similar tactics at an area hotel. In that bust, police said they also discovered a weapon used in an earlier Washington County burglary.
—–––––•–––––—Staff columnist Mike Masterson is the former editor of three Arkansas daily newspapers.
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