10| PERSPECTIVES
Y O U SPEAK
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PERSPECTIVES
Alcohol laws: U.S. vs. U.K. KELLY MCKEE STAFF WRITER KMM723@CABRINI.EDU
You’re 20 years old. You can die for your country. You can vote, hold public office, serve on juries, sign contracts, smoke, have sex, get married and even buy a gun. You can’t appreciate the flavors a good merlot brings out of filet mignon. It’s too dangerous to enjoy a beer with your friends on a summer’s day. You cannot enter this bar with your slightly older friends. Oh, but you can pay taxes. Certainly you can go to war. You’re an adult…aren’t you? Back in Northern Ireland I can drink legally. I have been able to since I was 18 years old. I came to America and now I can’t. I hear you say, “typical Irish…always going on about booze.” This, although partially true, is not why I am writing this perspective. I am writing it for the sake of all you American students, who I feel are being discriminated against by the high age restrictions on alcohol consumption in the United States. I find it difficult in seeing the logic behind absolute restriction of alcohol to anyone under 21, then as soon as that liberating day comes around, you can go
out to the bar and consume 21 kamikaze shots with no problems, well from the law anyway. This prohibitive society has led to problems such as underage drinking costing Americans nearly $53 billion annually. Also in 2000, 21 percent of 15- to 20year-old drivers who were killed in crashes were intoxicated. This is not to say that Europe does not also face its own share of problems related to teenage drinking. Especially in the United Kingdom, problems with binge drinking among teens have escalated in recent years. However the general consensus regarding alcohol consumption in Europe is comparatively liberal, with alcohol being introduced to people from a young age, lessening the novelty. In the United Kingdom minimum legal drinking age there is four. At that age, a person, supervised by a parent or responsible adult, can legally have alcoholic drink with a meal, at home, in a restaurant or in the dining area of a bar. At 16, you acquire a new right. You can, unaccompanied, legally order and pay for beer or cider to have with a meal in a restaurant or in the dining area of a bar. At 18, you outgrow all restrictions, and can order and pay for and consume any drink, to consume at home or anywhere
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in the premises of a restaurant, bar or nightclub. Allowing children to experience alcohol at a young age, under supervision, is a trend that runs throughout Europe, especially in southern countries such as Spain, France and Greece. I feel early exposure takes the mystique out of alcohol because it is not forbidden and teens don’t regard drinking as being rebellious or cool. I’m not advocating ‘happy hour’ in kindergarten, but a sensible education on alcohol coming from the home. In the United States, the government has made alcohol out to be an evil that only fuels a teenager’s curiosity. It is time for America to wake up and realize that no matter how strict the laws are if young people choose to drink they will and unfortunately they will learn irresponsibly. People “want what they can’t have.” Consider prohibition. Restricted from alcohol, ofage-adults had the same “wild parties” in the 1920s because it was made illegal. The adults reacted the same way as teens today when put under the same circumstances. I feel control is too harsh in the United States and that by totally restricting young people from alcohol it is only urging them to drink irresponsibly, often leading to dangerous outcomes. Would you hand a non-driver your car keys as soon as they turned 16 and allow them to take to the road. Without their having experience and education I am sure you would answer “no.” Think about it.
America: citizens first PAUL NASELLA STAFF WRITER KRB722@CABRINI.EDU
America needs to care more about itself and less about the rest of the world. How can we call ourselves great when American jobs are being off-shored? When many of the products we use on a daily basis are being manufactured overseas? When our own government wants to cut the social security for our parents and ourselves because they mismanaged the budget? How can we be great when it is the multinational corporations and big businesses of America who are running the supposed ‘democracy’ instead of the people themselves? There needs to be something done to make America a much better place for those who have to grow up in this great land. If nothing is done, these problems are only going to get worse.
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004
www.theloquitur.com
I feel that for the sake of America and its future, there needs to be something done for the sake of the people rather than the sake of the corporations. For too long have the people of the United States been controlled by the powers that be instead of the power that rests within themselves. We as a people need to say to the government that reigns over us that enough is enough and that it is time for a change. If things continue the way that they are, we could find ourselves in the midst of a draft or paying over $3.00 dollars a gallon for gas. The citizens of America need to take control of their democracy because the government has grown too powerful and controlled by those with money and it is causing the middle and lower classes to suffer. Health care costs and gas prices are becoming less affordable everyday. I can’t even begin to describe what it is like to watch my mother sitting at the kitchen table struggling to pay her bills
only to tell me that she doesn’t have enough money to pay all of them for that month. Being a college student, myself, I know financial burden rather well. It was just last week that I paid nearly $30 to fill my car up with gas. To make matters worse, my tuition costs just rose again as well. An issue that is not widely spoken about in America is social status. I don’t think it’s fair how those in the middle and lower classes are stuck being part of those classes for the rest of their lives. I think there needs to be something done to allow these people to rise in status to become better off than they were before. How can you tell a child of a middle or lower-class family that they can grow up to be somebody when it has been found that the social class you grow up in is the social class you’ll end up in. I know it is true for my family, and I’m sure it’s the same for yours as well. I also feel that there needs to be something done to better edu-
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Fashion on the flipside
Surely, “Vogue” is not what most students follow as a guide to dress for success when the occasion includes a calculus class or a Spanish class. There has always been a time and place for everything. So, when Friday comes it’s nice to finally shut the sweat-pant drawers and resort to a closet that promises to provide some eagerly-awaited fun accompanied with a “Cosmopolitan” that will show you the ropes on how to stay sparkly. But, have you ever wondered what your fashion tastes reflect? Reassuringly, this season has left midriff-revealing, low-rider pants-sporting, hormonecrazed-pop stars, like Britney Spears for the “fashionably doomed” sections in magazines everywhere and has finally left room for the polished, disgruntled and self-absorbed American girl. Glittery knits articulate our hopes to understand a world of ideals at war while tweed encourages us to remain loyal, conservative and maybe even apathetic. If you combine the two with a pair of classic Levis, disheveled hair that screams, “love me and leave me alone” and a pair of rounded-toe heels that console an ignorant bliss, you could be a poster girl for the typical, yet, stylish young adult. Even the earthy brown chiffons from Alexander McQueen try to seduce you onto a textile of sand and surf. Its beauty wraps you in the solidity of abstract neglect to self, but keeps you looking sophisticated, nonetheless. Roberto Cavalli’s floral silks
will secure your femininity safely from the tension and pressure of never having enough, as much as it will keep you delicately blind to the countless people, not too many miles away, who don’t own a warm coat, let alone know of any Italian designers. Silly me! Did I forget to suggest accessories? Louis Vuitton’s leather messenger bag can be carried with jeans distinguishably as well as emptily. The books inside can provide knowledge, but true insight is found in knowing that you have to work and not the leisure of it. A leopard-print Dior bag will keep you purring furiously to and against your desires and your values. This container pledges you’ll want to leap toward self-depravation much sooner than you’ll be inclined to embellish your soul and embrace your graciousness. Make sure that you purchase the perfect set of pearls to accentuate all of your refinements. The smoothly texturedround balls of superiority will agree to keep all the potential you have to deem the world outside of a magazine “not enough” locked around your neck, so don’t clasp these delicacies too tightly. Whether you’re expressing your fashion tastes for your morning classes or sporting around comfortably in sneakers, remember there are much more important things. What we wear is not always as important as what we’re getting dressed for. In a sense, we’re here constructing the uniforms we’ll wear long after graduation. So, let’s put on our helmets and get in the game. Let’s try to find out what really matters. Let’s emphasize what’s internal before we try to articulate what’s external.
cate the youth of America. I can’t even begin to count the number of stupid things I have seen and heard over the years. If we better educate our children, we will be able to keep stupid acts and comments from happening. I also feel that there should be more done in high schools to teach students about their government as well as how they can take part in it. But then again, history textbooks leave out any real useful information anyway. What we as Americans can do to take back this land that is so rightfully ours is to go to our local polling places and place our vote. Since there is a presidential election in less than a week, it serves as our golden opportuni-
ty to actually change America for the better. By placing our ballot on Nov. 2 , we are taking back this majestic land from sea to shining sea. By doing so, we will be helping to right the evil that was unleashed upon us four years ago. What we can also do is to write our congressman and pay close attention to the current legislation that is being discussed within congress. By keeping a basic knowledge of what is going on, Americans will be better informed about their government and it’s actions. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
DIANA ASHJIAN STAFF WRITER DA725@CABRINI.EDU