Jesus Built My Hotrod

There are a lot of situations where different people have very different attitudes and actions. Take speeding. Lots of people go over the speed limit. On highways, here in Canada, it's the vast majority. But even there, there's a lot of variations. Some just go a little over the limit. Some act as though there is no limit. Most, I think, are like me: pick the maximum speed that won't get you a ticket, and treat that as the limit. And actually feel guilty when you realize you've gone over this pseudo-limit even though it's actually well beyond the posted limit.

But the important point is that even though we all have such different attitudes to speeding, we all know that we have all these different attitudes. That's for the simple reason that we drive in public, so we can all see the general approaches we take. I may not like people who drive as fast as they can, and I may feel morally superior for staying at an arbitrary but still-illegal speed. But I'm not surprised that some people drive like that. My world view includes people who think the laws don't apply to them, both the laws of the road and the laws of physics.

Other aspects of life are not like this. Alcohol is a good one. Other than a drink with dinner in a restaurant, we mostly drink in private. Yes, there are bars, but the only people seeing you drink in bars are other people drinking in bars. The point is that people with vastly different attitudes to alcohol won't see you, and thus, may not know just how much alcohol gets drunk there. Some people drink little or nothing, some drink every day, some binge drink. But if you've only spent your life in one of those types of households, you may not know that the other types exist. Or at least, you may not know how many there are.

Of course, you may not have this problem, depending on what type of person you are. Do you talk to other people? Even people with different backgrounds? Do you listen to them? Okay, do you at least read? Or watch meaningful movies and TV? If so, you may break out of this problem. For instance, I've always lived in low-alcohol environments, but, well, I've noticed that not everyone is like that. So I'm not shocked by people at any extreme of the alcohol spectrum. But I still run into people who are shocked to find that the alcohol experiences of them and their families is not the rule.

And then there's religion. Like alcohol, it's something we do in private, or surrounded by people with the same experience. But there's also the taboo against even talking about it in public, and we tend to live around people with similar religions. So even more so than alcohol, we often have no idea that other people in our society may have very different beliefs. And that's made worse by the fact that no matter your beliefs (or lack thereof) there's people in your religious circles who are misrepresenting others.

I'm constantly amazed at what people don't know about other religious beliefs. People greatly over- or underestimate how much different religions have in common. I see theists think atheists are anything from immoral to depressed. And there are atheists think that all religious people believe the same things. In these cases, we not only suffer from not seeing how each other live, we also have people within our own communities spreading falshoods about other groups. And without the opportunity to see for ourselves, we come to believe those things. The only way out is to start getting to know others with an open mind. Only then can we make religion more like speeding and less like drinking.

Freudian Sip

Hmmm.... If you were going to name wine after a famous psychologist, I'm not sure Carl Jung is the one you'd go with.  You'd think that Mr. id himself, Freud, would be the name that would sell alcohol.  Though really, Freud would make more sense for hard liquor or maybe beer.  Or perhaps Freud Lite Beer would sell; it's the id of beer, the superego of reduced alcohol, and the ego of less calories.  I leave you to make up your own parody of "Tastes Great, Less Filling."

I should point out that this is no-alcohol wine. So perhaps the name is appropriate.  It encourages you to wonder what mental processes led you to buy expensive grape juice.

Red Red Wine

Rumour has it that once again, the Ontario government may open up sales of alcoholic beverages to supermarkets. You'd think this would be a fairly popular thing outside of the remnants of Canada's temperance movement. But there's actually a lot of criticism: it'll be harder to get alcohol in smaller places, they'll concentrate on main brands, rather than the wide range you get on dedicated wine and beer stores.

Those aren't necessarily bad arguments. But they are arguments that can be made about virtually any product. For example, if we mandated that crackers had to be sold in government-approved stores instead of supermarkets, they'd have a nice selection of imported and craft crackers, and small towns would be assured of basic service from their local C.C.B.O. (Cracker Control Board of Ontario) store. There'd be negatives of course: it would be inconvenient buying your soup and crackers at different stores. And if you don't like the service, you're out of luck.

The fact is, we in Canada have made the general principle that goods and services should be provided by private businesses unless there's a compelling reason for the government to do it. I don't have a problem with re-examining that philosophy: if you think we'd be better off with the government providing all or most services, put that argument forward.

But the fact is that isn't a very popular point of view. So it's frustrating to see this more-or-less decided point re-opened and re-argued. Given how economically conservative our society has become, there shouldn't be this much opposition to deregulating alcohol sales. Or conversely, given how much opposition there is to deregulating alcohol sales, other conservative economic initiatives shouldn't get the wide support they do.

Either way, it seems a lot of us have difficulty recognizing patterns or thinking in the abstract. We have to learn to think through the consequences of of our guiding principles, and use those principles to guide our decisions so that we don't start from scratch in reasoning out every question.

Beer Essentials

I remember one time in university there was a big party. I wasn’t involved in it, but I got to see the aftermath. It was one of those parties that leaves a room out of commission for a few days, if not weeks. Where you step carefully through the debris, because you know there’s a good chance of stepping on either broken glass or someone passed out.

Anyway, while inspecting the aftermath, I found that there were only two types of beer available at this party. One was Molson XXX, the high-alcohol choice of the nineties. And the other was Coors Light. That seemed odd: you get a choice of one extreme or the other. I wonder what food choices they had; deep-fried Mars bars or rice cakes? I’m joking of course: this sort of party doesn’t have food.

For that matter, it doesn’t usually have light beer. I rarely drink, so I am no expert in beer culture, but I was under the impression that light beer is something you drink if you don’t want to get drunk, or are concerned about your health. So why would it even make an appearance at a drink-’til-you-pass-out party? 

I'm reminded of this because Coors Light is now advertising their "vented" cans, in which there is a second opening to let air in as you pour, allowing the beer to pour out faster and more smoothly. It's a good idea, and I'm impressed that the ads haven't had to redo the grade four science experiment explaining why it works. But why are they pushing this for Coors Light? If your big complaint about beer cans is, "the beer doesn't come out fast enough," then light beer is not what you want.

A Note Before I Enter My Green, Drunk-Proof Bunker

A couple of years ago, St. Patrick's day parties in London, Ontario got out of control and resulted in a riot big enough to make the BBC World news crawl. As a resident of rival Kitchener-Waterloo, I have to admit to a sense of schadenfreude. But like the schadenforde from watching Toronto struggle with Rob Ford, an honest person has to admit that it could happen anywhere. London students are no more unruly than anyone else's, and here in a city with two universities and a college, it could just as soon happen in KW.

And sure enough, it is. It turns out that St. Patrick's day parties near KW's universities have been growing, to the point that police are taking notice. It's much like the end-of-school-year parties that used to trouble the same neighborhoods. So now they're trying to reduce the St. Patrick's parties using the same strategy: by setting up a more organized rival party to encourage less anarchic revelry.

But as with the Ford situation, there is also some genuine schadenfreude, and that comes from watching a problem blow up in society's face, after we collectively looked the other way for so long. We know that underage drinking is epidemic, and teens get trained early on that recreation means drinking, and drinking means drinking 'til you pass out. Then we send them away from supervision for the first time, and it's to a place where there's lots of stress and little time for relaxation, and where alcohol consumption is a big joke.

It's obviously a recipe for disaster. Rather than be surprised at the London riot, we should be surprised it doesn't happen more often. But instead we look the other way and pretend it's not a problem, or at least not a problem that affects us.

This Post is in 3DD, But Better than that Piranha Movie

It seems like there have been a lot of TV commercials promoting Designated Drivers.  In particular, it's not the usual guilt trip of "have a designated driver or you'll kill someone."  Now it's more like, "be a Designated Driver and you can still have a good time."  I'm not sure that's the best way to promote it.

I've never been much of a drinker, so I've been a Designated Driver more times than I can remember.  I won't say you can't have fun as a DD, but it's not quite as simple as they show in the ads.  No, I'm not saying you need alcohol to have a good time.  It's just hard to have fun as the only sober person in your group.  Or, to put it another way, it would be no problem to be a DD and have a great time if you were driving for the drinkers you see in beer commercials.  You know, the guys who are acting pretty normal, just a little happier and more at ease.

But that's not usually the case in real life.  There, the DD is chaperoning people who have been drinking all night.  You're not the Designated Driver so much as the Designated Herder.  Now that's a lonely feeling: being the only one in the car who can put together a complete sentence.

If they really want to promote Designated Drivers, they should give tips on how you and your, um, Undesignated Drinkers can make the evening more enjoyable.  Here's my contribution:  There are bars that sober people can enjoy (there are tables and chairs, nice decor, a noise level conducive to talking) and there are bars that only drunk people can enjoy (bare-bones decor, nothing to do but dance, and you have to scream into someone's ear to talk.)  You may start at the first type of bar, but half-way through the evening, the drunk people will start talking about going to a new bar.  Without exception, it will be the other kind of bar, because that's what appeals to drunk people.  But the DD - not being a drinker - won't know that.

So how about rating bars by who the target market is.  Say, a sign at the entrance saying, "You must be at least this drunk to enter."  So you know those are the bars you only go to if you're willing to spring for a taxi.  Or they could have a "Sober Room" where Designated Drivers can talk, or play chess, or watch Downton Abbey or something.