Alcohol on campuses: change of attitude?

A pleasant surprise awaited me in my RSS reader upon my arrival from today’s miserable tennis match. Yahoo News! reports on Amethyst Initiative, a petition started by the president of Middlebury College that seeks lowering the drinking age to more sensible 18. Apparently, hallucinogenic sounds of AlcoholEdu don’t work.

College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus. [...]

Duke President Richard Brodhead declined an interview request. But he wrote in a statement on the Amethyst Initiative’s Web site that the 21-year-old drinking age “pushes drinking into hiding, heightening its risks.” It also prevents school officials “from addressing drinking with students as an issue of responsible choice.”

A quick glimpse to Amethyst’s website reveals that Gettysburg’s president is among those who side with the petition, whereas Ivy League is only represented by Dartmouth.

Wow, I want this!

DNA art is fascinating. I only wish it wasn’t that expensive! $390, give me a break!

Mastering AlcoholEdu

AlcoholEdu is the greatest waste of time I have so far had to endure, and the entrepreneurial mind that thought it up should be punished as severely as the sick mind that first introduced the concept of a group of 5-year-olds answering questions about current events, phenomenon about which I’ve already complained.

Surely there is nothing wrong with an attempt to educate the naive young masses about the detrimental effects of drinking the poisonous alcoholic substances. The trouble is the entire seminar tackles the problem from a wrong side and by wrong means. While I might be perfectly willing to learn more about alcohol, I don’t want to hear it from a group of three kids of roughly my age who follow a script written by an anti-alco that makes them sound completely unnatural and unbelievable. Also, I don’t think the vocabulary chosen correctly appealed to the target demographic — developing Ben’s character as an irresponsible young mate by stating he “totally has a crush on that girl” who tried to lure him to her nest even if it meant he’d have to drive drunk was obnoxious. I totally disapprove such expressions.

Nonetheless, why efforts like AlcoholEdu are predestined to fail? Because of the preposterous law that sets the drinking age at 21, whereas another preposterous law allows 16-year-olds (and in some states even younger) to drive. Even if one managed to remember all the risks and threats presented in the videos, when offered a glass of alcohol the decision-making process would forget them immediately and would be governed by the basic economic principles, in this case allocating more utility.

It’s difficult to achieve responsibility in drinking when the opportunities to drink are scarce, whereas the temptations are high. When the opportunity finally arises, it’s not surprising when one decides to fully seize it, although the consequences might be unpleasant. But was there more opportunities (and drinking wasn’t regarded as almost a taboo), the diminishing marginal utility principle would kick in and the problem would be solved.

I don’t know whether anyone has already tried to argue against high drinking age by similar arguments, but I wish no one has (I am skeptical). While at Gettysburg, I’d like to explore this further — combine Johnnie Walker and economics.

Just a last note about the program: it was ridiculously easy. I would like to know which question did I miss that brought my score to 95%, because a vast majority of correct answers was painfully obvious. One would rarely be wrong after selecting choice C, usually “Both (a) and (b)”, where (a) and (b) always featured unpleasant consequences of drinking such as killing yourself in a car or consenting to sexual act.

Impact of reading

I just realized that if I had read those books not now but three years ago, my course of live would have been completely different. While I would still might have indulged myself in impatient waiting for the latest issue of The Economist to be published online, I would await the new issues of Nature or The Quarterly Review of Biology with equal excitement as my mind would be preoccupied with thoughts about evolution and DNA. But different events shaped me into a stock market worshipping individual with a strong predilection for currency market and mergers and acquisitions, and therefore my soon-to-begin undergraduate studies will focus on social rather than natural sciences.

The agents that have recently fueled my interest in the workings of life are not numerous, but their passionate persuasiveness is directly derived from their significance; Darwin, Dawkins, or most recently Watson made me remember my biology and chemistry teachers with deeply bitter resentment. I find it fascinating that despite the tremendous quantity of engaging publications that could support any part of the curriculum, those teachers blindly refused to search for them, and resigningly succumbed to dull dictating of unexplained and unconnected facts that made me and majority of my classmates people who lost even their mildest interest in given subjects. It was only a sheer coincidence that The Selfish Gene was a favorite book of Jeff Skilling, the now imprisoned former executive of bankrupted Enron corporation, that made me pick up a copy and dive into mezmerizing microcosmos that controls our bodies, and later into captivating descriptions of DNA and also how it was discovered.

Had I found the funds to buy the book when I first saw the documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room, maybe I would now be eagerly awaiting a letter with access codes to Gettysburg’s lab where I would strive to conduct research in molecular biology. Although my excitement for the subject has not yet reached its potential, it’s already outgrown the sum of all excitement I have received in my bio&chemistry classes in high school. Unfortunately, now it is way too late to completely shift my focus from an area to exploration of which I have already dedicated lots of time and effort, to a field which might never advance into anything more than short infatuation. And that’s regrettable…

Benefits of Obama’s tax proposal don’t extend to…

Although Obama is offering a new series of tax breaks, they undermine rather than improve economic incentives.

Source: The American

Good tips for going through AlcoholEdu

X: “after doing the alcohol edu thing, did anyone else want to hurt the people that created that pile o crap?”
Y: “I was told to take shots during it, make it more fun.”

I will write more about this lunacy later.

On Obama’s hopes of taxing windfall profits

Mr. Obama didn’t bother to define “reasonable,” and neither did Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, when he recently declared that “The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy.” Really? This extraordinary redefinition of free-market success could use some parsing.

Although the WSJ’s opinion is not from today (it was published on Monday), it nonetheless lucidly explains the questionable nature of Mr Obama’s latest economic proposals. In one he suggests giving Americans a stimulus check in the value ranging from $500 to $1000 (depending on circumstances) which should be paid for from the proceeds of a new, so called windfall, tax imposed on Big Oil. Big Oil is a group of America’s largest oil companies and is often a subject of criticism for its notably large nominal profits; its most prominent member, Exxon-Mobile, suffered a severe criticism last week when it unveiled its quarterly financial results that showed the company earned $11.8 billion, the largest profit ever. This fact allowed Obama to find a persuasive scapegoat in his agenda of striving to help average people; he proposed tax every oil company which profits grow by more than 10% and which doesn’t “sufficiently invest in exploration of renewable energy sources” by 25%. I call this ludicrous and am further convinced that Obama is nothing but a prime-time celebrity that is willing to sell his soul to whatever might win him the votes of undecided voters. The Wall Street Journal analyzes the background of Obama’s latest idea and ridicules its obviously flawed nature.

My little innocent foibles: Random sleep disorders

I couldn’t bring myself to sleep yesterday night. The sun was almost already beginning to ascent the sky but although I was laying flat on my bed and constantly trying, my eyes wouldn’t close. Imagining ocean, counting sheep, counting money, recalling the individual shots at the last week’s tournament; none of this helped in my quest of falling asleep. While staring at the ceiling, worrying thoughts about the morning were preoccupying my mind; I knew I couldn’t ignore the alarm clock that was set to 7.30am, the highest time for waking up if I wanted to catch the train an hour later, and because only a few hours of sleep were awaiting me, I was rightfully concerned about its impact on play. To aggravate the already horrifying situation that projected failure of function of limbs, my stomach started to signal hunger and demand food which was scarce in the fridge at the early morning hour.

I finally fell asleep upon finishing two chapters of Richard Dawkins’s brilliant The Extended Phenotype (albeit more scientific than The Selfish Gene and thus less enjoyable for some), and the morning proved my earlier concerns correct. Thankfully, my sluggish movements on the tennis court relatively quickly evolved into normally paced game, however my opponent did not share this luck. It should be noted that he rarely finds inside of him the motivation to turn the jog into sprint, but today he was really slow. Many people dislike golf because they require action as opposed to seeing people walking in a park, occasionally stopping to try several test swings and finally hitting the ball before continuing the cycle. But when a spectator was asked today to rate the speed and dynamics of those two sports, golf would seem as Formula 1 and tennis as a chariot hitched to a horse suffering from arthrosis. It wasn’t good.

The instances when I can’t fall asleep have started to appear more frequently in the recent past. I can’t reason it and I doubt it has anything to do with my approaching departure, because many times I fight the mosquitoes without having thought of Gettysburg during the previous day. That was not the case of yesterday, however.

The college finally released the highly anticipated accommodation information and thus reveled who would be who’s roommate. Contrary to many of my future classmates, my attitude towards learning with whom I will be sharing a room was rather cool. Just as anything that is not directly related to academics, I considered this information unimportant, especially since I had no influence over the decision-making process. But it appears I will be staying on the first floor of the Stine Hall in the north part of campus; my roommate is a football player from New Jersey. That’s actually pretty cool because I will finally have an opportunity to learn the rules the sport the Europeans view with disdain.

Announcement of the housing information was the last in the series of such announcements and I suppose that nothing else substantive should come to my attention before unpacking my clothes at Stine. I ought to keep searching for a new laptop and bedsheets (sic), and figure out how to get the last immunizing shots, but will take a break from these dreadful activities tomorrow as I will be competing in a golf tournament in Ostravice. Wish me luck!

Someone had been reading my mind…

The peculiar psychology of short putts and the missing thereof also has a lot to do with how cruelly an errant 3-footer annihilates the brilliance of a shot, or a series of shots covering 400 yards or more, that got you to that position. It doesn’t seem fair, and it isn’t fair. It’s an outrage!

The Wall Street Journal: When 3 Feet Is a Mile

Golf: Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden

The etymology of the word golf is of course far more complex than the witty heading would suggest. The truth is, however, that for most of the time since its first mentions in literature more than five centuries ago, the sport had had predominantly male followers. That begun to change when women decided that their efforts of emancipation should extend beyond classrooms and voting rooms, that they deserved to proudly accompany their husbands on the golf course with a club in hand not only as their wives but also competitors. That’s when the first pairs of red wooden cubes were placed far in front of the yellow ones on the tee-grounds.

One might infer from the first paragraph that I wrote in a slightly sardonic style that I conservatively disagree with introducing women to golf; in reality, the complete opposite is true. Of course I am intimidated by the fact the locations of women’s tee-grounds make it easier for them to place the ball all the way up to fairway (the shorter distances do not bother me, the favorable angles do), but that’s the only complaint I have.

There is no better way of demonstrating the veracity of the opening sentence of previous paragraph than by revering my female competitress from Tuesday’s golf tournament in Slovakian spa town of Piešťany who is a fabulous player. Ms. M., a tall and slim 19-year-old blond with handicap of 26, was at first almost absolutely professional — the only bit of professionalism she did not possess revealed her inner I that brimmed with disdain. Ms. M.’s initial irritation appeared shortly after I and my grandfather, her colleagues in the flight, teed off. While my ball rolled on the ground some 50 meters and stopped strategically ahead of a bunker (if only the swing didn’t look so crippled, the strategy could have been considered as very wise), my grandfather’s traveled no more than ten meters at a 30° angle. Our nervousness then prevailed and although I finished the hole with handicap-adjusted boogie (the hole was par 3, with my then hcp of 54 I could afford scoring six to still meet the par), I didn’t feel well. Thankfully, the walk to the next tee ground was rather long and I could regain my concentration and finish the next hole with an adjusted birdie. I will not go into details and describe each hole as it would turn out boring to many, let’s just say I don’t think Ms. M. was lying when she answered my question with relieved smile and “Well, on the first hole I thought this tournament would be a waste of time, thankfully not anymore.”

The major turning point came after the first nine holes when the combination of two factors — her heavy-weight bag and burning hot weather — started to affect her play and behavior. Several times her swings that made their ways to the bushes rather than on fairways were followed with brusque curses in Slovak, and one time she even threw her driver away in anger. Few holes later, when we were waiting for the flight ahead of us to leave the area where they might have become involuntary targets of our drives, she gladly collapsed on the ground and complained to me about the hot, making her only move by rolling sideways to retrieve her water bottle from the bag. This was really funny to see; this could never happen on a tennis tournament!

After finishing the round, I scored about ten strokes more than Ms. M. but thanks to my sky-high handicap I managed to obtain nine stableford points more than her. Also, I managed to finish sixth out of twelve in my category, an accomplishment for which I am very proud of myself. Although it might sound sexist, my motivation to beat her was found more easily than if I had been playing against a grey-haired man. My motivation to enter further golf tournaments is however not driven solely by my desire to walk with well-dressed young women in a park, but by determination to improve my handicap before leaving for the States. My goal is to lower it under 50 which is perfectly feasible as long as I play enough official games. I am entering one next Wednesday in Ostravice and then another one the following Tuesday in Olomouc. Then I will have to find two more so that I can have my handicap computed from enough sources and therefore have it correctly low. I’m very excited.