divine angst

This crap really infuriates me. I particularly like this bit:

Most research defines “binge drinking” as having five or more drinks in a row, without counting how far past five the drinkers go.

The Berkeley, California-based nonprofit health research institute found that many of the 1,000 male college drinkers surveyed said they had 24 or more drinks in a row.

“These are levels of drinking at which most men will have passed out or become comatose,” said Paul Gruenewald, who led the study.

Well, sure, if someone consumes 24 drinks in a couple of hours, they will indeed be comatose. But the researchers didn’t specify over what period of time these young men had these 24 drinks.

There are two glaring problems with this sort of news article. The first is that these reports are so vague that anyone who drinks could be considered a binge drinker. After all, binge drinking is defined as “five or more drinks in a row” So does this mean that, at a tailgate party that could last up to four hours, a young man who has a six-pack is a binge drinker? I guess that means my husband and my father are both binge drinkers, too, then, and most of our friends, and, oh yes, me. Or how about a group out at a nice restaurant for three or so hours, who have several bottles of wine. Those people must be binge drinkers as well.

So that’s problem one—vague reporting that equates to fear-mongering.

Problem two: The attitude towards drinking taken by these researchers and/or reporters only serves to worsen the issue. Remember—alcohol in itself isn’t bad. It’s when it is abused that problems arise. More concretely, the heaviest drinkers I know often grew up in very strict households where alcohol was absolutely forbidden. What happens when you tell a kid they can’t have something? They want it more. Turn that around, and the people I know with the healthiest attitudes about drinking were often exposed to it at an early age—by seeing their parents drink responsibily at meals and perhaps being given, for instance, a small glass of wine with dinner.

The fact is that college students drink. They are not going to stop drinking—the genie is way out of the bottle, no pun intended. So what is the solution? Make college students more responsible drinkers. And the way to do that is not to broadcast how dangerous binge drinking is, telling the world how awful it is. No, instead, we should provide college students opportunities to show that they can be responsible with alcohol in adult settings. My undergrad institution used to have a tradition of “Thursday Night Kegs”—students and faculty would join together on Thursday nights, in common campus areas, to socialize and have a few drinks. Liability issues forced the administration to ban kegs from campus. Since the ban, hard liquor use on campus has drastically risen, and more occurences of alcohol poisoning are reported every year.

See, when the students were placed in an adult context with other adults, socializing and drinking responsibly, everyone had a good time. No, that’s not to say there were no problems—there are always problems. But the problems were fewer.

If we want college students to act like responsible, adult drinkers, we need to treat them like responsible adult drinkers. Treating them like children who are bound to get into trouble will only encourage them to test the waters.

Morning Edition on NPR had a piece this morning about Catholics being given permission to vote for candidates who support abortion rights without the act of voting for that person being a grave sin.

Frankly, the Catholics I know who are worried about the various and sundry things their bishops “permit” them to do are not the ones who also want to vote for John Kerry. I was pleased to hear that a Catholic priest and theology professor at Notre Dame felt the same way.

Maybe I’ve been away from the Catholic Church for too long, but this morning it struck me how odd and alien the even theoretical structure of the church is (when it comes to those on the bottom rungs, the parishioners). The men and women who tithe their money to pay for programs and buildings and priests’ salaries are supposed to also be subject to letters and memos from their bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, telling them what is the appropriate behavior in any number of situations.

So let’s imagine a small group Catholics, sitting in their pews, agonizing over the upcoming election—they feel the war in Iraq is bad or badly run, they oppose the death penalty, they feel strongly about social justice and social programs. In other words, they dont’ want to vote for GWB. But John Kerry supports abortion rights. To be “true” and “good” Catholics, they have to then vote against their consciences.

It’s all moot anyway. The Catholics who are most concerned about what their bishop allows them to do and not to do are the same ones who believe that abortion is the greatest evil our nation is facing today—because that’s what the Church has told them. I wish the Church would start looking at some other issues that are related and important—like the death penalty, which John Paul II opposes and our current president heartily endorses. Or human rights violations, or child abuse, or even the ever-increasing divorce rate. These are all social issues Catholics should have a strong opinion on. But the issue they focus the most on? Abortion.

How will the death of the floppy affect law students? From what I hear, lots of law schools still require exams to be turned in on a floppy disk.

In some ways it seems the legal profession is light years ahead of lots of other industries—in, for instance, their high use of the internet, email, and wireless (Blackberry) communication. In other ways they’re just falling behind—and the biggest example of that is that so many law schools, where future lawyers are taught the tools of the trade if not the trade itself, are Luddite havens.

Kill the floppy!

Now that my LSAT prowess has increased, my fear of the evil test has decreased. Following my big backtrack, I stopped thinking of anything related to law school admissions except the test. Study study study. Practice practice practice.

Now that my studying seems to be back on track, and my confidence is up, I think it’s time to return to the dreaded personal statement.

I’m beginning to see the process of writing this little essay as a series of stages. Sort of like the grieving process. I’ve passed
through, first, the “explanation” stage: Oh, I know I’ve been out of school for a while, but here’s why and here’s what I hate about my life now and see how I want to change it?

Then there was the “description” stage: I’m a good writer and like research and oh, yeah, I love to argue and all of these things will make me a really excellent lawyer, don’t you think?

Now, finally, I think I’m at a place where I can write something more honest and true. The fact is, there are many other careers I could consider, other educational opportunities I could pursue, other lifestyles I could focus on. Why am I choosing the law school path?

Because it’s interesting to me, it will allow me to do things I enjoy (like write and research), I’m definitely qualified, and there’s a chance—a pretty big one—that when I’m out, I’ll actually be able to get a job related to my graduate education.

Sure, I could try for an MFA in writing, or go after an academic Ph.D. But I don’t want to go into several years of schooling without any idea how likely I’ll be to get a job in my field when I’m done. I don’t want to run after three little letters just because of the prestige. Any letters after my name better make me more marketable.

I’m at a place in my life where stability is pretty important to me. That’s not to say that running off to law school with a grad-student husband in tow is choosing stability; but when we’re done with our educations, I don’t want to have to keep moving around in search of research assistantships, grants, and the possibility of academic tenure. I want to know that, if I like the city we land in, I can probably stay there and get a job that uses my $100,000 degree.

I want it all, I admit. I want to live where I want to live, afford relatively nice things, have a happy, healthy family, and go to work every day to do things I am not only good at but that I also enjoy. I want it all, and I kind of want it on my terms. So, yeah, I have other options. But law and law school are the most attractive.

1. Forced myself to stay in bed until 10:30 am despite being awake by 9 am. It’s a holiday, damn it!
2. Made buttermilk pancakes and French press coffee.
3. Attempted to froth milk in the KitchenAid with the whisk. This did not work. I really need one of these.
4. Watched two episodes of What Not To Wear and two episodes of Law and Order.
5. Remained perfectly still for half an hour when the electricity went out and the air conditioning subsequently stopped so that my body would not overheat.
6. Reset all the clocks in the house after the power outage.
7. Took a practice LSAT and scored one (1) point better than my previous high score and 5 (five) points higher than my last, disappointing performance.
8. On that same LSAT, got 19 games questions right out of 24. Of the five that I missed, four were questions I didn’t answer because I ran out of time. In other words, I only missed one question that I actually answered.

The day’s not even over yet! Still to come: sautéd fillet of salmon, potatoes au gratin, and steamed broccoli with lemon butter. Possibly some laundry. Perhaps an after-dinner walk.

It’s been a good holiday, and a good weekend.

UPDATE: No laundry, two more WNTW episodes, and a batch of banana bread in the oven. Oh, and no exercise. Hey—it’s a holiday. I don’t have to work out.

LawMom just commented, wondering when I plan to start law school. And I realized I’ve never actually said!

The hope is that my husband and I will both be starting school in the Fall of 2005. The programs he’s looking tend to have late admissions, so he could have started this year, but he’s a good man and he’s waiting for me.

My whole planning stage has been sort of compressed—I’m studying for the LSAT, working on my personal statement, and doing applications all at the same time. But I’m a good multi-tasker. I’m not afraid! I’ve been told squeezing the process into less than a year is foolish, but I’m not sure I could handle a year of planning just to apply. It’s hard enough waiting a year to actually start. Patience is not one of my virtues, needless to say.

Scheherazade has a new post about the onset of fall.

I miss fall greatly. My undergrad institution was located in a place where September has a chilly bite in the morning and leaves actually change color. Many of my favorite memories are of walking alone through one of the many green areas on campus, meandering through the snow-weighted evergreens. Or bundling into fleece and wool for the three minute trek to the dining hall.

Here, the weather has been a tad unusual for September—it actually is chilly this morning, which thrills me. I know, though, that the chill will burn off quickly, leaving only a blazing sun behind. September is hot here, and always has been. The days are not truly cool until November, and the leaves do not turn colors; they just wither and drop from the trees. And while I love this city I live in and this state I am from, I miss fall deeply.

I just took two timed Games sections. I finished each one — the first with 35 seconds left, the second with four minutes left.

Out of a total of 48 questions, I missed FOUR.

I am the Games Goddess. Hear me kick ass on the LSAT.

From this article in Slate:

Tonight confirmed what I suspected before the Democratic convention began: In violation of the normal rules of politics, this year’s election is a referendum on the challenger rather than a referendum on the incumbent. There’s a general sense that a change in presidents would be a good thing, but the country is taking that decision more seriously than it would in peacetime, and voters aren’t certain, despite their disapproval of President Bush, that a President Kerry would be an improvement.

This is pretty much the best summation I’ve heard of this year’s presidential race.

I have a theory.

I’ve been reading this article in Salon.com about George Bush and his “missing years of service.”

This isn’t going to be a post about Bush and whether or not he served. No, the thing that really struck me about this article is the recounting of Bush’s relationship at that time in his life with his parents. I think we’ve all heard or read some of these stories�how he challenged Bush Sr. to go “mano a mano” at one point, how he both idolized and resented his dad, and had a difficult relationship with his mother, who was known to humiliate him.

Personally, I don’t care if the Bushes were the Cleavers or the Geins�the family is a political dynasty, so I’m sure some of these accounts are exaggerated, just as I’m sure there’s some basis in fact for many of these rumors. And even the Bushes admit that, circa 1968-1970, their household wasn’t exactly idyllic.

And this interests me. Because I have this feeling that an attraction to politics, like the attraction to certain other professions, is enhanced by famililial discord. No, not every great politician comes from an unhappy or discordant family. But, more often than not, domestic horror stories lurk in many politicians’ backgrounds. Clinton is a great example�growing up poor in Arkansas, with a succession of imperfect father figures, he excelled (and excels) at presenting a “fatherly” warmth as a politician. He uses his background�in his case, what was missing�to enhance his appeal.

It’s the same for actors, in a lot of ways. Many of the best actors have some strife in their background. Maybe it didn’t come from their family life, but it came from somewhere. It’s hard to be a good actor when you don’t have those strong emotions to draw on. I’m not saying every good actor has to come from a broken home�certainly there are many talented men and women who just have the natural ability to perform without drawing from their past�but most (at least American) actors are trained to use their past as a basket of goodies from which to draw the necessary emotional memory for a part. [This is why I was always such a poor actor. My messed-up family history was counterbalanced by my mother’s valiant efforts to help us overcome all the crap. I didn’t have any crap left to draw on in my acting classes.]

So perhaps Bush is the successful politician he is (and believe me, Bush is a very canny man and a far sharper politician than many give him credit for) and perhaps he was drawn to politics for the same reason many other artists are drawn to their professions�the need for an outlet of some kind.

Is politics an art? Absolutely. And like much art, it is only made stronger by the emotional turmoil of the artist’s past.

Gmail has given me several more invites. Any takers?