Filed under: drugs, student life | Tags: alcohol, Biological Destiny, drunken shenanigans, riot, science
posted by strangelyanonymous
Drinking is bad for you. But you will do it. If you are a creationist, blame God. If you are a Darwinist, blame evolution. But for goodness sake – don’t blame your self!
I had the luxury of attending an open lecture last weekend by Prof Harlene Hayne from the Otago Psychology dept. The intriguing title was “My Brain Made Me Do It”. After hearing the lecture I realized that this translates to: ”It’s not student’s fault that they drink”. I remember feeling that there was some sort of biological duality discussed about responsibility but I was in the midst of a phenomenal hangover so it all slipped into the mists of alcohol abuse. Fortunately the NZ herald ran an article summarizing her research and will I take the opportunity to draw attention to a couple of points raised:
- We really are our brains, so it’s not surprising adolescent brains like risky behaviour, driving too fast, unprotected sex, alcohol, because that’s what they are programmed to do.
The logic here is interesting. I am curious to see if stands up in a court of law.
- Girls are now as much into alcohol, unprotected sex, drugs and other risky behaviour and are hurting themselves and dying at almost as high a rate as their male counterparts.
I’m not sure if this is true judging from the preponderance of non-Munich-style “sausagefests” occuring in town. Where are these drunken, loose or dead women hiding? If they were really into risky behavior why are they not wandering the streets in town? Patently false I say!
Anyway, the moral of the story seemed to be ‘let’s give students a chance because they are just glorified children who don’t know any better’. I think she might have the nail on the head there.
You can find the whole debacle here.
as long as people have been drinking, people have been challenging the status quo about what to drink. it used to be beer/wine/mead and then spirits came on the scene. many years passed and with the boom in teenage drinking such concepts as RTDs came about and none of this is relevant really to the fact that every year a drink stands above the rest and claims the following year for itself.
2009 is the year of ScrumpV and what sets ScrumpV above the rest is that not only is it a drink, it’s a process
so we’ve got scrumpy. it’s not just a brand, it’s a style of cider. it’s alcoholic and somewhat bitter
and we’ve got V. everyone knows what this is.
so what’s ScrumpV then? if I had to put it into words I’d say it was a mixture of the two, but are words enough?
it’s not just the combination, but the way the combination is formulated. see, anyone with a brain can see that you can’t fit a can of V into a bottle of scrumpy. you could pour it into a glass, but then it wouldn’t be ScrumpV and it would simply be lame.
so what you do, is you take a sip of your scrumpy. whenever there is some room left at the top of the bottle (as the case would be if you sipped like I just told you to) you pour some V in. so slowly the drink transforms from scrumpy and a can of V to ScrumpV. when does this transition occur? when does it change? a philosopher has debated this recently and has come to no conclusion, apart from to say that afterwards, it is certain that ScrumpV had occurred.
some people often ask me what ratio of scrumpy to V. this is open to interpretation but there are clear upper and lower bounds. no less than one 250ml can and no more than one 500ml can per one bottle of scrumpy. this might sound like tight regulations but life isn’t easy.
so there you go. 09 drink of the year. send in your photos of you drinking ScrumpV and I’ll send you an old magazine
giving you the ridiculous even though you don’t want it
what science do you have a problem with today? right now we’ve got the lies of electricity
“The Theory of Electricity.” remember this: no-one has ever seen an electron.
according to the theory of electricity, there are electrons all over the place, moving around atoms in an unknown fashion. sometimes we have electrons in our body.. have you ever felt one?
and the theory contains clear inconsistencies – scientists tell us lightning is electricity, but it’s clearly light.
by convincing people that the theory of electricity is true, scienticians are playing a dangerous game. every year thousands of people are hospitalised – many even die – because of “electric shocks” they believe they have recieved. the myth of electricity is so ingrained that they actually feel a shock and die because they expect to!
and every day we continue to teach our children this dangerous falsehood. I weep for the nation’s future.
otago massacre 