O'Reilly and Coulter! Two great tastes that make waste together!

oh, dear.

Voice of Reason

In case I wasn't being obvious enough.

BABY OIL? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

http://www.katu.com/news/images/story2003/030819oreilly_katu.jpg

Dude was a talking head in Portland of all places, and the Mitchell connection is so inescapable that we've made it on here before.

i sat next to a crazy batshit witch on a flight from Austin to New York a couple of weeks ago who was telling me this. she started off by saying she was of irish and scottish descent, so she had a problem with the english, and then began raving about the BBC and the Guardian being bad journalists, and that she consults the president's website to get the truth, and that she reads lots of blogs. she used the word liberal like i use the word cunt, the most vicious of insults. i kept telling her i didn't want this conversation with her, but she kept barking on. she told me america won the war in south vietnam. i asked her if she knew who daniel ellsworth was, or what the Pentagon Papers were. she said she didn't, so i told her that since she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about, i would have to listen to my walkman instead.

she did say, however, that she wasn't a fan of O'Reilly's.

Next time you see a teenager sitting around with a soda can, especially at night, ask him or her if you can have a sip. If they offer you the can, you don't have to drink. If they don't, there's a good chance the beverage inside isn't Dr. Pepper.

Drinking is cool again in America's high schools — way cool.

My father broke his back working in order to send me to Chaminade High School on Long Island. This is a college preparatory school with a strict code of behavior. My dad knew that if I got through that place, there would be a chance I would not wind up in Sing-Sing, a situation my grammar school teachers had predicted.

While Chaminade taught "values" and a Christian philosophy on life, off campus many students were wild men. Back then, the drinking age was 18 and most seniors could legally buy all the booze they wanted. And many did, leading to the usual chaos.

Now, the drinking age in America is 21, if the state wants federal highway funds. But, according to my high school teacher friends, student drinking is worse than it ever was. It's so bad that Chaminade and other private schools have cancelled proms this year, citing after-prom parties where many kids drink themselves sick.

The principal at Chaminade, Father James Williams, places much of the blame on parents. And remember, these parents aren't struggling in the inner city to put food on the table—these are affluent parents who believe kids will be kids, so why not let them get wasted once in a while?

This attitude is more common than you might think in America. The primary rationalization is, you can die for your country in Iraq or Afghanistan, but you can't drink? Come on.

Okay, fine, it is tough to tell an 18-year old that his Bud's not for him. But let's be realistic. Intoxication can lead to many things, and not many of them are good. Drunk adults often get away with the overindulgence, but the risk goes through the roof with kids.

Most guidance counselors will tell you that many pregnancies occur when teenagers are drunk. STD's are also easily passed along when teens are too out of it to use protection. Fights break out, destructive traffic accidents are common, and so is destruction of property.

If a teenager is drunk and unsupervised — look out.

Often, parents have an unrealistic view of their offspring. How many moms and dads that you know will say, "Yeah, I know Jack's a lush, but hey, I'm not committed enough to control him." How many times have you ever heard THAT?

No, the usual dance is for parents to say they have "good kids," and to slough off substance abuse with a shrug. After all, many baby boomer parents routinely got blasted in their youth.

That kind of thinking is foolish, and if you don't believe me, have a medium set you up with Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Substance abuse was dopey then, and it's dopey now. Just because you survived it doesn't mean your daughter will.

So the best plan is to lay out the pros and cons of getting loaded. Discuss the good things about it with your kids, and the bad things about it. Use some visuals to make points. Baby pictures, hospital rooms, wrecked cars, that kind of thing.

Then keep track of your kid. As long as he or she is getting laundry done in the house, you have a right to do that.

In short, do everything you can to discourage the intoxication deal. In that way, if you fail, at least you know you tried.

When WASN'T it cool?

Does he mean pictures of the child as a baby, for nostalgia or embarrassment or lord knows what else? Or pics of the least healthy FAS babies? My health teacher, an evil woman who I helped get fired from my school district, showed us power points of FAS babies for like a whole week. Another time, aborted fetuses. The point: don't get drunk, don't fool around, but all it really made me want to do was never have a baby ever in my entire life. I wasn't fond of babies in the first place but she made it out to be winning the monster lottery.

Substance abuse was dopey then, and it's dopey now. Just because you survived it doesn't mean your daughter will.

This seems like a better route. "Woodstock the movie, kid. I'm that muddy hippie right there. God, was I ever dopey. You wanna end up like me? Showing your tits for some bad mescaline? I barely pulled through. You think you can? Now go to the corner store and get me some USA Golds. The clerk knows it's for me, he'll be cool."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGFRi_ueq-M&eurl=

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