Ozzy Begins Vermont Campaign to Lower the Drinking Age

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Actually, the result is mostly because we are finding back our base that we lost when we sucked the dick of the former government. It's absolutely not because of charisma (we have a big problem on that one).

The other reason is because we slowly manage to have our ideas known (ideas which you have no idea about, but already dismiss as "dead" because of the C word, like a great many French people do), and we have re-created new networks.
Just like Ozzy, the ideas of the French Communist Party are not well known, and the arguments in favour of them are basically unknown. Especially in my neck of the wood, where communists are seen as fair freaks (along with two-headed twins and bearded women ). However, because of the C word, many people criticize us on their image of our platform.

This is why it is essential to make our arguments known. Especially, it takes time to have people admit that we're a normal party that carries a viable alternative. Just like it'll take time for Ozzy to have people admit he represents an actual issue, that deserves attention, and whose arguments aren't immature (such is the prejudice he risks to encounter).

Ozzy has done this work quite well on 'Poly. Two years ago, I can't think of anybody who had an interest in youth rights. It is now an issue regularly discussed here, and some people who are not him have taken sides. Still, prejudice continues to exist about his issue, but we are now more knowledgeable about it, and he even got some support on the matter in the end.

This work of "sensibilization" is much harder in the real world than on 'Poly, because RL people are much less politically interested, and much less socially liberal as well. However, the real world is where it's at



(if you wonder what our platform is, it's mostly about defense of public services and of worker rights, wealth redistribution through equal taxation on income from capital as income from work, more direct direct democracy at local level, mixed housing, etc. We make no reference to a communist society anymore, and we only vaguely hint to "changing society". As you can see, ideas that are absolutely dead and couldn't interest anybody )

I thought in France there is already huge worker rights?? I mean I heard of this french chic that worked at a company then got laid off and was paid further 6 months full salary without needing to do anything.
How's that for any company to survive?

Not that I am against worker rights, but everything need to be in balance, no?

[Dinner]

No state is going to lower their drinking age for the same reason Puerto Rico finally gave in and raised their age to 21. In the 1980's Congress wanted to crack down hard on drinking and driving so they started a big push to move the legal age from 18 to 21. When some states refused to play ball the Fed tied most of the education and highway dollars to having a drinking age of 21. The law is still in effect so one one is going to lower their drinking ages back down to 18.

[OzzyKP]

Puerto Rico never raised their drinking age to 21. Its still 18.

[OzzyKP]

I dunno if my underlings are gonna get off their lazy butts to post anything, so here is Day 8. Remember to go back and read Day 1-7 here: http://www.oneandfour.org

Day 8 - The Science of Recruiting

Today started bright and early with a radio interview. We didn't have much time to get ready in the morning, I just grabbed some cereal and we were on our way. Hardy, Dave and I drove down to Colchester for an interview on WVMT 620AM. We met Ken there, who was going to hang out with us for the day. The interview started at 7:40 am. We were just a touch late, but its alright.

The hosts were friendly, and no surprise, they knew Hardy. We got started right away. We were all in the same studio, unlike the earlier radio interview. Hardy, the two hosts and I, were all standing up and all facing each other. It was a bit more natural than the other one. We didn't get a chance to take a picture, the spot was real short. It went well though. The host plugged the debate too which was good.

After the interview we went over to St. Michael's College, but it was only like 8:15 or so, and it was too early to really start tabling. So we grabbed a bagel and drove back to Hardy's and chilled for an hour and a half. I sent Ken and Hardy the Dee & Evans study Mike Males sent me. They looked it over and printed it out. I wrote some more in my blog, and did other online type stuff. Then Ken, Dave and I got back in THABOAT and went down to St. Mikes.

We didn't have a table reserved for us, but it was raining out, so we decided to just grab a table and hope for the best. We loaded up with stuff and headed on down to the cafeteria. There were plenty of tables set up in the hallway in the student center on the way to the cafeteria. No one was using them, so we just took over two of them. We set up our stuff, Ken manned the table and Dave and I stood on either end to bring people in.

It was amazing. Everyone was coming to lunch, so there was a steady stream of people. It never got too busy for us to handle, or too slow either. Just a steady, continual stream which made it perfect. I was definitely on fire. We were pulling everyone to the table. Unlike some schools where we had a lot of nos, at this school almost everyone signed it. It was great too having plenty of pens and plenty of table space. At times the entire length of the two tables were filled with people filling out the cards. Like 10 at a time. The pile of filled out cards quickly got bigger and bigger.

I also made two good contacts at the school in addition to the many rank and file who filled out the card. One guy was very enthusiastic about the idea, and I had a second to talk to him more indepth. He told me he had six friends in Iraq, and definitely understood the injustice of being able to go to war and not drink. He was very interested in starting a chapter and getting actively involved. I can't wait. Plus, I told him about the debate and he said he was definitely going to come and would bring dozens of people with him. He figured he could fill car loads of people to come up. Very fricken awesome.

I also talked with a counciler at the school, an older guy, who said he was strongly opposed to raising it to 21 in the first place, and still felt the same way. He said before it was raised, students were much more likely to come to him with their alcohol problems and seek help. Now everyone is afraid of getting in trouble for underage drinking. He would be a great person to speak out on the issue.

For like an hour and a half we were mad busy. It never got more than we could handle, but it didn't drop off. Finally we started to run out of our cards. I thought we had plenty, but we just signed up like crazy. I called Hardy to let him know we needed more cards. He first suggested we go to Kinkos or Staples because it'd be a bad waste of time if we drove back to his place and then back to Burlington, but he then agreed to just make some up and drive them down to us himself. Very cool. By about 2 it had slowed down a bit at St. Mikes so we met with Hardy at Jay's house. Jay lives near Champlain College, so we just parked there cause it was easier.

Hardy gave us another 200 cards. We only had like 3 left of the earlier batch. Very much a good sign. We loaded his car up with our tabling supplies, and he drove us to campus and dropped us off. We had a table reserved for us in the student center. Right next to some homeless charity table. The place was pretty quiet though when we got there. It was well after lunch and too early for dinner, so it was a dead time. I went around and talked to all the folks in the room (people playing pool, reading, watching tv, etc), and I got them all (or most of them) to sign.

One woman I spoke with, an older professor type, was very interested. Since it was slow I just took an extra few minutes to sit down and chat with her about it casually. I like it when I get some time to talk to people more in-depth, one on one. Usually when I'm tabling its so fast and frenzied, its like I'm on an assembly line. Not that I mind always. When I'm really cooking its a good feeling, like a sport. Like at St. Mikes, I felt like a pro-athelete having a good game, everything was moving as it should, and I was in the zone. Everytime I flagged down a group of people and got them to sign the cards I felt like doing a touchdown dance. I'd check the pile of cards, like I was checking the score of the game.

So I guess there is some definite fun involved in the fast recruiting. However it does feel a bit superficial. Once someone takes the card I'm done with them and I move on to my next kill. I feel like I'm using them, preying upon them. I feel like a used car salesmen, giving out a great pitch and sometimes getting the "sale" by the force of my will alone.

Its different though when I get a chance to speak to someone one-on-one. Especially someone who sympathizes with me. They relate some personal experience on the issue, and I share some of mine, we discuss the issue and for a brief moment connect in agreement over an issue. In the assembly line I'm just focused on getting my ideas into the heads of others and getting them to do what I want. When I've got more time, I can really listen to someone else, and what is cool about that is I get to hear others say my points back to me. Nothing makes me happier than having strangers make my arguments. The more people out there who understand and can articulate our points, the better it is for the movement. So when I get a chance to talk to them, its great and I feel a sense of long term accomplishment.

Then again I also get a sense of short term failure. Spending time preaching to the choir is damaging to the goal of getting more people to sign the cards. In the assembly line mindset I've just wasted 10 minutes talking to 1 person, when I could have spent 10 minutes talking to 30 people. It seems terribly inefficient. So I usually only take the time when things are slow.

Anyways, there can be benefits from taking the time to speak with people more personally. The woman I spoke with is a staff member, and said she'd like to have us come speak on campus. So on the one hand it was a waste to spend 10 minutes talking to her, it paid off with building a contact that could arrange a speaking spot. So its always a trade off.

Back at the table things were at last starting to pick up. Our table was real small though, so we didn't have as much room for people to write. Plus our table was right by the door and I had to throw myself at them sometimes while they were still in the doorway. We had a good rush, and got most of our cards for the school then.

Then this one guy came and wanted to talk to me about the issue. He didn't agree, but he was polite and intelligent. Usually when someone just wants to argue with me I try to politely extract myself. But this guy was genuinely interested in the issue and was reasonable in his arguments. Plus he seemed to be quite intelligent, so debating the issue with him was a nice intellectual challenge and good preparation for the debate the following night. Plus it is a pleasure to discuss an issue with someone who can rationally consider our arguments (for the most part) and someone who is honest enough to recoginze when a good point has been made and conceede the point.

While he didn't dispute many of my central points, his main argument was that lowering the age to 18 will allow more 16 year olds access to alcohol (and he's probably right), and he just did not trust 16 year olds with alcohol at all. He accepted the benefits of the European system and said that he'd love it if the US never had a drinking age in the first place, but now that we have it would be impossible to change things. He predicted the transition costs in drunk driving and alcohol abuse and such would be too great to warrant making the attempt. So basically his argument rested on those two points, that 16-year-olds would be too irresponsible with alcohol and the transition would be to costly. He even said he'd have no problem with allowing 13-year-olds more access to alcohol, but he just feared folks at 16. Based on personal experience he said. He said he was reckless and immature and such at 16.

So both his points were ultimately subjective. Are 16-year-olds reckless? Well that is just a stereotype and prejudice and can't be satisfactorally proven. Will the transition be too deadly? Well is 1 additional death too much? Is 5? Is 50? It depends.

So even though he didn't ultimately come around (if we had more time perhaps), it did make for an interesting and challenging debate. Others had gathered around to listen to us. In any event I enjoyed it.

Ken and Dave were able to handle the table for the half-hour or more we had this debate, so that was good. Ken feels a lot more comfortable now with tabling than he did before. He has seen me and Dave, and watched our approach to it and he is now more comfortable with the statistics and arguments and information we have on the issue. So with that exposure and experience comes increased confidence, which is really the key ingredient. Ken is fairly soft-spoken which can be a liability in a recruiting/petitioning/card-filling-outing gig like this. But as the day went on I gave him more time to just handle it himself, and I sat back to give him the chance to do it himself. He did good. As has been said, the purpose of the Invading Hordes is to create Vermont Hordes. If Ken gets that good experience to become a good tabler, then that is a valuable victory for NYRA-VT that will have long lasting benefits.

After Champlain slowed down we packed up and I dropped Ken off at his dad's house. Dave and I went back to HQ. Hardy's cousin was there at the house when we got back. Hardy, his counsin and his girlfriend(I think) were trying to figure out the button maker so they could make some custom buttons. They weren't having much success. So I gave them all a crash course in button making. It took a bit, but they figured it out and made their buttons. We talked for a bit then they left. They will be at the debate on Tuesday.

Hardy made some good dinner of cous-cous, fish and asparagus. Gourmet stuff. I really don't like fish, but this stuff wasn't bad. I got seconds. We watched the Simpsons, and then watched ABC News' coverage of the Vatican and all the stuff going on there. The procession of John Paul's body, the viewing, the selection of a new Pope, etc. Very interesting. Hardy left for his soccer game. I counted up the cards we had filled out today. 207(or 217, I forget) from St. Michael's and 90 from Champlain College. About 300 for the day, not bad at all. And over 200 in just an hour and a half at St. Mikes. That's insane. Bonnie said that 25 an hour is a good rate for petitioning. We had over 200 in an hour and a half. Very fricken good.

Dave entered in all the cards we had today. I got online and checked my mail, wrote in my blog, talked with people online, etc etc. Robert wanted to raise $411 to fly Chris to Olympia to testify in behalf of the Washington voting age bill. He said Chris is very articulate and would be great to have there, but honestly $411 is way too much. We can't afford that. Maybe they can get greyhound or something.

We had a NYRA chat tonight. It wasn't one of our more successful ones. I was distracted with work, and the chatroom was incredibly laggy. Worst I've seen in a while. I talked with Galen. He had been put in charge of organizing the phone banking for the Vermont campaign. We needed all the folks from Norwich called and invited to the debate Tuesday night. So he found some volunteers and took care of all the calls. Everyone was a bit discouraged though about the calls. Most of the calls got a machine or they left a message. And the few people they actually talked to, most said maybe. They shouldn't be disappointed though, this is normal for phone banking. Even just leaving stuff on the machine helps. They get the message eventually and its a good reminder to come to the event. Plus it keeps us in contact rather than them never hearing from us again. I think it was a success.

I called Cathy and talked to her for a while. I tried to limit excessive cutesiness. I had a lot to do, so I didn't want to talk long, but we still ended up talking for over an hour. Its just so easy to talk to her, I didn't even notice how long we had been talking. So, we talked, then I went to bed a bit before 2 am.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
You picked the right state, at least. If any state is going to fall for youth rights jackassery, Vermont is the one...

Maine and Massachusetts also.


Spec.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Az
yeah, I was thinking the same thing.


Btw, either enforce it, or dump it. Having well-known and little-enforced laws is the basis to the fall of a society.

WTF did you change your name? "Az" sucks ass.

[Immortal Wombat]

So both his points were ultimately subjective. Are 16-year-olds reckless? Well that is just a stereotype and prejudice and can't be satisfactorally proven.

That does not mean it is not true. I wouldn't trust a 16 year old with anything more dizzying than Pepsi, or sharper than a spoon.

16 year olds who drink, drink far too much, and then go out, smash things and steal traffic cones. 18 year olds who drink, drink a bit too much, go out, make a racket and eat kebabs. 20 year olds who drink, drink in moderdation, have extensive arguments until sobriety kicks in, and then drive home.

[Atahualpa]

IW, waay too much white washing, stereotyping and generalizing

If you'd allow the 16 year olds to drink in public, you'd have less of a problem since then not only the extreme-16 year olds would drink but also the more moderate ones. Besides you'd have them in a controlled public area (a pub ) where they cannot do so much damage than drinking at home and going berzerk in the neighborhood.

[OzzyKP]

Day 10 - One Speech, Two Speech, Small Speech, Big Speech

We got up early today, and were out of the house a bit after 8:30 am. I got all spiffed up in my suit and Dave and I followed Hardy out to Burlington High School. BHS is Jay's high school, and he was able to arrange an assembly for us at like 9:30. We got in, and brought in a bunch of tabling supplies. Jay was waiting for us out front. He took us in to speak with the principal. She was nice.

We set things up in the auditorium, we set up a table in the back, Hardy set up the video camera to record my speech. The principal found me a microphone. Heavenly and Jeremy came to help out with the table. It was empty and then everyone showed up at once. But of course they were being herded by their teachers so most didn't have time to stop at the table. I was up front with Jay and the principal. It was up to the teacher's discretion whether they wanted to bring their classes to the assembly or not, but a lot did. Jay figures we had around 500 people there. It was nice. The principal got started by introducing Jay, and then Jay introduced me.

The microphone sucked, so I just spoke loudly without the mic. I think everyone heard me, I spoke well and clearly. Jay told me that the key thing I should push would be to convince everyone that they are actually being discriminated against. So many are complacent about it, and accept the status quo no matter how negative it is to them. Frederick Douglas has a quote about that, about how much oppression people will endure before they dare to try and fix things. I don't have it off hand though, but I'll link to it later. Anyways, Jay is completely right that that is what we need to do.

So I was a bit more passionate with my speech than usual, cause I was really trying to impress upon people the fact that they were oppressed (without saying that word). I dunno, sometimes I worry that if I give a more passionate speech, and the others aren't really feeling it with me, then I just seem silly. So its a difficult balance to make. Personally I like small speeches better. Then I can get intimate with people and really connect with them. Its much easier to connect to 20 people than 500. So instead of my usual, casual, conversational talk, I had to make the speech more traditional and then I slipped into a bit more passion (which may or may not have worked). Also at Jay's request I touched on all our main issues, not just the drinking age.

But I didn't talk too long, it was opened up to questions soon. The less I just monologue the better. I like answering questions better than speaking. Because then I can respond directly to someone's concern, and then I get a sense of what the audience is thinking and can respond to that. The more interaction with people the better. The questions were tough and almost all about the drinking age. They had the same kind of skeptical questions about it as anyone twice their age. So the folks who think of youth as unthinking self-interested automatons are consistently proved wrong in my experience. They have as many thoughtful things to say on the issue (on both sides) as any adult. So I answered people's questions a bit, and we ran out of time, and I encouraged people to talk to me afterwards and get involved.

A crowd of people gathered around me afterwards to continue hashing out the issue. Hardy came down and video taped us talking. This was nicer because it was more intimate, and I could relate to everyone better. Jay was there too talking with people. He knows the issues well, and did even before we got here, but he's picked up a few good soundbites and arguments from me over the last week. Jay is very impressive, and he will make a great president of the chapter when elections are held again next month. He is well connected and has run youth organizations before. After talking to us, several of the students went back to the table and signed up. They are all Jay's classmates, so I hope he can spark a NYRA chapter at his high school.

The speech, I thought, was pretty good, though I may not have brought them along as slowly as I should have. Perhaps I dived into stuff too soon and came off as radical, I'm not sure. But not many people signed stuff at the table. Mostly because they had to get to class right away and didn't have time. But who knows what everyone thought about it. I wish we had more time so I could get a better sense from people. A lot of the questions though were highly skeptical, so that bothers me. Perhaps I should have done less of a passionate speech trying to get youth rights to click, and more of a standard, patient, rational delivery of the main issues and arguments involved. That usually works better for me. But who knows, maybe they dug it and the supporters didn't say anything.

Dave and I left right from the school for Bennington. Hardy gave us directions to Bennington and to a few other schools in Southern Vermont. We headed south along Route 7, the same road we took to Rutland last week. Apparently we drove right past Middlebury then, but didn't stop. This time Dave and I stopped. It was absolutely gorgeous out outside. I think it was like 70 outside. And since I had put a tie and crap on for the BHS thing, I was all hot. But it was alright, I wasn't too formal.

We found a spot where a bunch of people were outside eating. It wasn't the main cafeteria, but it was a secondary eating spot. Lots of people were outside enjoying the great weather. I went around from table to table signing up people. Dave stood near the exit and signed up people as they were leaving/entering. I was tremendously effective, very high percentages of people were signing. One of the first girls I spoke to was really into it so I gave her a stack of cards, as I often do, so she could gather sigs on her own and mail them back to us. I gave her Hardy's business card too. I continued on signing up people, then after half an hour or so that girl came back with half her stack already finished. I was very impressed.

Dave and I only stopped for an hour or less, but we got like 80 people to fill out the cards. Then it was like 1 o'clock or so and the lunch crowd was starting to thin. I wanted to hit Marlboro College as well before my scheduled talk that night at Bennington, so we left Middlebury and continued south along Route 7. It was very pretty country along the road, especially south of Rutland. We were going through (or to the side of) the Green Mountain National Forest, and there were lots of cool mountains and such along the way. I'm sure it would be spectacular in the summer or fall when there were leaves on the trees. For now though, even with everything dead and barren, it was still cool looking.

We got down to Bennington, but we didn't stop. I got on Route 4 and drove east to Marlboro. The road was very windy compared to the others we've been on, and it was going through the mountains the whole time. Very nice country, also through the Green Mountain National Forest. Not too good when someone is in a hurry, but pretty to look at. Of course it always sucks when I'm going past great scenery when I'm driving, because I can't really stop and look as much.

I was worried about how long it would take us to get to Marlboro, especially since the road was all windy, but it ended up working out nice. It was really far out there in the middle of nowhere, and it looked like a summer camp. Didn't look like a college at all. We only had like half an hour, because we needed to get back to Bennington, but I figured it'd be good just to say we hit it. Marlboro was such a cool little hippie college. I pulled up and a bunch of people were sitting outside playing frisbee, smoking weed, sitting in a circle talking (maybe that was a class, I dunno). It was funny, but cool. I went to the group sitting in a circle, and I sat down with them and talked about the issue. Everyone was into it and signed. One girl was very into it and I gave her a stack of stuff to hand out, and some flyers and such. I marked her as a leader prospect and someone to hit up to be a chapter leader. Hopefully she and another guy I spoke to can start up a chapter at Marlboro. We also spoke with a guy from the school newspaper who was interested in doing a story on us if we sent him a press release. I took special note of all three of them.

We left Marlboro after just a short time there with like 36 cards filled out. Just as we were pulling out of the school I passed two hitchhikers and their dog. I stopped and they said they were just hoping to be driven halfway down the road. It wasn't far and they seemed like nice folks (hippies are always nice folks) so I gave them a ride. I had to clear out the backseat for them though, there was a bunch of crap in it. My car is all messed up now. My trunk is just filled with flyers and handouts and cards and posters and everything else. Its going to take a while to figure it all out.

So I gave them and their dog a ride, it was only like 5 minutes, but I got a chance to talk to them about youth rights. They didn't sign the card because neither were from Vermont, and I'm guessing neither really had a phone, e-mail, or permanent address at the moment, heh, so we just talked a bit. They sounded interested, so that was cool. We dropped them off and continued back down the road to Bennington.

We got on campus, and were signing up people as soon as we got out of the car. There were like 3-4 people filling out the cards right on the trunk of THABOAT. I had to wait till they were done before I fished out some more stuff from the trunk. I called Sarah, out contact at the school, left a message and then we walked to the main part of campus, a bunch of people were outside having a BBQ. I went to hit them, and Dave went to the Commons Building and got people standing around outside there. We weren't at it long, maybe 15 minutes when Johnny Law had to bring the party down.

This guy was just hilarious. He looked like some small town sheriff from the 50's. An older guy with gray slicked back hair, walked with the swagger of a gunslinger. He clutched the flashlight in his belt as if it were a gun. Clearly this guy takes his job way, way too seriously. He came up to me and said, all seriously "you are in violation of school policy, you must cease and desist your solicitation immediately." Then he escorted us down to student activities, all the while talking on his shoulder mounted walkie-talkie to "headquarters" I guess. If he was trying to intimidate me, it wasn't working. I dunno, I think Dave was worried a bit, but it was all I had to resist laughing. That definitely wouldn't be good, cause he might have shined his flashlight at me menacingly.

We sat there in the waiting room watching Bill "Robo-Rent-A-Cop" Reynolds pace around all serious and listening to some girls sniffle and cry next to us. I felt bad for he girls, but I had no idea what happened. Thinking I'd want to remember this all later, I started taking notes on particulars about our middle-aged tormenter. Finally the Dean, who we were waiting for, was done and we could go see him.

We entered the office of a very nice, but VERY gay dean in a paisley plaid shirt. He explained that there had been two deaths in the last two weeks on campus. But he kept like exaggerating the details, and then apologizing and retelling it. "Just last week two girls fell out of their window on campus and fell to their deaths.... I'm sorry, that's not right at all, actually one died, and the other is in the hospital, I'm sorry."

He explained since the deaths (also another girl in a car accident) that because of the "emotional fragility" of the campus, that something like us going around asking people for signatures could trigger an emotional response from tramuatized students and result in someone breaking down in tears. So in order to safe guard the fragile emotional state of the students, soliciting was now banned. Ummm, ok. But whatever, its his decision so whatever. He asked us for our names and I gave him my business card. Then he let us go on our way but stressed again we could not solicit and we must leave campus immediately after our event.

We walked back over to the Commons building and figured we'd just wait for Sarah. Thankfully it didn't take long before she found us. She seemed cool. We hung out a bit, and I shared our brush with "the law". She knew Bill quite well, and said he was a dick to everyone on campus. And that yes, he just takes his job way too seriously.

We had an hour to kill, she asked what we wanted to do, and I suggested dinner. We went over the snack bar. I got a bacon cheeseburger and small salad, Dave got cheese quesadillas. Sarah put it on the school's account or something, so awesome - free food. It took forever though. Finally they actually finished the burger and we ate.

After eating we walked back to THABOAT to grab some tabling materials, and then we grabbed some food that Sarah bought for the event. We had to stay with her the whole time, since we were visitors we needed an escort. We got the food, headed back to the Commons building and set things up. She had a nice spread, flavored humus, bagel chips, strawberries, snicker minis, cookies, and goldfish crackers. Good stuff. I had a bunch of strawberries. The room was all hot so I opened up the windows. They were all old though, I was worried they were going to crash down on me. The breeze was nice though

People started to file in. It wasn't a huge crowd, but that's alright. Unlike the speech at Burlington High School I was able to relate to everyone better. I was totally relaxed and totally on my game. Unlike BHS when I was all serious and trying to be passionate, I was just casual and, with the small crowd, funny. The whole talk was very personal, and Sarah and others asked more personal questions like how I got involved and what it was like being on CNN, and that was cool, cause I could tell some of my stories. I'm a great story teller I think, but I need to be asked and drawn out. They did, and I enjoyed that a lot.

I learned that Bennington was like 80% women, which made sense cause there were like 2 guys in the room and the rest were girls. Plus the school has a reputation for nudity. Apparently people will always walk around naked or topless. Wow. Awesome. Sadly I witnessed none of this debauchery. Not even a breast. Sigh. I think the girls were digging me though. I was a charming son of a *****. Not that I was trying to charm, but when I get in NYRA mode I'm totally cool and relaxed and in control.

I felt as good about that talk as any this entire campaign. It might have been my best. We talked about more than the drinking age too. I brought up a bunch of issues, and while I don't know whether everyone was sold on the idea, I think I really made an impression. I can usually see a difference when doing a talk between when folks ask the tough questions the entire time and when like halfway through someone asks "so what can I do to help?" They asked it this time, and I was quite pleased. I talked about setting up a chapter and working with NYRA-Vermont. I think people are definitely interested in getting something going at Bennington. I'm pumped.

It was like the youth leadership conferences I used to speak at. I just adored those because it was so relaxed and informal, and I hit it out of the park nearly everytime. When I can connect with an audience in such a way that it ceases to be a speech and becomes a bunch of friends hanging out, joking around, debating the issues, and sharing personal experiences about youth rights, then its a huge success. I definitely prefer intimate talks like this over the lager speeches like this morning at BHS. The more relaxed, comfortable and familial it becomes the better. I totally achieved maximum familialness at Bennington. I had them cracking up a few times too. I rule.

Sarah helped a lot too. She guided the discussion a bit and asked some cool questions that helped to personalize it all. That was great.

After the talk, we packed up the food and the materials and walked them out to the car. Then we went across to the security booth to find Dave and I a place to stay. Sarah offered us couches in her living room, which I wouldn't mind, but considering she lives in a 24-hour party house, there would be people coming and going and making noise at all hours. So...no. We called around to various places in town looking for a cheap motel. Ack, there weren't any. The best I could find was like $55 bucks - the Knotty Pine Motel (say it outloud, its funny). Yuck, I was hoping more for like $30. But oh well. Hopefully NYRA will raise some money this week to cover it all.

I made reservations and then we followed Sarah down to the game room. Two of her friends (they were at the talk) were down there playing pool. Sarah "snackabee/snackababy/mackabee/mackababy" didn't play, but her two friends played Dave and I. Crap it was embarrassing. That first game they totally swept us. Neither Dave nor I got a ball in the entire game. They scratched on the 8-ball at the end, so technically we won, but damn it was humbling. Not that I want an excuse, but the balls were smaller than standard and they hit all weird, so I had to adjust to that.

Sarah's roommate, Emma "Pim" (right?), was damn good at pool. I was humbled. Her other friend was good, but not pro like Emma. She was fun though, all zany. She said she was destined to be a crazy old lady with lots and lots of cats. She started humming some tune and then challenged us all to guess it. None of us had any idea. Then she sang it. Still, none of us had any idea. It was some bizarre song, and we all figured she made it up. She kept singing "my white knight, or ocelot, or my angel with wings" hehehe. We started calling her ocelot. Then she and I would sing that song to mess each other up. And damnit, I would have totally won this one game if she wasn't singing that darn song and totally messed me up. Sigh.

Ok, I just looked up the song on Google, and amazingly it IS a real song, and she actually wasn't too far afield with the lyrics. The funniest part of the song wasn't accurate though. Sorry dear, it was lancelot, not ocelot. hahaha. The song was "My White Knight" from the Music Man.

Ocelot, Emma, Dave and I played a few more games. The rest were a lot closer, but still we didn't win any unless they got the 8-ball. It was just nice to hang out with some people though. They were all cool girls. I kept threatening them about what I'd write up in my blog. But don't worry, I left out all the scandalous details of the fun we had on the ladies couch...... (just kidding Cathy! I swear!) Oh and since they will be reading this, don't forget to go check out and get involved in the NYRA Forums. Hint hint.

We said our goodbyes, and Sarah escorted Dave and I back to THABOAT and we headed out to the Knotty Pine. We caught the last half of some Michael J. Fox movie from the 80's, I wrote notes for today, and then we went to bed.

[OzzyKP]

I don't have another update ready yet to post, but I have left Vermont now. I'm back in Maryland. The campaign, and the effects of it continue however.

Today the New York Times did an article about the issue, and Friday morning around 7:30 am est, I will be on CBS' The Early Show to discuss lowering the drinking age.

The New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/national/13drink.html

Vermont Considers Lowering Drinking Age to 18
By PAM BELLUCK

Published: April 13, 2005


ONTPELIER, Vt., April 7 - Last fall, Richard C. Marron, a Republican state representative, was reading a newspaper column by the recently retired president of Middlebury College, John M. McCardell Jr.

One of Mr. McCardell's targets was the drinking age, which in Vermont, and every other state, is 21.

"The 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law," Mr. McCardell wrote, saying it had led to binge drinking by teenagers. "Our latter-day prohibitionists have driven drinking behind closed doors and underground."

Mr. Marron, a four-term legislator who is vice chairman of the appropriations committee, decided that the law needed changing, and he has introduced a bill to lower the drinking age to 18, setting off a debate about public safety, age discrimination and the rights of young people as well as whether it is possible to teach teenagers to drink responsibly.

"Now we have a legal age of 18 to do everything else, but you can't drink until you're 21," Mr. Marron said. "I'm not pushing it to the level of it being unconstitutional, but I do think it's a form of age discrimination. If we did something else, like said you couldn't use a public campsite until you're 21, we would have an equal-protection-of-laws issue."

Mr. Marron's bill is unlikely to pass, mainly because if it did, Vermont would lose $9.7 million in federal money for highway maintenance, grants available only if a state sets its drinking age at 21. And the state's public safety commissioner and health department, along with several legislators, argue that lowering the drinking age would simply worsen the problem of under-age drinking and drunken driving.

Still, 17 lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors, and other legislators said they might be willing to consider such a bill if not for the loss of federal money. Even Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, might see some logic in the proposal if the federal highway money was not involved, said his spokesman, Jason Gibbs.

"Philosophically, it's difficult to reconcile the notion that you can enlist in the military, serve your country, go to war, but not go into your local pub and get a draft beer," Mr. Gibbs said.

While state health officials say that "a higher drinking age is safer," he added, the possibility that a lower drinking age could stem binge drinking is "certainly one that needs to be looked at very closely."

Mr. Marron, who says his ownership of a resort with a liquor license in Stowe, Vt., has no bearing on his support of the bill, said some teenagers drove to Canada, where the drinking age is 18.

States across the country raised the drinking age to 21 after the 1984 National Drinking Age Act tied that requirement to a percentage of federal highway money given to states.

In recent years, few legislative proposals have emerged to lower the drinking age, said Jonathan Adkins, a spokesman for the Governors Highway Safety Association, which, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, strongly opposes such efforts. Vermont is simultaneously considering a bill to raise the cigarette-smoking age to 21, from 18.

Mr. Gibbs said the governor opposed the bill on smoking because 18 was the age of "pre-eminent personal responsibility."

The American Cancer Society has generally withheld support for such proposals, saying that there was not a lot of data on their effectiveness and that adoption might make cigarettes more of a forbidden fruit A survey of Vermont voters conducted by a state senator last month, before debate or hearings on the proposals, showed some support for lowering the drinking age (33 percent), but more for raising the smoking age (51 percent).

The forbidden-fruit argument is also made by advocates for lowering the drinking age.

"Before the age was increased, we had a very different environment," said Ronald D. Liebowitz, the current president of Middlebury College. "You had kids drinking beer and getting sick on beer, but you didn't have gross alcohol poisoning and binge drinking."

Mr. Liebowitz said many students "go off campus to private homes to drink and then, because this is a rural environment, they have to drive home."

Alex Koroknay-Palicz, 23, the executive director of the National Youth Rights Association in Washington, has been campaigning for the bill on Vermont college campuses, saying it is a matter of civil rights and safety for teenagers.

"Instead of doing it in a controlled situation, going to a bar with a drink limit or something, they're doing it at keg parties in places that are harder to control," Mr. Koroknay-Palicz said.

Statistics from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration show that the number of drunken drivers under age 21 involved in fatal crashes decreased by 61 percent from 1982 to 1998. The agency also estimates that 22,798 lives were saved from 1975 to 2003 by higher-drinking-age laws.

And in Vermont, Kerry Sleeper, the public safety commissioner, said all fatal crashes involving alcohol dropped to 25 in 2002, from 50 in 1986, the year the drinking age was raised.

Mr. Sleeper and other opponents of the new bill acknowledge that it is not clear if the decrease in crashes can be attributed to the higher drinking age or to stepped-up enforcement, education and measures like lowering the illegal blood alcohol level to 0.08. But they say the higher age has helped.

Barbara Cimaglio, Vermont's deputy commissioner for alcohol and drug abuse programs, said brain research showed that 18-year-olds were not as responsible as 21-year-olds. Because many 18-year-olds are still in high school, Ms. Cimaglio said, lowering the age would make alcohol more available to 15- , 16- and 17-year-olds.

Representative Loren T. Shaw, Republican of Derby, bases his opposition on personal experience. "I started drinking when I was 15," said Mr. Shaw, 63, who said he stopped at 25. "All I cared about was booze, stock cars and women. I lost a lot of friends due to drunken driving."

Many legislators probably share the view of Representative Thomas S. DePoy, Republican of Rutland.

"I don't really know if the age is relevant," Mr. DePoy said. "I think it's just going to boil down to the mere fact that this state needs the transportation funds."


Katie Zezima contributed reporting from Boston for this article.

The campaign is definitely an amazing success, and we are still reaping the good effects of it.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Boshko

Public drinking in moderation

Wes

[OzzyKP]

Spiff is right, you guys will debate an issue till you are blue in the face, but when it comes to someone actually getting off their ass and doing something about an issue, no one cares.

[Spiffor]

Ozzy, I must say I'm seriously jealous of you. I've never had such success in my activist life (granted, I'm in an extremely hostile environment, but still).

I have read only one of your entries so far, but you can be sure I'll read all of them to see how you managed to have such success

[Drake Tungsten]

Spiff is right, you guys will debate an issue till you are blue in the face, but when it comes to someone actually getting off their ass and doing something about an issue, no one cares.

No offense, but I think it's just that no one cares about your particular issue...

[OzzyKP]

Thanks Spiff. I'm excited about this. Its the best organized, best executed campaign of my organization's existance. Plus we have a few great campaigns going on the voting age over on the west coast, so things are taking off amazingly well right now.

Drake - don't think of it as an issue. I mean everytime someone gets a promotion or raise or has other job news everyone discusses it and wishes luck. I'm posting this here not to promote the issue, but to let you all know the fantastic personal and professional success I'm having. Most of you don't care though. I get it.