Drinking with the Kids (updated)

Not too long ago I posted a rant about how I believe putting alcohol on a pedestal encourages its abuse. I also said parents should be allowed to drink with their kids and model responsible drinking habits. Last month TIME published an article on this topic. Here's a couple quotes:

"A few years ago, a team of North Carolina researchers, led by public-health professor Kristie Long Foley, examined whether adults' approval or disapproval mattered when adolescents were deciding whether and how much to drink. Foley's team analyzed surveys of more than 6,000 people ages 16 to 20 in 242 U.S. communities. One predictable finding: kids whose parents gave them alcohol for parties were more likely to binge-drink. That discovery underscored years of research showing that the earlier people start to drink, the more likely they are to become alcoholics.
But another result was surprising: if kids actually drank with their parents, they were about half as likely to say they had drunk alcohol in the past month and about one-third as likely to say they had had five or more drinks in a row in the previous two weeks. As Foley and her colleagues wrote in a 2004 Journal of Adolescent Health paper, "Drinking with parents appears to have a protective effect on general drinking trends."'

"Kids from the Southern European countries of the Romance languages--France, Romania, Italy, Spain and Portugal--get drunk at about the same rate as American teens (or slightly less often) even though a typical kid in these countries can buy wine or beer in any shop from early adolescence. The Southern European model of moderate, supervised drinking within families seems to be the most promising approach, on the basis of the North Carolina study. Italy and Spain report very low rates of alcohol dependence or abuse (less than 1% and 2.8%, respectively) compared with the U.S., where the rate is 7.8%, slightly lower than France's 8.7%. (All the figures are from the World Health Organization.)"

An Encounter with a Refugee

I think I was set up. My friend Jason didn't tell me much about this refugee he hooked me up with to interview for my interviewing class. I contacted Jason, who volunteers working with refugees, because I needed to interview someone from a diverse cultural background. I figured a refugee who just arrived from Africa would be more interesting than my Hispanic co-worker who's lived here all her life. When Jason gave me the email of a refugee he knew who would be a "perfect candidate," all he told me was his name, age and that he'd been in the U.S. for a little over a year.

I contacted this refugee, and we made plans to meet up. I showed up at his place Monday morning. There was no where for us to talk inside the place he lived so we just sat in my car. My first question was where he was from and how, and why he came to America. I was taken aback by his answer, "I'm from Rwanda and in 1994..." Jason didn't tell me I was going to be talking to a survivor of the infamous Rwandan genocide, which was the backdrop for the movie Hotel Rwanda. And I'm not sure, but I have a feeling Jason purposely didn't inform me because he wanted me to be surprised. For over an hour, this refugee recounted his entire experience during this historic event. My brain couldn't keep up. Aside from knowing a lot of people died and that the conflict was between the Tutsis and the Hutus, I knew nothing about it. He explained, not only his story, but all of the cultural and political factors behind it. I could not believe that he is only 20, and that he was 7 when this happened.

For me, this was not only an interview; it was a sacred experience. Almost every day we hear about people dying on the continent of Africa. Just recently, in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe brutalized those who opposed him in Zimbabwe's presidential election. Millions have died of AIDS. Talking with this refugee, I couldn't help but to repeatedly think that this incredibly intelligent, talented and friendly person with so much potential, could have been just another statistic. And then I realized that every time I hear about all the people dying in Africa, that they are people just like him. I think we tend to believe that because they live in Africa, they are used to disease and death, and that, for them, it's just a part of life to have loved one's die. We think they're so different than us.

Lastly, I realized that, like John McCain's economic advisor, who doesn't speak for him, said "we are a nation of whiners." Ok, in our context, we have reason to whine, but in the global context... I realize that meeting people who have had it much harder always elicits feelings of shame for complaining and taking things for granted. But maybe we need people like this refugee to come here, thankful just to be alive, and teach us how to be happy and grateful in our comfortable, overly-stimulated, choice-laden existences. And, perhaps, we need these people to show what is possible, inspiring us to be better human beings. It's interesting how when the rich and famous encounter the people of Africa, they end up becoming crusaders for saving this continent on fire. And maybe as our country continues to engage with them, some salvation will come to us as well.

So if you're reading, thanks Jason.

Farming in Skyscrapers

A while back, TIME ran a story on how biofuels are destroying the Amazon and carbon-trapping forests in South America:

"The Amazon was the chic eco-cause of the 1990s, revered as an incomparable storehouse of biodiversity. It's been overshadowed lately by global warming, but the Amazon rain forest happens also to be an incomparable storehouse of carbon, the very carbon that heats up the planet when it's released into the atmosphere. Brazil now ranks fourth in the world in carbon emissions, and most of its emissions come from deforestation. Carter is not a man who gets easily spooked--he led a reconnaissance unit in Desert Storm, and I watched him grab a small anaconda with his bare hands in Brazil--but he can sound downright panicky about the future of the forest. "You can't protect it. There's too much money to be made tearing it down," he says. "Out here on the frontier, you really see the market at work."
This land rush is being accelerated by an unlikely source: biofuels. An explosion in demand for farm-grown fuels has raised global crop prices to record highs, which is spurring a dramatic expansion of Brazilian agriculture, which is invading the Amazon at an increasingly alarming rate."

As I read this article back in March, I thought about something that I've wondered for years: Why can't we create farms that go up instead of out? In other words, why can't we build skyscrapers and put farms in them? And, in this case, why can't we build skyscrapers, and put farms in them for the use of biofuel? Recently, I learned that, low and behold, I'm not the only person who has thought about this. It's called "vertical farming" and while I haven't seen it talked about in terms of producing biofuel, it would reduce fuel consumption by bringing the farms right into the city. Vertical farming and entomophagy: food-environmental-energy-factory farming-global warming crises solved!

A Team of Rivals?

I admit, as a sucker for crazy ideas like bipartisanship, reform and progressivity, I'm loving this piece by the Weekly Standard. I know I said I liked Biden as Obama's Veep, but I'm gonna have to flip-flop and say Hagel would be the best choice. A team of rivals would be a refreshing change from the eight years of cronyism we've seen.