Jenna's House of Idiosyncrasies Version 9.0 // Critical Darling, Commercial Flop

The first time I ever took some one's keys away, I was just a few weeks into my freshman year of college.

I know drunk driving must have been a issue when I was in high school, but it was on a different scale, because there wasn't the regular activity of pre-gaming and then going downtown. We went to parties, did shots in people's kitchens, drank Everclear mixed with coke because it was cheap and lasted twice as long. People would gather at one place and basically have a huge lock in. It was a caused by a couple of factors. In a small town where the cops don't have much to do, every one had a heightened paranoia about being pulled over and arrested. There was no where to enjoy your drunkenness except for the place where you were already drunk. If you went home, you went to your parent's home, so you might as well just sleep it off and face them sober.

I'm not a stickler for the rules, but I do feel pretty strongly about drunk driving. I've always been vehemently against it. And before I moved to Athens, I assumed this was an issue that my peers and I more or less universally agreed upon. However, just like realizing how much groceries actually cost, worrying about health insurance, and coming to terms with your parents being just human like the rest of us, part of growing up is understanding that everyone—even people you like, people you love, and people you truly admire—makes bad decisions on a regular basis. More often than learning from them they actually learn nothing from them. Especially when there are no immediate ill consequences.

However, when I was new freshman, I was still charmingly naïve. Years of PSAs and television dramas had actually convinced me that you could keep someone from driving drunk if you were determined enough, and had determined that no one would ever drive drunk on my watch.

My roommate at the time, Sonya, had a bunch of her friends visiting from her hometown, and staying with us in our tiny dorm room. They pre-gamed in our room and then it was time to head downtown.

The original plan was to walk, but standing in front of the building, facing the trek down the hill, the group, pretty drunk and unruly, decided to drive. Although I was pretty much sober, I don't remember how I managed to get the keys from the driver, but I clearly remember what happened next. Read More »

Disclaimer: If you hate politics, if you hate being preached too, and if you are going to flame me rather than leave tasteful thoughtful comments about your differing views, you might just want to skip this entry.

[Bob Barr is the] 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom & Privacy for the American Conservative Union. “I think that [Biskupic and Mitchell] could have done their job, and if they had been in charge, they could have stopped those terrorists prior to September 11 without the Patriot Act.”

New powers aren't needed and weren't needed to prevent those attacks, he said, if agencies did their jobs efficiently without inter-agency bickering. Instead of focusing on improved job performance, the government is putting its energy against fundamentals of American freedom, Barr said. “Even back in the heyday in the war against mind-altering drugs, we always had the 4th Amendment which came back and was a bulwark against executive government power.”

Barr said the great danger of the Patriot Act “is that it represents a fundamental philosophical shift away from that and in the direction of telling the people of this country that the government can invade your privacy; they can gather evidence to be used against you without any probable cause whatsoever, without any suspicion that you have done anything wrong, simply because the government says it is necessary to fight the war against terror.”

The fear of being soft on terrorism has too many politicians and citizens afraid of openly criticizing these new laws, Barr said, adding that Congress may not be influenced to act for preservation of personal liberties until 2005, but he is glad to keep the discussion active.

“I don't think that we will win the battle to preserve our civil liberties in the war against terror unless we bring all the different groups together: Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, very involved, uninvolved. It's absolutely essential, because the power of government is so large to begin with that these little incremental steps aren't seen by many in the public. It doesn't even register on their radar screen,” Barr said.

J. Decker, "Patriots Decry Act", Flagpole 1/28/2004, Athens, Georgia

You know something's up the day I agree with freakin' Bob Barr.

Anyway, today I'm (re)registering to vote, because I moved and I need a new card. If you are of age, you should too. Simply because if you don't vote, you can't lament that your voice isn't being heard. I don't have much faith in the whole process, and I don't feel very strongly about any candidate, but I am stauchly with the Anybody But Bushies, and I feel strongly about change. Come hell or high water, I want to feel in December that at the very least, I participated in the wonder that is democracy—something that (I feel) citizens of this country are more and more often taking for granted. Wouldn't you like to at least say that you weren't left out?

Come on, it's a license to complain!

(Sam, insert my hilarious sound effects here)

Cause I'm a poor victimized moron, dur de dur. ::does moron dance with sound effects::

I don't know where to begin.

Putting racial insults aside (although that was clearly the comment of a bigot), putting aside the obvious, terrifying problem of gun violence, I have to say, I am opposed to this law.

Before you jump to conculsions, I must say that I don't like guns. They make me uncomfortable. I have no plans to own a gun, and I hope I never face a situation where I am confronted by someone with a gun. Plus, I don't care about my right to bear arms and I don't care about yours either. I have no desire to ever bear arms, thank you.

That said, this does not seem to be about controlling gun violence. This seems to be another product of our litigious society. It's got to be someone's fault. The perpetrator never acts alone anymore.

When I read this article, it looked as if this law seems to have precedent to me: the ability of smokers to sue tabacco companies because cigarettes, apparently, cause disease and reduction in quality of life.

::gasp:: Did you know this? I just thought they made you look cool.

You smoked. That was your choice. And now you are dying. Too bad. Only you can make you smoke for 20+ years! Sure, you didn't want to get shot, but gun manufacturers probably didn't want you to get shot either. Who did? The shooter. Unless he was sold that gun from a manufacterer by illegal means only the shooter can be responsible for what happens after he gets it home from the store.

It's everybody's fault but the guy whodunit. Why? That guy doesn't have as much money as giant faceless corporations!

BTW, I really don't like cigarettes either. But I still like them a little more than guns.

[Disclaimer: This is just my ill-informed, 20-minutes-in-the-making opinion. You and I both know that I could be wrong. Very wrong, even.]