Why are more women drinking? (video)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Elizabeth Aguilera (KPCC Health Reporter), host Larry Mantle, AirTalk (scpr.org); Seth Macfarlane (Family Guy, American Dad)

Drain bramage, schmrain damage, if a man can get a DUI, I want one, too! (cracked.com)

Drunk without a real-friend's protection (see sutra below). Oh, alcohol! (cracked.com)

  

Women are drinking more despite the risks

Yum, it's liquid ignorance.

Women in the U.S. are consuming more alcohol than they have in decades past, and they face greater health risks for doing so. 

 

For one, a woman's body has fewer enzymes for breaking down alcohol [a poison from the fermentation (i.e., decomposition) process] and less water weight to diffuse its effects. This means women are at greater risk for liver damage and disease.

(Quagmire/Family Guy) "OMG, but you know you love it," your friends will say. And you have to wonder why you keep "dating" the same types of guys. No one has sympathy for a lush.

 

To self-sabotage! (Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP)

Researchers also say drinking increases a woman's chances of getting breast cancer, as studies have shown that alcohol can raise estrogen levels. They also say that the way women are drinking today -- binge drinking, foregoing meals -- is cause for medical concern.

Experts say the rise in "risky drinking" is due to increased social acceptability [from shows like "Sex and the City"], gender "equality" [or the illusion of striving for it], culture and even a preference for hard liquor over beer.

WARNING: Potential trigger as Carrie & Co. do another "Ladies' Night"!

Women are also being arrested [and being sent to prison which, after all, is "equality," too] at an increasing rate for driving under the influence.

A recent report by KPCC analyzing 20 years of California DMV records shows a significant increase in the number of women being arrested for driving under the influence.

 

The DMV reports that women made up about 24 percent of DUI arrests statewide in 2011, the last year statistics are available. That's an increase over the 11 percent of DUI arrests in 1989.

WARNING: Sexually suggestive with cartoonish alcohol consumption!

 

Anything Goes!

What's behind this increase in alcohol consumption among women? Should more be done to educate women [who are already highly educated and at some level well aware of the hazards and pitfalls] about the dangers of alcohol? 

I didn't mean for that to happen. - Another drink?

[Or, like other successful campaigns, do emotions have to be brought into play with emotional appeals, better behavioral models and ideas of what's "cool" and acceptable. Are you a mom, do you drink and drive? Are you single, do you have sex with people you would not have otherwise? Are you a student, do you see a future vomiting in a toilet? Yum! Party on!] LISTEN (16:37)

• Please speak clearly into the cellphone when you drunk dial: White House proposal wants to [keep] NSA’s collection of your phone data [in a different guise]
• 5 Drinking Myths That'll Get You Killed

SUTRA: Drinking Buddies: With "friends" like that...
Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Health is wealth, and here's how to lose both.

In the Advice to Householders Discourse (Sigalovada Sutra, DN 31), the Buddha explains the "Six Channels for Dissipating Wealth."
 
These include drinking alcohol (indulging in intoxicants which occasion heedlessness), roaming the streets at all hours, bad diversions, gambling, associating with the foolish, and idleness.
 

The Buddha goes further to explain why these lead to ruin. Each has six miserable consequences. Alcohol leads to: (1) loss of wealth, (2) increase in quarrels, (3) susceptibility to disease, (4) loss of reputation, (5) indecent exposure, and (6) weakened intellect.
 

When roaming the streets at all hours (usually due to drinking), we are: unprotected and unguarded, as is our family and property, and we are suspected of crimes, subject to false rumors, and we encounter many troubles.
 

What's wrong with "unsavory shows"? We remain restless and agitated, wondering: Where is there dancing, singing, music, recitals, and this and that distraction? We never find inner peace or enlightenment -- even though that's what we say we're searching for. (Entertainment is not wrong in and of itself, only that it takes us away from our quest and leads to financial ruin).
 

Let's go underage drink! If it's good enough for adults...

What's wrong with gambling? Isn't it just a pleasant pastime to help Las Vegas' economy? The Buddha explains in detail, but here is the biggest one: associating with "the foolish." Any gambler, any wastrel, any drunkard, any cheater, any swindler, any violent person -- in brief,, any "fool" (bala) -- is one's associate and comp. And with friends like that, who needs enemies?

"Idle hands are the devil's helper," grandma says: Addiction to laying around (with the hangover blues) means we are not inclined to put forth effort to get anything done, instead making excuses: "It’s too cold! It’s too hot! It’s too late! It’s too early! I’m too hungry! I’m too full!" Living like this, we leave many (karmically) profitable things left undone. Wealth is left unacquired, and savings dwindle away.
 
These are just some of the ways of losing money and losing our health the Buddha explained and warned about 25 centuries ago. More

Sexually aggressive, not because HE's drunk

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Maanvi Singh "If he's sexually aggressive in bars, it's not because he's drunk" (NPR.org, 3-3-14); DemocracyNow.org

She's probably not thinking that she wants that guy to grab her (Iurii Davydov/iStockphoto).

Who let the dawg out? - Rrrrr, woof!

Young women are often the targets of aggression when they are out in bars, but the problem isn't that guys are too drunk to know better.

Instead, men are preying on women who have had too much to drink.
 
When researchers at the University of Toronto and the University of Washington observed young people's behaviors in bars, they found that the man's aggressiveness did NOT match his level of intoxication. There was no relationship.
 
Instead, men targeted WOMEN who were intoxicated.
 

We're young and wild, and we love to party (drink) in nightclubs with no panties.

 
The researchers hired and trained 140 young adults to go into bars in the Toronto area and note every incident of aggression that they saw. They found that 25 percent of all incidents involved sexual aggression. And 90 percent of the victims of sexual aggression were women being harassed by men.
 

Violating the fifth precept (iStock/npr.org)

Almost all of the aggression was physical, with about two-thirds of the aggressors physically touching women without consent. About 17 percent threatened contact. And 9 percent verbally harassed their targets.
 
Men may perceive intoxicated women either as more amenable to advances or as easier targets who are less able to rebuff them because they don't have their wits about them, the researchers say.

"There's no reason that women should be touched against their will," says Kate Graham, the study's lead researcher and a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the Univ. of Toronto. Women wouldn't accept that kind of behavior at school or on the street, she notes, but it seems to get a pass in bars, she tells Shots [Health News from NPR].
 

No means yes...but yes means maybe.

The study was published online last Monday in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
 
The researchers also wanted to look into whether unwanted sexual advances were intentional, or just a matter of misperception. This study points to the former, Dr. Graham explains.
 
"If you walk through a bar and grab a woman's breasts and then disappear into the crowd, that's probably not a misunderstanding," she says. "You don't actually think that she wants you to do that."
 
And fact that men were more likely to take advantage of intoxicated women shows that most of these incidents aren't well intentioned, Dr. Graham says.
 
And the bar staff rarely stepped in and stopped the sexual aggression. "There should be training for staff on how to intervene," Dr. Graham says. "If [a bar] wants to have female patrons, they ought to make it more female friendly."
 

I want a divorce. She went to a bar and came home drunk.

Efforts have been launched in Washington, DC and around the country to do just that. They provide bar staff with free training on how to respond when they see sexual harassment.
 
The research was observational, so it doesn't let us know what either the aggressors or their victims felt. And since the observations were made in public places in or around bars, the study doesn't tell us much about sexual assault or rape that might occur out of public view or after women leave the bar.
 
But the takeaway, Dr. Graham says, is that "people should stop believing that [Robin Thicke] song. The lines really aren't that blurred." Comments?

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(Democracy Now, March 10, 2014) U.S. military sex crimes from the top down

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St. Patty parties in a Police State (video)

Pat Macpherson, Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Associated Press; Levin00

St. Patrick, wooo! Amherst, wooo! OH NO, the cops are shooting at us...Kent State!!

WARNING: Crass language, hooting, and college exploits by mostly underage drinking-revelers blowing off steam from their academic pursuits, a stressful economy, and Lent obligations! 
 

Knock it off, and get home to watch "Cosmos"!

What news stations called an "out of control riot" appeared much more like American college students doing what they typically do as they celebrate Dionysus in the guise of Saint Patrick -- followed by very aggressive police tactics. (See story below).
 

He's hurting my cold fingers! Hold him down by the face with your knee or boot, and punch him in the kidneys so he'll pee, while I cut off his circulation with these plastic zip cuffs (AP).

Future monument to rebel fighter Ernesto Che Guevara in Galway, Ireland. Che was part Latino and part Irish, a Son of Ireland with a rebellious spirit (thesundaytimes.co.uk).

Oh, h*ll no, not on my beat! Brothers, it's time for the Code of Silence. Let's get 'er done. There will be no partying on this college campus so close to the Feast of Saint Patrick (AP).

    

AMHERST, Massachusetts - The chaos at the University of Massachusetts over the weekend during a pre-St. Patrick's Day celebration brought new attention to an old problem affecting colleges across the country: How to deal with alcohol-fueled revelers during the March festivities.

Celebrations near the UMass campus in Amherst spiraled out of control Saturday as police dealt with thousands of drunken and unruly people during the annual "Blarney Blowout." More than 70 were arrested and four officers suffered minor injuries.

Like other colleges and towns, UMass and Amherst officials took action to try to prevent problems. The university warned students last week that there would be an increased police presence Saturday, and Amherst police prepared for large-scale disturbances...

The Party People gather for pre-St. Patrick's Day "Blarney Blowout" near the Univ. of Massachusetts in Amherst on Saturday, March 8, 2014. According to the Amherst Police Department, four coppers were slightly hurt as they beat back hundreds of unruly students who were throwing empty beer cans and plastic bottles at them as large college crowds gathered at an off-campus apartment complex (AP).