Okay, I can't hear the mysterious Auckland hum. Too much rock 'n' roll, probably. But whatever bedevils the residents of the North Shore has many precedents. The hum has been heard in Vancouver, Albuquerque and, well, lots of places.
New Scientist has run quite a few hum stories over the years, blaming traffic and factories in 1992, suggesting in 1995 that the earth's humming heralds earthquakes, and noting in 2004 research suggesting that "enigmatic humming sound made by the Earth may be caused by the planet’s stormy sea."
NPR has a link the sound. Who'd have thought the Earth would hum in RealPlayer format?
Whether that's what folks on the Shore are hearing is anyone's guess. Anyway, the UFO folks have reached their own conclusions.
It's good to see that Act's Heather Roy is prepared to call Tony Ryall on his scuzzy behaviour over the MeNZB vaccine.
Jose at bFM promptly got Mikey's Mad Boo-cha jam on the wires at my request. Most excellent.
Robert Harvey noted an intriguing, and quite well-informed, discussion on Slashdot about where else in the world Americans might happily live.
With the mid-terms looming, the gaping holes in the US electronic voting system are back on the agenda. According to Ars Technica, things are as bad as ever.
Rolling Stone's Worst Congress Ever cover story makes for alarming reading. As does the magazine's list of The 10 Worst Congressmen.
And to conclude, some responses on the drinking age debate. Peter Belt said:
If an 18 year old lies comatose in the park, or wakes up in their lounge in a pool of vomit, I can accept that.
If they kill themselves, their passengers or other road users on the way home in a car, I can not accept that.
The drinking age by itself isn't a big deal.
Add driving, and the whole issue isn't that simple anymore. At the ages we're talking about, drinking and driving are very much related.
On average, young people's judgements are not as good as they have a smaller experience base to draw on, they're ruled by hormones and live in a culture of dare and bravado.
Add another judgement-impairing agent - alcohol, and you have to ask yourself: should we not at least try to keep them alive a little longer?
You've got kids - how do you square that one away?
Bart Janssen lamented:
I don't know that we'll ever get alcohol right in NZ. It's just part of the kiwi culture. I personally don't think any age ban will work.
So long as alcohol is seen as the holy grail of adulthood then the youth (of any age) will be determined to prove their adulthood early. When you combine that with the simple fact that getting tipsy is just plain fun, and even getting drunk (occcasionally) can be enjoyable (providing you have good friends around you to watch over you). And add the fact that many alcoholic drinks taste good! Then expecting our youth to drink this illegal product "sensibly" is fantasy.
Compare our attitude to alcohol with our attitude to coffee. In days gone by coffee was strictly a grownups' drink. But now the espresso machines in Auckland spend half of Sunday morning making pretend coffee for kiddies. Preteens know what crema is and by the teenage years most know how much coffee they can drink without getting the shakes and also know the pain of coffee withdrawal. They also know where to get the greatest pleasure for the coffee dollar and coffee houses (even Starbucks) are social gathering places for teens all over.
Is coffee bad for you? Sure under the wrong circumstances coffee is not ideal. Do we want 10 years olds with a 10 espresso a day habit? No - but we have very few of those. Is coffee enjoyable in the right dose? hell yeah. And the thing is most teens know pretty well what their own optimal coffee intake is and mostly stick to it.
How did they learn that, and so miserably fail to learn how much alcohol to drink? Would a barista ever make an eight year old a double espresso? No, and yet there is no law preventing that.
No, I don't think we can get away with treating alcohol the way we treat coffee. I don't think we are "grownup" enough as a society. Our barmen and women don't have the same attitude to their product that baristas do. But maybe if we could figure out a way of teaching our kids how to treat alcohol the way we've taught them to treat coffee?
But for me the law just won't really help change the culture. So I'm kind of neutral on the law change. I don't think it will make any difference.
Nigel was with me on the idea of a split age: 18 on premises, 20 to purchase liquor for consumption off premises:
This issue is very relevant for me, as I have two mid-teens daughters. Some of their friends are already drinking heavily (at 14/15 ), I actually talked to my 15 yr old about the issue this weekend & she was really keen on the 18/20 split & I personally think you could go 17/20.
The split is such a good idea it confounds me how a logical argument can be made against it. I wonder if anyone has done any surveys on the teenagers this will affect, if my daughter is any indication the split would have real support & it seems to me it's such an elegant way to encourage (mostly) responsible drinking.
Mandy too:
I heartily agree with you.
I grew up under the old system and never had a problem getting alcohol from the age of 13 or so. It is ridiculous to still enable rabbles of drunken youth, whilst not allowing them to drink in the relative safety of bars.
They will learn much better how to handle their alcohol drinking with people of all ages, and going and seeing live music.
And learn from their elders - in theory anyway. As a well-educated, artsy, 35 year old my own peer-group still has some pretty appalling drinking habits, myself included, those "how we are drinking" ads are pretty effective)
But Conor Roberts had his doubts:
Your solution won't work. The report also takes note of the 2003 report by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand, which states that only "13 percent of 14- to 17-year-old current drinkers said they had bought alcohol themselves. This means that 87 percent of supply came from parents, friends, siblings, other family members, and strangers. The report also states that 84 percent of current drinkers aged 14 to 17 years said that on their last drinking occasion, a parent or guardian was aware that they were drinking."
The distinction in the age allowing 19 year olds to drink in the pub but not at a party is not going to stop them getting alcohol. As their younger brothers have already shown, they will just get the folks to get it.
On another note, what I don't like about this debate is that the "de-facto drinking age" has dropped down to 13 or some such age. Well, if that is the case then perhaps we should raise the actual age up to 25 so the de-facto age rises up to an acceptable 18 or so?
In the end dropping or increasing the age you can buy piss is not tackling the roots of the problem, which is that people like getting out of it every weekend and half the week.
Hamish saw it as a civil liberties issue:
Isn't banning one section of the adult population from a socially acceptable activity on the pretext that some of them act irresponsibly in any form inconsistent with the liberal democracy ideal?
While there are many "happy compromises" we could make, they all ignore the fundamental arguments: that such laws set dangerous precedents for how society treats its members. Okay, not exactly "slipperly slope" stuff, but the 99% of responsible under 20 year old ADULT drinkers will be wondering why they are made to suffer the consequences of statistical profiling in (what I would hope was) one of the most egalitarian places on Earth.
The amount of hard evidence is underwhelming and you have to wonder how many MP's will be voting purely on anecdotal accounts of youth drinking (courtesy of C4 no doubt). Score one for treating your voters like children.
(btw, I'm 24..)
Paul Rooney offered his experience:
The major issue involved in the drinking age debate is not the age itself but the enforcement of the statutes. Presently in New Zealand the policing of the liquor laws is non-existent, therefore there is no control on behaviour.
Example: 16 years ago as a 30 year old I was asked to supply ID at the door of a bar in Los Angeles. I asked the doorman why he was being so zealous. He stated that if the police came to the bar and found an under-aged person or drunk on the premises the bar was immediately closed and the owner had to re-apply for his licence. Which could take months. It was really bad business to have minors or drunks on the premises. There were no warnings or don't do-it-again-mate. The doors were closed there and then.
Regarding public drunken behaviour it was again a change of statute that lead to the mess you see now in every town in New Zealand after about midnight on weekends.
Once, there used to be the Police Offences Act 1927, I think that was the year, where there was an offence for being drunk in a public place. Drunks were picked up off the streets to stop them getting beat up or doing any beating up, taken to Vincent Street, sobered up and fined $10 by the legendary Judge Hector Gillian on a Saturday morning.
Then bloody politicians gave the New Zealand public the Summary Offences Act of 1981, which came into force on 1982. There was no offence for drunkenness but instead the government was to provide "detox centres for drunks" - the police were to take the drunk there where he was sobered up and presumably the food would be better then Vincent Street.
Unfortunately that was in 1982, I have been out of the police 3 years now and there are still no detox centres - so the cops just ignore drunks spewing on street corners, where they become targets or cause problems.
New Zealand has a high rate of criminality exacerbated by alcohol abuse. If people want access to liquor they should be prepared to have the statutes regarding this product strenuously enforced.
That includes the seller and the purchaser. There should be a negative reaction for any negative behaviour.
And finally, some refreshing honesty from rumoured contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama. Bailed up about admissions of youthful drug use in his new book, he quoth:
"I inhaled - that was the point."
Wow. Equally remarkably, Obama resolutely refuses to play the God card. He told the same interviewer:
"Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels."
That kind of talk, combined with the fact that he's black, will limit Obama's prospects this time around. But he's going to be interesting to watch.