An "important" part of the Governor's Scholars Program was a strange ritual called convocation--simply put, they take everyone involved, put them into an auditorium, and force them to listen to "experts" or "experienced peers" (i.e. read "adults who wanna tell you about how they see the Universe") for approximately thirty-minute intervals. Usually, this was either interesting in a people-watching sense, such as watching career astronaut Story Musgrave show us thousands of slides ("See, this is the Hubble Space Telescope right-side up... <click> or is it upside down?" <click> "Right-side up," <click> "upside down"), or simply boring, such as listening to some guy drone on about education and how to fix it (I don't remember what he said, but I do remember thinking that it was too simplistic to work). One convocation, however, truly got to me--and I'm not sure whether it has to do with the fact that it was a total abuse of power or the fact that I'm a pinko socialist.
The speaker in question was one Mister Bill Street, head of the GSP Board of Directors. Alright, he's not the captain of this boat, but he is the financier, so we'll let him talk. As he continued, we learned that he was also President of the Brown-Forman Corporation. So he's a suit. Big surprise there. Blah blah blah, Brown-Forman is a multinational corporation with major centers in Mexico, South Africa, and New Zealand. Whoopie, a giant company that uses cheap labor, supports a country with a questionable political system, and another country that used to be a penal colony like Georgia. Dum da da dum. Brown-Forman, proud sponsor of GSP and manufacturer of distilled spirits such as "Southern Comfort" and "Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey."
Now this was interesting. A booze magnate speaking to a bunch of underage kids? Hmmm. Mister Street then launched a fifteen minute advertisement for his company and its products--beginning with some alcohol-laden history (skipping Prohibition), he continued to point out that his company, like any other, needed smart people... and hey! Guess what! All you'se kids is smart people!
So GSP was no more than a sad recruitment campaign for some liquor baron paid for from the pockets of poor winos and debauchers. Sick. Just plain sick. Street, unasked, continued into a defense of his industry centering around the concept of "I created this death ray for peaceful purposes only." Whiskey is a force for good in the Universe, he asserted, as long as you don't use it in excess. Well, I have no problem with moderation, but a drink where a mere four ounces will knock you flat on your ass after purifying your entire upper gastrointestinal tract with the purifying flame of rubbing-alcohol-over-an-open-wound chemical reactions is not a beverage really intended nor designed for moderation. But alcohol is good for your heart (the liver, of course, being left out of his monologue) and moderation is the key. You're all leftist Bhuddists, right? Eight-fold way, moderation in all things?
He then made the statement that he hoped that, just as moderation in sexual activity is taught in schools, moderation in drinking toxins should be taught as well. Unfortunately, last time I checked, drinking alcohol was not a basic psychological need except for those already hooked. Sex is a basic psychological need reinforced by a billion years of evolution and propagation, which of course explains the problems Catholic priests have been having recently. Because Mister Bill wants moderation to be taught, he puts his money where his mouth is--twenty million dollars over ten years into something called the Century Fund, which is reportedly a "moderate" drinking education program.
Alright, there is such a thing as moderation in alcohol. The French drink at least a glass of wine a day, and that keeps their tickers from giving them the finger thanks to all their rich food. By always drinking wine with food, the release of alcohol into the bloodstream is slowed and therefore gives the liver more time to filter it out without becoming overloaded, which is of course the reason for cirrhosis. Wine, and maybe beer, I will agree to as toxin-laden drinks that can be taken in moderation--just as arsenic can. Whiskey, vodka, sherry, et al with proofs on par with Listerine, on the other hand, do not seem to be conducive to moderation, just like nuclear weapons and napalm are not conducive to moderation. Any program Street funds, however, will probably say that hard liquor, especially the "Southern Comfort" and "Jack Daniel's" brands, are extremely moderate choices--assuming an extreme choice being something like denatured ethanol or butyric acid.
However, let me grant Mister Street with his "moderate" drinking education, because it makes sense that he should support something that will in turn support his profit margins (just like his dream of lowering the drinking age would). Speaking of profit margins, the B-F Company made over two billion dollars in revenues during the year of 2001, which is greater than the gross national product of several third-world nations. Of that two billion in revenue, three hundred million turned out to be profits (i.e. a profit margin of about 6.7 percent, very decent)--even after Mister Bill's several-million-dollar salary. Anyway, he said that he put twenty million into "education" over ten years. Twenty million divided by ten years gives an average rate of two million dollars a year into "education." So, out of three hundred million dollars of profits, two million went into education--divide two by three hundred (the millions divide out) and you get, in decimal approximation, .0067. In fractions of a percent, that means that about two-thirds of one percent of profits go to drink-biased "education." Tobacco companies would love it if that's all they had to do to keep the media and the goverment off their backs.
Anyway, I was going to knock this man's ass onto the ropes during the question-and-answer session, using a wee bit of Socrates I knew before I came to GSP. This is how it would have worked:
TC: "So sir, you support moderation in alcohol because it has
medical benefits?"
BS: "Yes."
TC: "Such as preventing heart attacks."
BS: "Yes."
TC: "It has been clinically proven that watching a thirty-minute
pornographic film is equivalent to twenty minutes of aerobics, considering the workout
given to the heart muscle. It has also been proven that ten minutes of sex is
equivalent to twenty minutes of aerobics, considering full body 'exercise.'" <mild
laughter> "So then, sir, considering the cardiological benefits to both
pornography and promiscuous sex, would you support a class that teaches these things in
moderation?"
Silence. I would have done it, too--my hand and the hands of all of my buddies were raised to bring this bad boy down, but he didn't call on us.
Damn.