[Vision2020] Greek drinking at the UI

[Keely Emerine-Mix]

I agree with Rosemary on this.  I've been, some have said, inordinately upset about this young man's death, and more than a couple of friends have told me I was wrong to level criticism against our neighbors on my blog when his death occurred.  

If I'm ever again told that I'm "inordinately" upset about the death of a young man who got drunk, wandered around town for a couple of hours, and was refused help by those who only had to pick up a phone and dial 911 to help him, and who, because they didn't, died alone in a drainage ditch on my eldest son's birthday, having done something that I did many times while in college, please be assured that I will immediately ask just what in the hell SHOULD appropriately upset people -- and what parameters do we assign to distinguish between those deaths that are profoundly grievous and those that are just, you know, a what-the-hell sort of thing typical of reckless youth.  Binge drinking does not normally carry a death penalty.  It did here.

I see no value whatsoever in the social Greek system, the allegedly wonderful experiences of my father and mother- and father-in-law notwithstanding.  The University of Idaho is an academic institution, at least in principle, and the parasitic and toxic effect of alcohol-drenched and sexually debauched Greek fraternities, which simply organize into larger groups the alcohol drenching and sexual debauchery of individual students, can't possibly be worth protecting.  The occasional toy drive or food drive, or Friday night party with no one raped or killed by a fall, doesn't mitigate the community of risk that these institutions represent.  Young people make stupid decisions.  Institutionalizing a culture of stupid decision-making doesn't seem, to me, to be a proper role of any institute of higher learning.
Keely Emerine-Mix


www.keely-prevailingwinds.com
 		 	   		  
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