Carlos E. R. pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
The Monday 2007-12-03 at 17:35 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Well, among the many ways in which the U.S. of A. (the best damned country ever or even possible, of course) is ... "confused" is the age of majority vs. the age at which one can legally purchase and consume alcohol. The age of majority, at which one is deemed able to give full consent, vote and be held to (almost) all standards of adulthood is 18. But one may not buy alcoholic beverages until one reaches age 21.
Curious! :-)
(Neuroscience, by the way, is now discovering that many parts of the brain, including those associated with moral agency, do not mature fully until one's later 20s!)
Not surprising... which is probably one reason why best soldiers are so young, and politicians want to lower the voting age.
And a few years back there was no minimum drinking age.
Well, everyone knows Europeans countries and peoples are, as societies, adults, while the U.S.A. remains at best an adolescent. An adolescent with too much money, a charge card and very dangerous toys...
X'-)
No, we Europeans are very varied, you find us in all kinds. Older, maybe, but we can and we are pretty daft often. But that would be entering politics, and that is an off topic I do not wish to enter: too controversial.
- From the humorous comment on drinking sprees and drinking age we drifted into politics, so I think we should stop ourselves here ;-)
So, back into drinking habits.
When I was a kid (12?), the telly announced a wine that improved appetite (Vino Santa Catalina, I think). And it was given to kids. They tried it on me... and I found it gagging. So I grew skinny :-p
Another one.
Babies were given one of those rubber things to suck and shut up (I don't know the English name)
pacifier
, which some people humidified with "anís" (anisette in French, perhaps), an alcoholic beverage very sweet with aniseed flavor. So the baby would shut up faster.
I grew up in Michigan where the drinking age once went from 21 to 18 and shortly after went back to 21 because of problems. Now, back to the purpose of this list. -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org