Opinion
Get up, stand up for drunkenness
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Also by Kyle Szarzynski:
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Albert Camus once wrote, "True debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations. In it you possess only yourself…"
The implementation of the new, curiously titled "show and blow" policy by the Offices of Dean of Students should infuriate all students. Aside from grossly infringing on individual freedom, it more importantly assaults a cherished UW tradition — getting shitfaced before Badger football games.
The new policy mandates that students previously ejected for underage drinking or other disorderly conduct be subjected to taking a Breathalyzer test before entering the stadium. Underage students must have 0.0 percent alcohol content and legal drinkers must not exceed 0.08 — the legal limit for driving. The effect will be a gradually sobering student section.
I would have thought the surveillance and restrictions already in place were enough for the university administration. Apparently, being stared at by security guards the whole game, the athletic 'department's ticket revocation policy and the constant threat of ejection for simply having a good time are not satisfactory measures for keeping the crowd properly docile.
"Show and blow" is just the most recent of similarly repressive policies. Camp Randall once featured students smoking weed, body surfing and an exceedingly rowdy atmosphere. Today, even our ability to enjoy a mellow intoxication is threatened.
This is precisely the objective. UW Assistant Dean of Students Kipp Cox, for example, wants to see a more fundamental change in student behavior. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, he said, "As you walk in that student gate, to the right is where the students will be blowing [into the Breathalyzer] and other students may see that. Hopefully, they’re going to think ‘I don’t want to be in that line.’ We’re hoping over time to change some of the culture around this."
He's already halfway there. Many Madison alumni speak of a certain change in the atmosphere: It's now less easygoing. With less and less alcohol in students' bloodstreams, we can expect less of the general boisterousness that makes the games so enjoyable in the first place.
The new policy also threatens the tradition of the Saturday morning house party. With more and more students blacklisted, fewer and fewer students will be able to drink before the game — and who ever heard of a party without beer?
I think I speak for, well, pretty much the entire student body when I say students have the right to get wasted before the game. For many, such as myself, the hangover courtesy of Friday night impedes such an indulgence, but I couldn't be happier that the more robust of my peers are able to brave the headaches and nausea and show up to the game plastered. It is these fine individuals who are truly responsible for making the UW student section the best in the country.
Perhaps even more frustrating is that the new policy is only a further curtailment of the general debauchery surrounding the UW weekend. The drunken haze that characterizes the weekend of many — dare I say, most — students serves as a crucial outlet for the stress that characterizes the workweek. Why shouldn't students be entitled to forget their overburdened lives for a day or two?
Football games aren't the only target. Be it the $5 entrance fee that ruined Halloween last year or the over-policing of the Mifflin Street Block Party, in many respects, the right to party is becoming a tenuous one here at UW. Partying and its related activities are essential forms of student self-expression. The paradox is that the accompanying intoxication blocks consciousness of the self for a few hours — or a few days — and enables us to live carefree.— Therein lies the enjoyment. Therein lies the instinctual repulsion that we all feel at any attempt to infringe on our right to engage in a little bit of harmless partying.
As "show and blow" indicates, the current trend is not on the side of public debauchery. More and more, our instinctual need to let loose is confined to the indoors. The results have not been good: Our school's reputation has suffered almost as much as our good time. It's time to take a stand. Noncooperation, anyone?
Kyle Szarzynski (kszarzynski@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in history and Spanish.
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The uw police are more concerned with breaking up parties than stopping crime.
Grow up! You don't need alcohol to have a good time! Just some shrooms.
- Germain Q. Stemme
As adults, we should be allowed to have the opportunity to make mistakes. Without mistakes, there is ultimately no education for the common sense.
As an alumni I am disgusted with many of the universities' as well as the cities new policies concerning alcohol. Searching for underage's in bars will not reduce violent crime. Try responding to calls or patrolling the streets. It may not be too long before students are ejected if they do not remain seated for the entire game. I can't stand the new ticket policies or the practices of fun enforcement at games. Everyone used to bring alcohol with them to the game and now you can't show up with it in your blood stream? Remember, you don't have to allow police officers to smell your drink if they think you have alcohol in it. There can not be a realistic reason for them to believe your coke contains rum, just say no, it's coke and you have no reason to believe otherwise. I recall a time when Bucky was arrested for crowd surfing. Mascots crowd serf at many universities across the country, I can't imagine of all places it would be outlawed in Madison. Stand up, be obnoxious, inebriated, and outrageous now because you won't be able to later. Represent the way only a UWs students can.
As for Mifflin I say everyone candidly drink in the street. If the city will deny a permit to have a party they know is happening anyway year after year then have everyone get a ticket for open an container in the street. Then everyone can request a trial by jury to contest the offence. I'd like the city to have to prosecute hundreds of people by jury after deliberately denying students a permit to have the party and drink legally in the street in the first place.
i'm starting to think that madison here has a serious drinking problem. i enjoy getting hammered on occassion, but man, this article is something our campus should be ashamed of. i agree with the absurdness of the "show and blow" policy, but this article really makes us look like a bunch of stubborn and selfish kids with a skewed perspective on life. "let's get wasted"?
If the university and the city aren't going to make it easy for your to get blind drunk, then how are all the local teenagers supposed to find people to mug? Won't someone please think of the children?
spot on. uw and mpd actually think going into the bars to bust underage drinking will stop the muggings and beatings on state st.
Maybe next they'll forbid students from "jumping around" at the end of the 3rd quarter. Wait! They already tried that, but for other reasons :-)
I actually disagree with most of the article, however. If you're drinking underage or acting like a complete a$$ (under or not under the influence), you should be tossed. And how does the University know you're not going to do the same exact thing the next time?
And if you think college study is a stress that characterizes the workweek [sic], then wait until you get into the workforce with an actual job, especially in a leadership-type position. I can attest that it could make you want to get blasted EVERY night!
However, I do agree with the .08 limit for those 21 and over thingy. Does it really make a difference if you're .08 or .12 or higher? You're still going to be just as rowdy and boisterous. Doesn't make much sense. And if the University thinks this will make us like the "saints" the people at Michigan or Ohio State CLAIM to be, they're sorely wrong.
Now let's all get drunk! XD
They should have made their rhyme, "go and blow" and simultaneously implemented a piss test to attend the games.
Piss test results:
Drunk
Drunk
High and Drunk
Drunk
Pregnant
Drunk
Diabetic
Either way, I expect someone from the student body to make a butt-load of cash by putting "show and blow" onto a t-shirt with some sort of hilarious drawing. I'll give you a head start: Bucky with and erection.
These rules are only trying to get rid of the negative publicity. They don't want National TV showing the drunkest idiots ruining our name. But as for the other 99.5% of the students- keep drinking. The idiots will get kicked out and get disorderlies and the rest of us can do what we do. If you are one of the people that got kicked out- serves you right. I somehow manage to drink before games and still not do anything illegal. Act your age.
if we want to point fingers at why this is happening, we only have to point in the mirror. As with most things, a few of us students ruin it for everyone. There is NO REASON why we all can't drink and have a good time before a game, EXCEPT that too many students have almost died because they don't know their limits. There should not be 2-3 detox transports EVERY football game...if we students refuse to take measures to keep ourselves safe, the administration has to, or in come the lawyers with the billion dollar lawsuits.
on gamedays, drink like there's no tomorrow, but handle your liquor. dont be a little biatch and pass out or puke or act like such a dumbass that you get kicked out. focus your energy on shouting obscenities at the other team/fans and cheering for the badgers.
As a current student, who enjoys drinking, I am disgusted by this article. I do agree that the police should worry more about muggings and sexual assaults than 20 year olds being in the bars or coming drunk to the football games. However, this university's drinking culture is getting out of hand. No longer are people drinking socially or to the point of being drunk, they are drinking to the point of blacking out where many need to or should seek medical attention. At football games, I habitually see people so drunk they have no idea where they are and what's going on. I have been standing by people that are so drunk that they sit the entire time and have to barf throughout the game, some doing it right in the bleachers. Madison's attitude of "work hard, play hard" is a good attitude for the most part, however, people need to start acting responsible for their actions. 18-23 year olds should not have to be transported to detox in record numbers.
This is ridiculous. Why middle class (most likely), white, Midwesterners think that they have problems enough that they need to escape from them is beyond me. Also, escaping through problems with drugs is called an addiction, and really doesn't do anyone any good. In fact, it's pretty psychologically traumatizing for most people, and leads to alcoholism. Being drunk is not a pre-requisite for having fun, and if you're being stupid and dangerous, it ruins things for everyone. Our society is stuck in this binge drinking underage ideal that isn't found anywhere else. Why do we perpetuate unhealthy and useless activities like this?
It seems to me like the University is allowing students to have a good time, and is allowing students, even underage, to drink... except for those students who have already proven they can't handle it, and they are then checking only those students. UW Police could be standing at the gate PBT'ing everyone who appears underage and appears to have been drinking and issuing them a ticket... seems to me like the U is being pretty cool about the whole thing.
And interesting that the author (a junior - underage I presume?) refers to his "right" to drink so often... isn't like 75% of the UW under the age of 21?
And as far as "the stress that characterizes the workweek"... I'm guessing he won't think his student life was so stressfull in about 10 years when he has a real job, a mortgage, a car loan, a family to raise... Try forgetting about his "overburdened li(fe) for a day or two" when that time comes by getting "shitfaced before Badger football games".
Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness ~
Bertrand Russell
He should mention that the Jews, oops, I mean Zionists control the liquor industry in the US. They sell people liquor so that they'll get drunk and not pay attention to how Israel is oppressing the Palestinians.