Pirate's Cove

This is actually a pretty good opinion piece from Elizabeth Farrelly at the Canberra Times

All I want for Christmas is tolerance – for our own traditions

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat – and the people. Dear Lord, the people. For children, Christmas means pressies and beaches; for adults, parties and booze. In the city it’s no longer even called Christmas, but Santa Fest. Advent will be marked by the month-long projection of ”Santa’s journey” across the Town Hall, because Advent is party month; followed by a few days’ full-on feasting, then a fortnight’s recuperative drinking-sur-mer.

For young adults, it’s even more intense, since they come off a higher base. What with pre-loading, side-loading and after-loading, their base is as alcohol-soaked as Great Aunt Aggie’s Christmas trifle.

I say this, representing as I do a generation devoted to shocking its parents via every conceivable form of excess, with a touch of admiration. I do not recall, even in my heyday, ever drinking more than a couple of nights a week, or more than four or five drinks a night.

I’m guessing she isn’t too happy about people drinking so much. She has a point. As someone who attended East Carolina U in my younger days, I know something about drinking a lot. We typically took a break Monday nights. But, you know this has to go downhill somewhere, right?

But more concern – not just about the health effects (cancer, obesity, addiction, brain damage) but about the behaviour itself as a symptom. I cannot help feeling the relentless boozing as compensation for the way we have deprived our children of significance.

We bequeath them not just a physical world ravaged by climate change but a cultural world whose highest values are safety, comfort and happiness. We leave them a belief system framed around OH&S, quality assurance, market forces and the white-bread nostrums of the Dalai Lama. Streuth. No wonder they need a drink.