& Page 2/The Battalion/Thursday, October 23, 1986 Opinion Court attacks alcohol, but ignores its abuse T here are prob ably quite a tew of you who will read this and remem ber how it used to be legal for you to buy a drink only two months ago. Thousands of 19- and 20-year-old Texas A&M stu dents were turned into minors over- Karl Pallmeyer By the same reasoning, the Ford Mo tor Co. should be held responsible be cause the car was to blame for several deaths. Fred abused that car, just like he abused alcohol, and several people joined the choir invisible. The architect and builder that put that brick wall in Fred’s way should be held responsible for Fred’s Ford falling apart. He abused that wall and turned his car into a sheet metal accordion. night by a piece of legislation Texas was blackmailed into passing. The federal government threatening to stop provid ing highway funds unless the state raised the drinking age. It felt the best way to stop drunken driving was to make sure the drunks had only bad roads to drive on. Now the Texas Supreme Court has made a decision, also aimed at stopping drunken driving, that is the pinnacle of stupidity. The decision states that drink ing establishments can be held liable for traffic deaths caused by customers who leave intoxicated. Imagine a 21-year-old man, let’s call him Fred J. Alpheratz, goes to a bar and starts drinking. Fred downs about a dozen mixed drinks and 47 bottles of beer. At the end of the evening Fred is plastered, blottoed, plowed, wasted, ranked, tanked, totaled, polluted, fizzed and generally whizzed. Fred jumps in his Ford and heads on down the road. On the way home, Fred runs over three dogs, two cats, 14 children, eight pregnant mothers, 97 ducks, three po licemen, a priest, a water buffalo and an entire high school cheerleading squad before he smashes his car into a brick wall. A lot of people are extremely upset when they see their pets, offspring, wives and friends turned into highway pizza by the alcoholic Alpheratz. Fred’s upset because his Ford is fried. Obviously Fred should be strung up by his private parts. I’m sure the fami lies of those who had to be buried in a short, thin box would agree. Just about anybody, except the Texas Supreme Court, realizes that the drunken driver is responsible for whatever happens when he’s behind the wheel. According to the Court, the bar that sold the excessive amounts of alcohol partially is responsible for the massive mushings that occured under Fred’s Ford. The bar sold drinks to an irre sponsible person who then went out and killed some people. Alcohol became dangerous because it distorted Fred’s ability to function, causing him to flat ten folks. Once the legal precedent has been set, Fred can go out and gun down all the families that have been pestering him, claiming that Luger, Winchester and the store that sold him the guns are liable for murder. Since the gunmakers and retailers provided Fred with some thing he abused and killed someone with, they should be held responsible. The law is an obvious attempt to stop the sale of alcohol. You get rid of the al cohol abuse problem by getting rid of al cohol instead of addressing the abuse. If bar owners are going to be held respon sible for their patrons’ alcohol-related accidents, bars will have no choice but to stop serving alcohol. It’s almost impossi ble to tell that someone is going to get drunk until they actually get drunk. By that time it’s too late. The novel that (luckily) never wa Bar owners have no right to detain their customers because they have had too much to drink. Most drunks will not admit that they are incapable of driving a car safely after they have had a few too many. If a bar owner can convince a drunk that he has had too much and will provide him with a way home, that’s wonderful. But it a drunk wants to leave, the bar owner can’t stop him. There are laws against holding a person against his will. For years. I've been trying to write a novel, but I keep bogging d o w n when it comes to the open ing. First, I thought of: “It was a dark and stormy night. That’s not bad, Lewis Grizzard I understand the need to keep drunken drivers off the road, but the state is using the wrong methods. There is nothing wrong with alcohol, per se. It’s only when alcohol is abused that there is a problem. The person who abuses alcohol, not the person who sells it, is responsible for its abuse. If the state wants to stop drunken driving, it could start with an open con tainer law. It’s ridiculous when a state in which it’s legal to drink while driving (as long as you wear your seatbelt) makes a law that puts the blame for drunken driving on someone else besides the drunken driver and claims it is ded icated to solving the problem. Karl Pallmeyer is a senior journalism major and a columnist for The Battal- but I seem to remember I've read that in the beginning of someone else’s novel. 1 never steal another writer’s material un less it becomes absolutely necessary to do so. My next opening went like this: “As the sun cast its warming spell upon Hilda’s goddess-like body, Gar land searched up and down the TV dial for 'Wheel of Fortune.’ ’’ But I thought, why would Garland want to watch “Wheel of Fortune” with Hilda acting goddess-like? Vanna White is-territk: on FV, but when you already have Hilda right there beside you, what's the point? I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: no puzzle here, Garland is s a y- You’re wrong. My novel isn’t going to have gay people in it. I want to write something unique. Later, I thought to myself, why not write a novel of mystery and intrigue? The first paragraph went this way: “Agent 009 crouched in the alley as Natasha, the KGB’s deadliest operative, searched in the eerie darkness for him, crying out sensually, ‘1 know you are here somewhere. I smell the haunting scent of your Aqua Velva. Gome out, wherever you are, so that I may kill you.’ ” But what sort of secret agent would wear Aqua Velva? Even that dunce Garland would have more class than that. Next, I decided on a novel set in some far away, exotic locale, like a jungle. 1 wrote: “Startled, Sabu turned around just a heartbeat before a runaway rogue el ephant stepped on his heat! and stomped him flat. “ 'How many for dinner tonight?’ Sir Henry asked Raamad, the cook. “ ‘One less than last night. Sahib,’ Raamad replied, as he attempted to scoop what was left of his good friend Sabu into a Hefty bag.” Not bad. Not bad at all. Except if you wrote an entire novel about jungles, you would have to think of a lot of jungle names, and Sabu and Raamad art only two names like that 1 know. What 1 finally decided to do w begin my novel with the best pans: the aforementioned openings.Idtoi on this: “It was a dark and stormv niti! Hilda and Garland watched'WW Fortune’ in their apartmentx overlooked the alley where agent! crouched, as Natasha, the KGBsds best operative, thought she smelW elephant. “Startled, she turned aroundjtts Sabu, who smelled like anelephai 1 : cause he had been so busy tradinti down he hadn’t had time to lit shower for days, hit her over the 1 : with a Hefty bag full of Raamad)ee; Aqua Velva bottles." In the next scene, Sir Henn Vanna White when she cannot sue! fully name all five vowels. Copyright i986, Cowles Syndicate inirodm ti< The Hsits for ■reduced sa) s the cu ■sit requii a point ph rir~x $|/5 and ■sit, whirl Ht can should be ■ The ()< ft//on ran ft raise ftph on s< ftterstate | s gi. F ■exas I ■noted as ftuit won ft f'atalit ftnit con! ftetions o Bays. I Howes ftat lifti lookin') ■rivers ftgher rat Hdiwav ftnit. I He add ftntment Bon the ci ithe basis o The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas ft ess Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Cathie Anderson. Editor Kirsten Dietz, Managing; Editor Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor Frank Smith. City Editor Sue Krenek, News Editor Ken Sury. Sports Editot Editorial Policy The Bm alrd a* a