A New Temperance Movement

Interesting article about how the Republican-led boycott against Bud Light, the war against Hispanic sociability, and the health-podcast subculture has led to a general collapse in beer sales nationwide. 

It sounds like a new Temperance Movement, led by people who intend to rule - eugenicists like RFK, Jr. An echo of the Victorians:

Last month, Gallup published its annual report on U.S. drinking habits. For nearly 90 years, dating back to 1939, the firm has been taking stock of Americans and the good old American pastime. 

Its findings this time were stunning. The percentage of American adults who reported drinking any alcohol at all had cratered to just 54 percent, the lowest number ever recorded in those nine decades of data gathering. That’s almost 10 points below the 80-year average of 63 percent. 

The demographic leading the charge? Self-identified Republicans. Only 46 percent of Republicans reported drinking at all in the past year. That’s a decline of almost a third since 2023, when the Bud Light boycott began. More than half are off the sauce altogether. 

The longer you look at it, the more absurd it seems. The Republican Party, as so many postelection postmortems have found, has gotten younger, running up the margin with young men in particular. Those guys are supposed to be beer’s lifeblood. But the opposite is happening. Half of adults age 18 to 34 do not consume alcohol, up from 41 percent in 2023. Incredibly, as America becomes abstemious, it is Republicans on the vanguard. 

Surely there are nonpolitical explanations for this. Maybe it’s because of a concomitant surge in the use of cannabis or alternative nicotine products, or maybe all those young men and conservatives are shooting up Ozempic. 

But the investment banks don’t think so. As Laurence Whyatt, a beverage analyst at Barclays, told the Financial Times, all of those explanations were “not particularly compelling for having such a seismic change in a short space of time.” He cited uncertain economic headwinds, also brought on by Trump’s tariffs and other policies, as a primary reason for the decline. 

Whatever the Bud Light fiasco was, it was just the beginning. On multiple fronts, the Republican Party has inaugurated an epidemic of teetotaling. Maybe it’s not exactly surprising. Trump abstains from alcohol, though he also abstained from alcohol during his first term, during which time Republicans were tipping them back.

Life in the Remote Borderlands Can Be Hard

An interesting story.

My New Political Signs for September 27th Protest.

Putting eugenicists like RFK, Jr. in charge means that Republicans are abandoning motherhood as a positive. Time to poach that issue. The eugenicists already have a dim opinion about apple pie, so time to poach that too.

New Mexico Politicians and Their Obsessions

@maddie.block Wtf does Netanyahu have to do with any local issues in New Mexico? Additional points of clarification: My dad is JAY Block, not John Block. Also, r*cist and/or antis*mitic comments will not be tolerated on my videos! #republican #newmexico #democrat #politics #politicstiktok ♬ original sound - Maddie Block

Let's Say, No...

Day in the Life of a Roswell Visitor

I like this series - it hits just about every Southwestern city or gas station.

 

@citiesbydiana Day in the Life of a Roswell Visitor 👽☀️🛣️💔 Game: American Truck Simulator #satire #brainrotcore😘🐺 #americantrucksimulator #roswell #aliens ♬ original sound - 𝘿𝙞𝙖𝙣𝙖

Off To a Better Place

Seventh Anniversary of Jasper's “Gotcha” Day!

Lately, Jasper has been moody. He sits on the back porch and howls like a wolf. I think the trouble is that there’s a female dog living several blocks away, and so my company is now less-than-stellar in comparison.

Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues

I found this film charming (see on September 26th). Not as hilarious as Spinal Tap Uno, but charming enough.  I appreciated Paul McCartney's and Elton John's involvement.

 

Last Week At The School

Last week, I was a substitute teaching assistant at all three levels in the Montessori school: upper elementary, lower elementary, and kindergarten. 

I was moved around fairly often, but I spent most of a day in kindergarten class, so it was kind of grueling. (In my day, kindergartners napped.  None of these kids napped.)

The day started with handwashing, which struck me as strange, but it was probably related to the unexpected rainfall that morning. Some of the girls had boots with mercury switches that lit colorful lights in their heels, when they weren't shorted out by jumping around in puddles. 

Several of the kindergartners recognized me from supervising recess over the last several months, particularly that day when they threw wood chips at me in a kind of near-riot on the playground. One of the kids said that he didn't recognize me. His friend turned to him, and said, "Oh, you don't recognize Mr. Marc? He's very popular! As popular as Minnie Mouse!" Best testimonial ever! 

Sometime in the morning, class was disrupted by the discovery of a black widow spider in the classroom. I wasn't directly involved, but was surprised when one of the boys expressed skepticism that the insecticide deployed against the spider would work. My mind went back to an old Phoenix, Arizona memory, and how a household cleaner (Formula 409) deployed against black widow spiders didn't work at all as an insecticide. The spiders just shook off the household cleaner. I told the boy, "Of course the insecticide will work." 

Not surprisingly, spiders were on everybody's minds. Walking around, I overheard three little girls talking about the Daddy Long-Legs spiders in their own houses. The girls were keeping track of how many spiders there were and where they lived. 

One kindergarten girl told me that her mother was going to have a birthday the next day. "Oh, that's nice," I replied. "Are you going to get her a card?" The girl said no. I asked, "Are you going to get her a present?" The girl replied, "No. She already has a present. Me!" 

I thought it curious some of the kindergarten girls were adopting vocal fry as a speaking style. I thought maybe that might be a teenage thing, but no. It starts earlier.

Since the playground was all wet, the kindergarten recess was held inside the classroom. The teacher put on a curious exercise video, which imagined everyone had shrunk to a tiny size and were wandering around the front lawn avoiding ants, beetles, and, of course, spiders. 

At one point, I tried sitting on a tiny kindergarten chair and fell over on my back. I was embarrassed, but hardly anyone noticed. Kids fall down in kindergarten class all the time. Just another kid falling down. 

Lunch presents challenges of its own. The students are fairly quiet at first, but they get noisier as they finish their lunch. The kindergarten students are the best-behaved, needing help only with opening difficult plastic packages. In contrast, several of the lower elementary students realized that the little cups of salsa they include with chips make perfect hockey pucks when kicked around the linoleum floor of the cafeteria. 

Elementary school recess has its own challenges. Just as recess was ending, and the students were assembling in lines, a girl kicked a soccer ball right in my crotch. She winced; I tried hard to maintain my composure. I figured I should turn this incident into a teachable moment. I said, "This is what happens when you are S-L-O-W!" I hope that lesson stuck. 

I took a little girl to a hip-hop after-school activity and discovered I already knew the dance teacher. One of my ballet classmates. The collision of worlds really threw me off. 

I asked a lower elementary student why she wasn't doing her work. She smiled and said it was because she couldn't get this song out of her head (called "Catchy Song," or "This Song’s Gonna Get Stuck Inside Your Head," from "The LEGO Movie 2").