what an odd tradition in wisconsin

[Camicar]

Your "statistics" are not worth my time disputing. I never said there isn't a drinking problem at a lot of the college campuses. But your "statistics" are a little off.

I did NOT say I had statistics as in a scientific experiment or poll. I said I had personal everyday experiences which, having minored in stats in college, is natural to me to make percentages from. When I say 25% of the kids in my dd's 2nd grade class wrote little essays about their parents drinking or 50% of my teen asistants had their first drink from their parents, do you think I am incapable of adding and dividing? Thank you very much, I can do basic math. Or is it that you just don't LIKE my findings? And the statistics I quoted from the paper are from the Madison police department. If you don't like their findings, I suggest you take it up with THEM.

camicar: i'm wondering what will happen when your child goes off to college. will you send them to another state because wisconsin is so horrible?

I've worked on several college campuses and I can assure you -- not that you'd believe me -- that I've never seen anything like what I've seen on the UW Madison campus. Having worked on campus at UW Madison and being friends with a cop who has that campus as his beat, the supposed flagship school, there is no way I'd send my dd here. The article I quoted above about the nasty level of drinking here is, IMO, understating what goes on. The rapes, muggings, and other assaults that are not even possible to pursue as crimes bec the victims are so drunk is unbelievable. Most crimes are not even reported bec the victim is not fully cognizant of what happened and/or is too embarrassed. And the denial of the problem by people is part of what makes the problem even worse.

DS's baseball (little league) tournaments and games. Many of the parent's load their trunks with liquor and mix drinks all day at these tourneys and drive their kids home after a day of drinking at little boys tourneys. The kids talk about whose parents make a fool of themselves at the bars after wrestling tournaments and who's husband was oblivious to the fact that his wife is flirting with somebody else's dad. This is a hard thing to explain to kids who are not generally exposed to such behavior. How do you explain why DS's baseball coach is walking around drunk at a baseball tournament (after their game, of course).

Or at the July 4th -- the biggest draw in our town? Not the booths, or the kiddie rides, nope -- the beer tent is the biggest draw. And now they've gotten rid of all but the beer tent. No more activities, the park is now just filled with the beer tent. And yet...the park is still full as the kiddies sit in the beer tent with their parents all day on July 4.

Society as a whole is teaching our children from a young age that alcohol is acceptable and sometimes necessary to socialize. This is not true. Peopel can have fun without alcohol.

Yup, that's why when I hear parents bribing their teens to go to family events by telling them that at Uncle Bob's 50th, they can have all the booze they want, it makes me cringe.

Again, I don't believe that Wisconsin is alone, but since I live only in Wisconsin, I can attest to the fact that there is an issue here and it is NOT ONLY COLLEGE KIDS!!! A sad, but true fact.

My point exactly. Thank you. I've never said that people elsewhere don't have issues, but I have never experienced anything like the level of drinking that I've seen here.

Wisconsin has some really good points, but the way it handles drinking is not among them. Don't agree, fine. I know what I see as an outsider and if you see it differently, fine.