How To Stop College Rape

One of my favorite advice columnists, Emily Yoffe, a.k.a. Dear Prudence, waded into uncomfortable waters yesterday when she said one way college girls can avoid getting raped is by avoiding getting blackout drunk. She titles her article, simply enough, "College Women: Stop Getting Drunk."

The backlash, predictably, started almost immediately. And lo and behold... Ann Friedman, taking a page from my playbook, did the exact same thing I did to her vacuous article a few weeks ago-- she flipped the script. She titles her criticism piece, "College Men: Stop Getting Drunk."

She takes the format of Emily's original article and uses it to form her counter argument-- not the first time that strategy has ever been employed, admittedly, but very peculiar given what I wrote just weeks ago.

Come on, Ann, not even a shout out? An i-see-what-you-did-there?

Of course, I don't really think Ann's attempt at parody works here.

Emily's original article says:

A common denominator in these cases is alcohol, often copious amounts, enough to render the young woman incapacitated. But a misplaced fear of blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn inexperienced young women that when they get wasted, they are putting themselves in potential peril.

I think Emily makes a solid point-- that if a girl loses her ability to function, she becomes an easy target for a sexual predator. I think she's being willfully naive to suggest young women don't already know this. But Ann's parody dismisses Emily's point by flipping it:

"As soon as the school year begins, so do reports of male students sexually assaulting their female classmates. A common denominator in these cases is alcohol, often copious amounts. But the obsessive focus on blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn young men that when they get wasted, they are putting young women in potential peril."

Hahaha, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE, ANN! You're saying that Emily's argument is as ridiculous as saying drinking makes men more likely to rape. HOW CLEVER! HOW DID YOU EVER COME UP WITH... oh.

The thing is, nothing in Ann's "response" to Emily refutes the very real fact that alcohol can render someone near catatonic, just as chloroform or a whack with a baseball bat (if the movies are to be believed). The problem with Emily's argument isn't that assertion, it's what she offers as a realistic solution to it: a plea to warn America's youth about the dangers of overconsumption.

Yeah, uh, Em, I like your advice usually, but... that's pretty lame.

Drinking is part of college life, as sad as that may be to some. It comes with the territory when you take a bunch of young men and women, many who have never been away from home, and suddenly give them near-full independence and only sporadic structure (nearly no one has classes every day, or even full blocks of classes.) Given copious amounts of free time to explore the brave new world around them, nearly every college kid experiments with something, be it alcohol, drugs, body piercings, tattoos or late-night-coding-that-leads-to-the-creation-of-Facebook. You'd hope for only productive avenues of exploration, but hey, even Zuckerberg was a few drinks in when he hit upon his billion-dollar future. A social life is key to a happy college experience, and when people of many different stripes are awkwardly mashed together, alcohol is a handy lubricant to get conversations, and yes, hookups, flowing. For many college students, getting blackout drunk is "Achievement Unlocked," to borrow the video game term.

So if you think your daughter won't drink to oblivion just because you tell her, "hey, one shot for every year is NOT a good idea for your birthday," you're probably wrong. There will probably be a night in college when she will have a few many too many. I dare say very few people haven't had at least one night they regret, even if the end result was just a bad hangover, bad breath, and a day spent laundering the vomit out of your angry roommate's down comforter.

So we can't stop college drunkenness. How can we stop campus rape? Short of requiring students to wear chastity belts?

Our legal system creates a Catch-22 for colleges-- if they're aware of illegal activity, they can be held responsible for what happens. So if a party is on campus, in a dorm or frat, the university shuts it down. The result is that parties go underground. They go off campus. The parties don't stop, the university just becomes blind to them. That puts the full responsibility to regulate what happens at these parties to 18-22 year-old kids, none of whom are really interested in being the party pooper.

Emily briefly addresses that lowering the drinking age is sometimes suggested as a practical solution... but admits the idea has little political traction. However, its the idea that, to me, makes the most sense. By legalizing drinking for all college students, the university no longer has to push college drinking into its blind spots. Then they would be able to offer incentives to students to act as sober, responsible proctors at parties--both both on and off campus.

Until that happens, its up to students to guarantee their own safety at unsanctioned events. Several student ideas have already gained traction:

1. THE BUDDY SYSTEM. No girl leaves a party without first telling her buddy. They can wear matching bracelets. How cute! This encourages friends to account for each other... and if your buddy is MIA, then you know something's wrong. It's not 100% failsafe... but at least it's an attempt to keep a girl from being isolated in a dangerous situation.

2. SOBER SISTERS AND BOOZELESS BROTHERS. No party should be without at least a few clear-headed designated sober students. As long as college drinking remains beyond university control, this sort of policy needs to exist at the student level. Flyers around campus could encourage party hosts to gather volunteers to act as lookouts for truly dangerous activities. Vanderbilt University, among others, requires that the organizers of Greek parties off-campus send them a list of students who will remain sober throughout the entirety of their events. Student watchdogs can be less stringent than a university official, but no less protective. Someone smoking a joint? Hey, he'll live. Two guys carrying a girl off into the woods... uh, no. no. Stop that.

3. AMNESTY FOR UNDERAGE DRINKERS WHO REPORT A CRIME OR EMERGENCY. Okay, this is not something students can do alone. This takes the government. But I don't know why this isn't enshrined in law everywhere already. It's common sense. Partiers will be less afraid to call 911 in the event of an emergency, because they won't be arrested for underage drinking.

Emily is right that talking to kids about drinking is an important step. But it doesn't end with talking. Teaching students to become responsible adults is one thing that college does. That shouldn't end once the drinking starts. Encouraging student leaders to establish safe-drinking protocols at their schools won't end every sexual assault, but it puts eyes in places where the university, the government, and parents can't go. And that's what is really needed.

Not snarky "responses."

Are The Republicans Sort Of Right About The Debt Ceiling?

No, this is not a Robbie Republican post. And I'm not saying that holding the economy hostage in order to destroy Obamacare is a sound strategy or a goal we should be striving towards. But at the very heart of things, when you get down to it, there is an aggravating factor that's led us down this path, one that nobody has done anything about since the Clinton administration: the insane growth of the national debt and our horribly unbalanced federal budget.

Now, let me be clear. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling does not reduce the national debt. In fact, if the debt ceiling isn't raised, and we default (can't pay our bondholders), then the national debt will actually increase. You don't reduce your credit card debt by refusing to pay your bills, and the government can't reduce it's debt by refusing to pay its bills. We need to borrow, because we have bills to pay, and not enough tax revenue comes in to cover them. If we didn't borrow money, bills don't get paid, our bonds are worth trash, the dollar loses value, and suddenly, the economy takes a tailspin, reducing tax revenues further, because suddenly everyone's out of a job. It's a crazy mess.

This is why we haven't defaulted. This is why we won't EVER default. This is why Boehner and co. are going to agree to raise the debt ceiling again, despite their whole stink about it. Because they realize a default won't do a thing to reduce our debt, and will leave us far, far worse off.

So why the stink every few months? Why the "hostage taking"? Well, at the very least, it's sparking a conversation. And so far, what's come out of that conversation has been positive for Republicans.

As I said back in December, forecasting our nation's future after falling over the "fiscal cliff":

Yes, taxes go up. Yes, defense spending is cut drastically. But both of these issues are temporary, and everyone knows it. It's very, very easy to cut taxes. It's very, very easy to justify defense spending with the global threats America faces. If no deal is struck by January 2nd, taxes will rise and defense budgets will be cut, sure. But by next January 2nd, it's very likely that taxes and defense spending will be restored to somewhere near their current levels.

The other programs? Programs for the poor and middle class? Programs for the arts and sciences? Programs for education? The Democratic desire to restore funding to these initiatives will be met with fierce resistance from the Republican caucus, and the public support behind them will not be strong enough to overcome it.

 Well, folks, we did fall over the fiscal cliff. The sequester did come into effect. And what happened? Exactly what I said would come to pass.  Military and security budgets have slowly been restored, but the other deep cuts, to programs on the Democratic side of the ledger, remain in place.

The debt ceiling threat is not intended to be a threat, because a threat can actually be carried out. What is it then? A protest. A demonstration. It's intended to rally their side in a battle for more cuts to government programs that Republicans hate. One of those programs is Obamacare.

The Republicans are right to protest increasing government debt. In that sense, the debt ceiling holdout, repeated, again and again, keeps the national conversation coming back to the budget. And that alone is not a bad thing. We need a balanced budget. We need to stop owing so much elsewhere. It is time to get something done on that front, after George W. Bush ignored it for 8 years.

Of course, that's where the Republican high ground ends. Because they're unwilling to tackle both sides of the issue--spending AND revenue. You can't just cut government programs suddenly and completely. It'll create a humanitarian disaster within our borders. A single parent family on food stamps won't immediately be able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps-- its not that easy. If it was, they would have done it already. Corporate taxes and the amount millionaires squirrel away are a joke. The rich enjoy enormous benefits of our free, safe, capitalistic society, and unfettered access to the halls of power-- they should pay for that. And I don't mean in the form of campaign contributions. You can't solve the national debt by cutting alone-- the math doesn't add up. It's just like how corporations can't improve their fortunes solely by firing workers or fixing inefficiencies.... eventually, they have to bring in money. The government can't invent the next iPhone... the only way to bring in more money is by raising taxes, preferably on people who will feel the "pain" the least.

So, yay to the Republicans for keeping an eye on the ball, the long term fiscal health of our nation. But unless they start getting realistic, instead of idealistic, we're not going to get anywhere.

Why I’m Glad I Didn’t Quit New York At Age 24

On a Saturday night a few weeks ago, I found myself in a karaoke bar at 3:45 a.m., participating in a raucous group rendition of Creed’s “Higher.” Not my choice of song, but when you’re with your cousin from out-of-town, his friend, and a bunch of random foreigners you met that evening in another bar nearby, you can’t be picky. You want to show them a good time. After all, taking country-folk on a bar crawl to your favorite non-douche-y dives and showing them the time of their lives is part of the joy of living here. “We don’t have a place like this in Charlotte,” my cousin yells in-between songs, and Amen to that. When I was in Charlotte to interview a story subject, the hotel concierge recommended visiting the finest restaurant in town: the Capital Grille. My take, since about age 18, has been, "Why would I want to make it anywhere else when I can make it here?"

An insipid, shallow article on New York Magazine’s “The Cut” blog, “Why I’m Glad I Quit New York At Age 24”, chronicles Ann Friedman’s miserable experience in the city that never sleeps. “I spent the worst year of my life in New York,” Ann writes. The worst. What was the city’s crime against, poor, innocent Ann? “Right after college graduation, I moved from Missouri to join my college boyfriend, who had landed my dream job. I ended up here not because I had something to prove, but because I couldn’t think of where else to go. No job, dreamy or otherwise.”

Hold up. Ann moved to one of the most expensive places to live on Earth… with no job? And she did this solely to join her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, who she clearly secretly despised (“my dream job”)? At least tell me she gave living here a chance.

Nope. “When I decamped for the West Coast fifteen months later, I didn’t feel failure or regret but relief. For me, New York is that guy I went out with only briefly and then successfully transitioned into friendship. We were always meant to be platonic.” Is she talking about the college boyfriend? Or the city? Because if she’s talking about the city, I’ve got news. The city is not a lover. You can try and jam a fire hydrant up your hoo-hah, but if you’re looking for romantic intimacy, you may want to try a human being, instead of anthropomorphicizing an entire city.

Now, maybe I’m biased, because I’ve spent the last 13 years of my life here. I came here first for college—not a college boyfriend—at age 18. My first experience in the city was waiting on the sidewalk on Washington Square West for a big plastic cart so I could move my things into the Hayden dormitory at NYU, and seeing a man just leave his dog’s shit on the sidewalk without picking it up. He caught me staring and said, “Welcome to New York.” While I later learned that was not representative of most New York City dog owners, it’s always stuck with me that on an island with 8 million other people, chances are you’ll meet a new character every day. Sometimes it’s a homeless guy who tells jokes for a slice of pizza. Sometimes it’s a guy who walks around town with a real, live cat on his head. Sometimes it’s a man in the park, covered head to toe by pigeons. You just don’t get this in Missouri. More meth-heads there, I’ll grant you.

It’s always struck me as hilarious that people who claim to despise the city want the world to know how much they hate it, so they write things for New York Magazine. To use Ann’s analogy, It’s sort of like stalking the prom king and then tucking little angry notes into his locker. Everyone can see right through it. It’s not that you hate him, it’s that you want him to ditch the prom queen and take your teenage dirtbag self to the prom instead. Ann Friedman writes, “New York is increasingly a city for people who are already on top, not for those looking to establish themselves.” From a financial standpoint, I can see her point. Even after 13 years, my savings account resembles that of a teenager working minimum wage at Burger King. But I vomited a little in my mouth when I read her description of the ultraviolent Chicago (safer than 8% of the cities in the U.S.!): “the friendly guy who doesn’t know how hot he really is.” What does that even mean? Or when she called the spider’s web of roadways and prostitutes that is Los Angeles—“the surprisingly intelligent, sexy stoner.” That’s actually Boulder, Colorado, not Los Angeles, Ann.

“Part of that infatuation is a willingness to consider New York from a cinematic distance, overlooking the city’s many irritants except insofar as they add grit and drama to your story,” Ann writes. California, Ann’s current state of bliss, is apparently, all “sunshine and avocados.” Clearly, us vampiric New Yorkers have never seen the sun, and avocados remain a mysterious green thing we recognize only from Trader Joe’s pre packaged guacamole. She cites, “a not-insignificant number of the vehement New York lovers I know — especially the young twentysomethings — are actually pretty unhappy day to day,” before retreating to her high school analogy about the prom king again. Her comprehensive study of New Yorkers aside, I’ve often wondered how happy anyone can be without 24-hour access to food, entertainment and excitement. There’s a reason people who move to the ‘burbs instantly pop out kids. There’s simply nothing else to do.

“The entire media industry” is located here because this is where the action is. This is where you’ll always know what’s going on. The things people re-post on Facebook and Twitter about… New Yorkers witness these things and learn about these things on our morning commute. “Your early twenties are going to suck,” Ann writes, and that’s awful, awful to tell people of that age, because it’s not true. It’s the time in your life where you find out who you really are. My twenties most certainly did not suck… but maybe that’s because I didn’t “[break] up with a college boyfriend and a mindless entry-level job.” Instead, I worked hard to climb up from my entry level position, spent my weekends and summer nights taking advantage of what the city had to offer me. Whenever I leave the city for a weekend, I’m surprised at how slow life seems. Sometimes it’s a nice break, but I’d die of boredom if I had to live there. How is a 20-something supposed to meet anyone? Where do you take your dates to, Chili’s? When I visit my friends in Jersey, and it’s not summer, we go bowling. Fun and all, but when the alley closes at 11 there’s nothing left to do.

It’s become in vogue, apparently, to hate on New York. You can blame it on Bloomberg’s elitism, the national anger at Wall Street, the obsession with In & Out Burger that I just don’t get. But if you can hack more than 15 months here—I’d suggest getting a job with decent growth potential, first—you’ll discover a deeper city that the tourists and haters don’t see. A city where the world comes together in the cramped nooks of busy neighborhood bars, where a rabbi, an imam, a priest and a guy with an alligator face tattoo really do all ride side-by-side in a single subway car, where in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere in the East Village, the front doors of a karaoke bar open wide to the street and let loose a roar of human beings, sauced and smiling, who aren’t ready to go home, not just yet.

How A New Button Will Revolutionize Facebook Forever

Facebook doesn't know you. No matter what Mark Zuckerberg says. Sure, the Feds might have made 25,000 requests for user data, but it's unlikely they learned anything other than Facebook users' affinity for cuddly cat photos and re-posted Pinterest quotations.

For a clear example of Facebook's failure to know who you are, look no further than the quiet end to Facebook Gifts, the social network's attempt to get you to buy real-life items for your friends' birthdays, engagements, and anniversaries.

As Forbes' contributor Mark Rogowsky points out, Facebook Gifts was a laughable failure:

"I looked at it four times in the past few days just to get a sense of what Facebook thought my friends might like. Three female friends had birthdays. Only of them has a young child, but somehow, all of them are good candidates for an $11 “mustache pacifier,” because, as Facebook puts in, “even babies need disguises.” There is so much wrong with this gift, it’s hard to know where to begin."

The issue is that, for all its claims about tracking users' behavior online, Facebook is unable to parse what "Likes" mean. Did you "Like" your friend's post about hamster balls because you want a hamster ball yourself, or did you merely think it was cute? Do you "Like" Pizza Hut because you find their pizza to be superior, or were they offering a 25% coupon if you clicked "Like" on their Facebook page? "Like" is such a general term, it can be maddeningly obscure: you may "Like" mustache pacifiers because you think they're a hilarious thing, but you'd never actually spend the money to buy one.

It's a well-known story that before Facebook decided on the "Like" button, they considered creating an "Awesome" button. Zuckerberg and Co. made the wise choice to go with "Like," which was more universal across cultures and age groups, applicable as a noun and a verb, and had a wide enough breadth to be used in many different contexts. The "Like" button helped spread Facebook far and wide because it didn't require much thought or discernment from the user-- one could "Like" something as a gesture of support for a friend, they could "Like" it because it made them smile, they could "Like" an opinion they agreed with or an article they thought was worth sharing. "Like" and "Share," the two methods of acknowledging and spreading content through Facebook's news feed, are pretty much the same. I'd argue there's no distinction between the two, other than "Share" allowing someone to pass along objectionable or shocking content without having to awkwardly "Like" it.

But while the vagueness and multiple applications of "Like" and "Share" helped grow Facebook, they're terrible descriptors. They lack the ability to communicate desire. And if you're a company that ultimately needs to make money by selling things (or advertising them), that's a problem.

However, a recent decision by a federal judge in Michigan could pave the way for a new button that will revolutionize Facebook forever.

What is this magical button? A "Want" button.

Back in 2010, Facebook was working on the idea. They even tested it out among a few retailers in 2012. However, another company, based in Detroit, had previously created an app called "Want Button" that allowed users to create wishlists of products on Facebook.The two parties were locked in a legal struggle until earlier this month, when a judge tossed the case and both companies agreed the court battle was over.

The decision paves the way for something that has been in the works for a while. TechCrunch thought it would happen two years ago. The legal hurdle cleared, its likely we'll see a "Want" button instead of "Like" appear on e-commerce sites and beneath product posts on your Facebook newsfeed sometime in the near future.

Anyone arguing that users won't "Like" the new button (and there have been many naysayers, mostly from the vocal "add a dislike button" crowd) haven't been paying much attention to sites like Pinterest, where users frequently create whole boards of aspirational items they desire. By getting users to voluntarily reveal the products and services they want, rather than just "Like", Facebook can create a better profile of its users, enabling advertisers to better target their audience and allowing the site to recommend complimentary products as gifts. Facebook Gifts 2.0 would draw from a better database of its users' desires and be able to churn out more accurately curated suggestions. None of this is a bad thing.... wouldn't you rather Facebook recommended birthday gifts you'd actually want?

The "Want" button is coming, people. And I expect it to help Facebook greatly in its efforts to enter the e-commerce field-- where the company will finally justify its billion-dollar valuation.

The Alarming Second Term of Barack Bush

CNN is struggling to figure out why President Obama's approval rating has dipped among young people.

Gee, what could the youth of America possibly have a problem with? Warrant-less surveillance, drone strikes on American citizens, overzealous federal prosecutors?

That's the Bush-era stuff we thought we'd gotten rid of when we made Obama President. Now he's seemingly embraced and expanded upon these violations of the constitution and America's liberties.

The question comes down to this: Do you trust your government will always use these "tools" in a responsible way without oversight? Okay. Now, imagine the other party is in charge. Do you still trust your government will always use these "tools" in a responsible way without oversight?

Keep in mind, the government is not one, seamless entity: it's comprised of individuals, most of whom we didn't vote for and don't know. Who's to say Jimmy CIA doesn't have a crush on some chick, and taps the hell out of her electronic communications JUST BECAUSE HE CAN? Without oversight, without warrants, anyone can do anything and nobody will ever find out about it.

UPDATE: That's exactly what happened.

This may be a-okay with the older folk, but for younger people, already chafing against their parents monitoring their activities, the specter of being watched by government babysitters for the rest of their lives is not a thrilling idea.