On the Election and Student Drinking

I prepared a posting about Ohio as a swing state, but two articles in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer caught my interest this morning. So the swing state posting will wait until tomorrow.

In terms of my view of our presidential election, the blind faith of partisans drives me crazy. Citizens casting votes for reasons other than issues is pathetic. The continual lack of substance and sound-bite rhetoric from the candidates is insulting. For an independent moderate as myself, Washington Post columnist David Broder hit the nail on the head. Check it out.

The second involves a high school, an athlete, a parent, and drinking. Outcome of this case will impact the role of schools in their communities.

It seems local police caught an underage senior drinking and reported it to the school. After the school suspended the football player for four games, the parent filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement through an injunction citing, “Senior year is a special time, and the football season does not go on forever.” The judge granted the preliminary injection and the case is off to the First District Court of Appeals.

Although the article begins by saying the student was suspended for drinking during the summer, it mentions only one date: September 2 (Tuesday) – the date police contacted the school. It did not mention the following (my discovery):

• When the incident occurred
• The first day of school (August 26th)
• The first football game (August 22nd)
• First day of football practice (sometime in early August)

Read for yourself.