Tired old "Drive for 25" campaign just won't die

Every election cycle in Patria, "Drive for 25" - a tired, lame campaign to raise the legal drinking age to 25 - seems to come up as the election campaign drags on. Campaign 2018 is no exception. The law-and-order National Union has virtually no hand in advocating Drive for 25. It  certainly does not fit the SRM's Patria First agenda. The hoary old campaign is being pushed mainly by what is left of Patria's discredited and now-irrelevant social conservatives and many of the same fear-mongering dinosaurs who have littered the @Patriavotes2018 Twitter feed with "PATRIOTS AWAKE!" and "FIGHT THE EVIL REDS!" tweets warning of the impending communist takeover should the Social Democrats and their allies (Amrita and Chakra Parties) win a plurality of seats in the 51st Congress.

Session after session, bills that would raise Patria's drinking age are introduced by backbench members, usually by representatives of obscure or one-seat parties such as Family Values Party and Chastity Party, and they are routinely laughed out of Congress or voted down after about two minutes of debate. The legal age in Patria is 18, i.e. the same age at which one can legally serve in the military, marry, vote, buy a gun and do a whole lot of other adult things. But underage drinking is not a serious problem in Patria.

The tired old social-cons and neo-prohibitionists who argue for "Drive for 25" claim that the higher drinking age will not only take drinking out of college and university campuses but will reduce impaired driving. There is little evidence that a higher drinking age will reduce the prevalence of student drinking (the legal age of 21 in the US does not seem to be much of a deterrent to American college kids routinely getting hammered) or will help fight the scourge of drunk driving (most convicted drunk drivers are not underage kids). There is virtually no tolerance for impaired driving in Patria. Convicted drunk drivers are routinely sent to jail, not given probation, community service or slap on the wrist fines. Even if they don't do hard time, stupid dick-heads who are caught "boozing and cruising" are given years-long driver's license suspensions, in many cases a lifetime ban on ever getting behind the wheel again, sober or not. Patria has moved on from the mawkish, preachy and likely ineffective ads that are aired by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in Canada. Prohibition didn't work in the 1920s and neither will MADD's ad campaigns that feature clean-cut, now-dead teenagers, grieving parents of the deceased kids, and blood-and-guts gory car accident scenes.

Drunk driving can kill. But pointless campaigns like raising the drinking age to 25 (so why not 30?) are not the way to address the problem. Just kill Drive for 25.

National Union going to the dogs

February may be the Dog Days of Campaign 2018, but for the law-and-order National Union every day is a dog day. Resorting to tired old tropes that "real men" are not cat owners and men who don't like dogs or are scared of dogs are effete liberal soft-on-crime pussycats, National Unionists are portraying themselves in their campaign for the 51st Congress as owners of big dogs such as German shepherds, Rottweilers and Pit Bulls.

National Union is punching above its weight (a paltry 26 seats in the 50th Congress) but they do appeal to old he-man macho male values, men's rights advocates, men who fear the end of the traditional patriarchy ("you can't spell patriarchy without Patria" say some National Unionists), men who fear that crime in Patria is out of control and men who feel threatened by the Social Democrat-Amrita axis.

#patriavotes2018 Election Day is April 21. Don't forget to stoop and scoop. There's plenty of dog shit on the campaign trail.

World Radio day and Shivaratri double dip

February 13 is celebrated as World Radio Day in Patria. As has been noted on previous World Radio Days, the official World Radio Day logo, which is intended to illustrate an old-style mic that used to be found in virtually every broadcast studio, bears a striking - though coincidental - resemblance to a Shiva Lingam, an abstract or iconic representation of Shiva commonly found in Hindu temples and in home shrines or puja rooms.

Coincidence or not, World Radio Day 2018 falls on the same day as Maha Shivratri, the day and night dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva and a major public holiday in the Inner Realm. (Shivaratri falls on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of Phalguna, according to the Hindu lunar calendar; usually sometime in February or early March) The "Night of Shiva" is observed with fasting, singing of bhajans, recital of Sanskrit shlokas, offering of prayers, flowers, fruits and food that is specially prepared in honor of Lord Shiva and his divine consort, goddess Parvati. On World Radio Day, the century-old medium of broadcasting via frequencies measured in kilohertz and megahertz is celebrated as a virtually foolproof, low-cost and powerful method of diffusing news, public affairs, political and social commentary, opposing viewpoints, and of course, baseball, football, hockey and many other sports.

As radio and sports have gone hand in hand since the first Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game was broadcast on KDKA in 1921, the theme for this year's World Radio Day is "Radio and Sports". UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay says of World Radio Day 2018:

"The radio is a powerful means to transmit the enthusiasm of sport events. It is also a means to convey the values of fair play, teamwork and equality in sport.
Radio can help combat racist and xenophobic stereotypes that are, alas, expressed both on and off the field. It allows a broad range of traditional sports to be covered, far beyond the elite teams. It provides the opportunity to nurture diversity, as a force for dialogue and tolerance.
The fight for gender equality is central to this effort. According to the report of the Global Media Monitoring Project, supported by UNESCO, only 4% of sports media content is dedicated to women’s sport. Only 12% of sports news is presented by women. UNESCO is working to improve the coverage of women’s sports, to combat gender discrimination on the airwaves and to promote equal opportunities in sports media. The task is immense.
On World Radio Day, let us mobilize to make radio an increasingly independent and pluralistic media. Let us join forces to celebrate the potential of sports radio in furthering development and peace."

All major sports events in Patria such as PHL (hockey), Castorian League and Lazurian League (baseball), and All-Patria Football Federation (soccer) games are broadcast on radio, in many cases on the most powerful legacy AM stations that have been on the air since the 1920s.

Of course the "big game" in Patria is the one that will be played on April 21 - the #patriavotes2018 race for the 51st Congress. Full-service stations such as PMC-846 are airing Town Hall meetings and candidate's debates. Air time is provided for paid political announcements from the parties competing for seats in Congress. As you probably know, there are far more parties in Patria than the tired old two American ones. Relevant news and public affairs programs on stations in Patria's capital Castoropolis give voices to Patria's multi-party democracy. Fans (or "clones") of the Jungle Party can hear their House Leader Jim Rome on PMBC-1152 exhort them to "have a take, don't suck". National Unionists ("BIG DOGS! TOUGH MEN!") and SRM'ers ("PATRIA FIRST!") find their voice on a number of talk shows broadcast on POKX-648, once Patria's Top 40 blowtorch, now a right-wing law-and-order talk station. The Social Democrats and their allies such as the Green Party also have a legacy AM station in Castoropolis devoted to progressive talk, PHN-1251, along with PUC-89.7 Public Radio from the University of Castoropolis, as well as many other college and university FM stations, which are as left-wing in Patria as they are in the US and Canada. Amrita Party supporters can choose from many Hindu format stations, mostly on FM, but also one legacy AM station PCGE-595. The new-agey Chakra Party gets its supporters listening to new age music stations such as PREM-94.9 as well as the "all bhajans all the time" stations.

Shiva's Trishula (trident) could make a pretty good antenna for AM, FM or shortwave DXing, no?

For #Patria200, OM NAMAH SHIVAYA and let your radio turn you on!