Last Call for BBotE. I’ll stop accepting new orders on June 17th, resuming July 13th.
In other news of a Last Call nature, I highly recommend the book by the same name written by Daniel Okrent. While the over-arching story of Prohibition, the abolition/temperance/suffragette movement, and the 19th century religious revival is one I am familiar with, this book has been fantastic at filling in the names, dates, and fine detail in the story. I think I’ve read roughly a third of the book out loud in dramatic style to the delight/annoyance of my girlfriend.
What strikes my most while reading it is how very little has changed in the tactics of the control of illicit substances, attempting to legislate morality, and general manipulation of the American political process since the dawn of the Anti-Saloon League. We are still inheritors of the temperance movement’s textbook approval process where they gave up on the adults and instead tried to educate a generation that “would hate the bottle” to vote the previous generation away. Sound familiar? The marginal politics of micro-targeting and “single issue voters” in the last 20 years are nothing new; the original yes/no political litmus test was “Are you dry or wet?”.
It makes me want to cry into my beer and keep reading. I am very thankful for my legal beer.