Dear Drunk Drivers, Your Drink Is Not Worth Someone's Life
It's time to confront drunk drivers.
Dear drunk drivers,
I want to confront you on a topic that I'm sure you have already been confronted about: drunk driving.
No drink is worth the human life that you could possibly take away for the simple decision you made to drive. If you even have to question it, don't drive.
Almost 30 people every day die due to an accident involving a drunk driver. 30. It has become far too common for that to be one of the biggest reasons for car accidents. Don't you think it's sad that the first thing people ask when they hear about accidents is if alcohol was involved?
People are losing their best friends, their mothers, their fathers, their siblings, their children. How would you feel if you had to go through that pain of losing people you love knowing that the reason they are dead is because of a stupid decision someone decided to make, and yes, I said stupid. Believe me, you do not want to be in jail with the guilty conscience of knowing that somebody is dead because of you.
I feel like a common excuse for drunk drivers to say why they drove is that they couldn't afford to get a ride. I'm here to tell you that if you can afford to go out and get drunk, then you can afford to be responsible and get a ride home. Whether you get an Uber or Lyft or have a friend come and get you, you need to take care of yourself and the other innocent people on the road. One second you could feel like you're fine to drive, while the next it could all hit you and you're swerving off the road. Don't be that guy. That guy doesn't look good.
Besides from injuring or potentially killing yourself or another person, you are also putting yourself at risk of getting a DUI. Driving under the influence is the most common criminal offense in the United States. While you may understand that getting a DUI would result in a suspended license, fees and fines, jail time and mandatory community service work, you may not realize that long-term consequences can include your license being completely revoked, your employment/future employment being negatively affected, higher insurance rates, and a lowering of your reputation that could potentially ruin professional and personal relationships.
Your drink is not worth ruining your life over. I'm not telling you to not drink, I'm just begging you to be responsible. Think about what you're doing before you do it. Ask yourself, if things go wrong, if you could look at yourself in the mirror every day and forgive yourself for killing someone else if you even get the chance to look in the mirror in the first place. You will never look bad for deciding to do the right thing, but you will look bad if you willingly do the wrong thing. Just because you have driven under the influence before, it doesn't mean you should do it again. You weren't in the right for getting home OK, you were lucky.
You at least owe that much to yourself. Don't try to put up a front and pretend like you're good to drive. If you know you have to drive home, limit yourself and make sure that when it's time to drive that you're sober. Who cares if your friends look at you like your crazy. If they're judging you for not driving after you've been drinking, then those people shouldn't be your friends.
I'm begging you, be aware of what you are doing. Be smart. I, as well as almost everyone I know, have lost people due to drunk driving. I know people who have a DUI and every single one of them would admit that driving drunk is one of their biggest regrets. If it's a decision that you may possibly regret later, then the right choice is to probably not do it.
Think about the phone call. How would you feel if you get a call or the police show up at your doorstep to tell you that your wife is dead? How would feel if you got a call that your daughter was riding her bike home when a drunk driver swerved and killed her instantly? How would you feel getting your court date where you're found guilty of murder for killing someone because you drove drunk?
It's not worth it. Your drink is not worth the consequences. Your drink is not worth someone's life.
Period.
Jenna DeLuca
Rich White Parents Can Bribe Their Kids' Ways Into College But People Are Still Mad About Affirmative Action
For years, the rich have been using their personal connections and vast wealth to continue bringing in opportunities for their lackluster children, yet for some reason, no one seems to bat an eye.
Wealthy people are paying for their kids to get into college?
*Gasp*
Honestly, tell me something I don't know.
On Tuesday, the FBI exposed a multimillion-dollar college admissions scandal executed by some of the most wealthy and prominent families in the U.S., two of which happen to be Hollywood household names. These overzealous and exceedingly wealthy parents participated in scandalous and unethical behavior, such as paying others to take their teen's admissions exams, as well as bribing college officials to say that their children were athletic recruits when they weren't athletes at all.
The most notable names from the list of 50 individuals charged are Lori Laughlin, former cast member of TV's "Full House," and Felicity Huffman, known for her role in "Desperate Housewives" as Lynette Scavo. These women appeared innocent on TV, but it's clear that the cookie-cutter demeanor their characters displayed couldn't be further from their true colors.
If we're being honest here, the only reason this is newsworthy is that the wealthy people being indicted are celebrities — not because college admissions scams are a new occurrence.
It's no surprise that the colleges where these scams have taken place have all been prestigious universities like Yale, Stanford, and UCLA. These institutions have a history of being exclusive, as well as placing money above intellect and ability. As the saying goes, "It's not about what you know, but who you know."
For years, people have been using their personal connections and vast wealth to continue bringing in opportunities for their lackluster children, yet for some reason, no one seems to bat an eye.
We all know it's going on, but no one is complaining and no one tries to stop it. It's almost as if we've just accepted that that's the way things are. Meanwhile, I hear at least one ignorant comment about affirmative action a year.
I'm being serious. It's like clockwork.
As a minority, you constantly feel as though you have to "prove" that you belong in certain spaces, especially those that are typically seen as reserved for the white, wealthy majority. With this country's history of limiting minorities' access to education, colleges and universities are definitely included in the list of those spaces. The idea that we don't belong in these spaces, nor are we good enough for them, is still highly prominent in our society, even though there have been vast increases in the percentage of minorities enrolled in postsecondary education.
As a minority student, your talents and abilities are constantly undermined, while your success is seen as the result of some type of "help."
Even though the majority of minority students busted their asses to get into college (and bust our asses every day to stay there), we are always verbally assaulted with the "affirmative action" slander. I once went to see a lecture by a distinguished marine biologist. He told us a story about someone harassing him during the early days of his career, telling him "it's because of affirmative action and people like you that I didn't get into [Harvard]." In 2008, a clueless and grossly privileged young white woman tried to sue the University of Texas for using affirmative action to discriminate against her (but the truth is that she was just a mediocre student). And for a personal example, I once sat across from one of my peers at the Honors College and heard him say "I have to look super good on my med school application or else I won't get in... Because, ya know, I'm white."
The idea that the only reason Blacks and other minorities receive opportunities is because of affirmative action needs to die.
Not only is it the furthest thing from the truth, but it is just another way to denigrate an entire group of people and diminish their accomplishments. Why are minorities always blamed when a white person doesn't receive the opportunity they think they deserve? The same people who think it's preposterous to say that white privilege exists are the same people claiming how "unfair" affirmative action is.
The truth of the matter is that affirmative action is not some sort of privilege to minorities (Blacks are still the smallest population of those currently attending college), and minorities aren't "stealing" opportunities from anyone. Perhaps if we acknowledged that the biggest threat to integrity in college admissions are wealthy and elite, we could end this tired debate around affirmative action and stop the actually mediocre kids from getting into colleges they don't deserve to attend.