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| Alexander the Great |
As a means of expanding and justifying the existence of their ever expanding and increasingly unjustifiable bureaucratic empires, they've joined forces with the Obama administration to clamp down on collegiate boozing.
Well we think they should ponder the booze friendly lifestyle of Alexander the Great, who threw the biggest booze bash of all time.
According to Guy MacLean Rogers in his 2004 opus on the storied Macedonian hero, "Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness," (page 250) the following occurred in 324 BC:
"After leaving the funeral pyre (where the Indian mystic, Calanus had just committed suicide by burning himself to a crisp) Alexander invited a number of his friends and officers to dine with him, and proposed a contest in drinking neat wine, no doubt to help everyone forget what they had just witnessed.
The prize was a solid gold crown. The winner, Promachus, drank four pitchers (about 12 quarts) of fortified wine (comparable to brandy or cognac.)
Promachus, unfortunately, survived just three days to enjoy his victory.
According to Chares, who as chamberlain, was in a position to know, 41 other competitors from the contest, died from the effects of the wine..."
Now that, really puts most any modern day collegiate drunkathon, to absolute shame, by comparison.
Alexander had Aristotle as a childhood tutor, so he was clearly no dummy. And these binge drinkers managed to conquer the entire known world, as well.
So Northwestern University or Dartmouth, for instance, would do well to encourage campus binge drinking.
Who knows, maybe they might start fielding serious football teams for a change?
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Comments invited, however anonymous commentors had better deal directly with the issues raised and avoid ad hominem drivel. As for Teachers' Union seminar writers -- forget about it.