Losing one’s life to absolute meaninglessness runs rampant

Monday, November 3, 1997

Losing one’s life to absolute meaninglessness runs rampant

DRINKING A rash of senseless deaths involving alcohol could have
been avoided with thought

There are 6 million ways to die. Choose one.

— Snoop Doggy Dogg

The number of people that die every day is roughly equivalent to
the population of Pasadena. In the time it took you to read that
sentence, eight people ceased to be. We know from watching TV,
reading the paper, or perhaps from our own personal experiences
with losing a friend or family member that death often occurs
without cause, without provocation and without warning. Yet we tend
to deny or give short shrift to the notion that it might happen to
us. You might not live long enough to finish reading this story,
just as I might not live long enough to finish writing it.

In our acknowledgment of death (that is to say, in our attempts
to come to terms with the fragility of life and the tenuousness of
our hold on it), we have come to assign some significance to the
manner by which we eventually slip away to the hereafter.

When put to the test, most people will respond that they have
pondered how they might prefer to die. From my own observations,
dying in one’s slumber seems the most popular. It is preferable (or
so it would seem) to other ways of passing on, like being eaten
alive by hoards of crazed rats or asphyxiating by aspirating one’s
own vomit. Who wouldn’t rather die in the commission of an act of
heroism rather than because someone forgot to set his parking
brake? To characterize the latter of these two causes of death we
append to the word "death" the word "senseless."

Senseless deaths bother us more than other kinds of death
because they are usually the consequence of some trivial oversight
or breach of common sense. Consider how you feel when you see some
driver blow through a red light at high speed. Personally, it makes
my blood boil. Notice how they’re in such a big freaking hurry to
get somewhere but, invariably, we end up right beside them at the
next signal. Notice how we want to drag them out of the car through
their open window, beat the daylights out of them and throw their
car keys into a storm drain while yelling: "You could have killed
somebody, you jackass!"

I have analyzed my deep-seated loathing for those who run red
lights and have found that what offends me most about them is that
they are willing to put other people’s lives at risk for the sake
of their own convenience. They are probably not racing to the
hospital to spend a few minutes with a dying relative. No, they are
putting people’s lives at risk in order to do something that is
ultimately, in the big scheme of things, absolutely
meaningless.

Imagine what the victim’s survivor wants to say to the party
that has caused a senseless death. "You mean you killed my sister
because you were late to class?" "You killed my husband because
your $255-million-permile subway project couldn’t come up with some
stronger chain?" "You all got smashed and went cliff-diving?"

I include this last hypothetical question because it resonates
on two senseless deaths that have visited the UCLA community this
year. In May, Brian Sanders and Brian Pearce, both members of the
Lambda Chi fraternity’s now defunct UCLA chapter, died. Officially,
their cause of death was "asphyxia due to drowning." The Clark
County, Nev., coroner’s office does not generally release the
results of toxicology tests to the public, so scientific proof that
alcohol was a contributing factor in their deaths was not available
to this columnist. However, Karen Whitney, a spokeswoman for the
National Parks and Recreation Service, advised me in a telephone
interview that, according to reports and interviews by park rangers
at the scene, there was "a lot of drinking within the group" and
that "alcohol was a contributing cause" in the tragedy.

I should add here that alcohol has an especially debilitating
effect on swimmers. In a recently published paper, "Effects of
Alcohol Consumption on Aquatic Performance," UCLA Professor Glen H.
Egstrom cites one study finding that a "clear increase in the risk
of injury … can be reached by a 180-pound man who ingests two
12-ounce beers in one hour on an empty stomach." That’s two
beers.

Dr. Egstrom further states, "The dose/response nature of the
drug makes it clear that any ingestion of alcohol will have some
effect on the nervous system." Blah, blah, blah … that could
never happen to me. I’m on top of it when I get drunk and I can
snap out of it anytime I need to. Not so, says Dr. Egstrom: "The
deleterious effects of alcohol on performance are consistently
underestimated by persons who have been drinking."

Don’t believe it? Ask Nathan Frank, a member of Sigma Phi
Epsilon at Purdue, or Scott S. Krueger, a Fiji at MIT. Well,
actually, you can’t. They’re dead. Mr. Frank was at a fraternity
party where, according to police, there was so much alcohol that it
was "literally dripping down the stairs." In a drunken stupor, he
fell from a frat-house window and died. Mr. Krueger choked on his
own barf, languished in a coma for three days, then died.

These three had a lot in common. All were in their late teens or
early 20s. All had friends and families, aspirations and futures.
All were under the legal drinking age. All have ceased to be
anything more than memories.

According to a recent study conducted by the Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, students are drinking
more and drinking "for the sole purpose of getting drunk."

Now, I consider myself to be a fairly liberal guy, but I think
that the people who provided booze to these three ought to be
flogged. And to the civil-libertarian pantywaists out there who
might object on the grounds that flogging is cruel, I only ask you
to consider how cruel it must be to get that
"your-life-will-never-ever-be-the same" telephone call. Picture it.
You’re sitting there studying. The phone rings. You answer it.
Someone tells you that someone you love is dead.

As for the flogging: Make it public. Televise it. No, better
yet, make it pay-per-view. Do a little re-creation of the events
leading up to the tragedy a la "America’s Most Wanted." Interview
the investigators and the survivors. Show photographs and videos of
the deceased. Donate a portion of the proceeds to the survivors of
the deceased to help them defray medical and funeral expenses.
Then, cane the crap out of the idiotic weasels whose willful
negligence cost someone his or her life. I’d watch it. Hell yes, I
would.

Another message to the pantywaists: Don’t even talk to me about
how the perpetrators have already paid enough. Who cares what
they’re going through? Maybe they’ll think twice next time. Maybe
that roommate, fraternity bro, bartender or liquor-store clerk will
pay a little more attention to the laws regarding furnishing
alcohol to minors. And maybe, just maybe, somebody else’s phone
won’t ring in the middle of the night with news of another
senseless death.

If you haven’t heard, there has been a rash of alcohol-related
deaths at universities across the nation. Sadly, UCLA has not been
exempted.

Do you remember where you were or what you did on May 17 of this
year? Whatever it was, was it worth dying for? There are very few
things that I can think of that are truly worth dying for, and all
of them involve making a sacrifice for some greater good. Getting
wasted and having a good time doesn’t make my list.

I didn’t know either of the Brians, but I know people who did.
It’s unsettling to think that if not for some dreadfully poor
judgment last May, they might be doing the same thing you’re doing
right now: taking a break, reading The Bruin and being alive. How
would they have done on their midterms? Who would they have made
smile today? What would have been under the tree for them this
Christmas? No one will ever know.

If there really are 6 million ways to die, doing so by abusing
alcohol has got to be among the most utterly stupid. What a way to
die.By Michael Daugherty