Because people in Arlington aren't pathetic enough...

You don't need a pony.

This is disturbing.

Regardless of beer sales in a park, operations training has always stated that visibly intoxicated guests can't ride period. People that drink lots tend to booze up in the parking lot rather than go for $10 draft if it's offered.

When I worked at SFOT I'm pretty sure this is already in place. Again the only time I've seen beer sales be an issue in a park is back when Riverside (pre SFNE) had dollar beer night at the race track on Sundays. We had to tell several people that could barely walk that they couldn't ride and then call security while they stumbled around arguing about it.

"Manipulate your kids, get headlines. How sad is that?"

They stole that idea from South Park! This is the episode where Harbuck's Coffee comes to town and Mr. Tweek manipulates the kids into writing about the evils of large corporations! ;)

Underpants! :)

Step one: write letter to government opposing beer sales.

Step three: profit!

^What's step two? ;)

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El Gato Coastro said:
And this family issue. I don't get it. You are telling me, that parents do not drink at home with their FAMILY? That you have never gone to restaurant, and not had a beer because your kids were around? BS. Hell, my parents, and relatives used to have drink at dinnertime with children around.

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Good point. Kids need to learn RESPONSIBILITY for their actions instead of putting the blame on a corporation. My in-laws are of the type that doesn't drink in front of family ("OMG, can you believe Uncle Eddie actually had BEER at his New Years party?"). Needless to say, father-in-law is a major closet drunk (& hubby is quite the drinker too) - it's no wonder. These are the kids that will die of alcohol poisoning their freshman year of college because they don't know how to drink responsibly.

I liked the article that said that parents who never thought twice about dropping their child off for a day of fun at the amusement park won't do it anymore if there's alcohol.

-Nicole

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El Gato Coastro said:
That is horrible. This teacher needs to be brought before the local board for her actions.

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It's a cultural problem, not a problem with a single teacher who really did a good thing by encouraging kids to voice their opinions in a civic manner. The whole thing is kinda silly but I wouldn't see the need for scapegoating in this case...

Complaining to the school board won't do anything, since I assume most of the civic "leadership" in that county is marching to the same drum. Civics is good, but I wonder what would have happened if any kid actually wrote that it was a good idea?

I think appropriate action would be to send the school literature stating that moderate consumption of alcohol is actually beneficial. (Editorial comments like "you're gonna make mommy and daddy die by taking away their beer" strictly optional.) And to the holy rollers, ask them what it was that Jesus changed the water into at that wedding.

This aversion to any alcohol seems to be a southern cultural thing. My aunt had in-laws from a southern state. She always said people were so scandalized at the mention of someone drinking beer, yet many of them ran around on their spouses and nobody batted an eyelash.

With apologies to any people here from the south who actually enjoy knocking back a few from time to time and don't screw around on the side. :)

MAybe they could teach those kids never elect someone from there state President.

I believe more than just people from Texas are responsible for electing the president.

So if you drink alcohol, you either puke or die. Give me a freaking break.

I will give you some of the reasons people get sick on rides:

1) Dehydration--true, beer won't help that, but it's really easy to get dehydrated without beer, especially in Texas.

2) Airtime--A lot of people's stomachs do not deal with excessive and/or extreme airtime. To give you a example, I've seen S:ROS make a lot of people revisit their dinner at SFA. We used to call it Superman Ride of Puke.

Apollo's Chariot almost took me out when it was fairly new. Something about eating breakfast at 6 a.m. and riding a hyper coaster about 3-1/2 hours later didn't sit well with me.

3) Spinning rides where you use track of the horizon, or flats that go in one direction continuously--I've been on a lot of flats in my day, and the one that nearly got me was the Intamin-made Pirate's Flight at SFA. It was something about going around and around without change of direction that was making me seriously whoozy.

While I never rode it at SFGAdv., I heard that Evolution at SFGAdv. (now Xcalibur at SFSTL) running a much longer program was constantly making people puke when it would rotate at the top with people staring at the center pole.

I did ride Xcalibur and there was something so wrong about a ride spinning counterclockwise, while the stationary supports where passing you in the counterclockwise direction.

I don't want to make light of the alcohol situation. I have a friend who has had more than his share of trouble with alcohol--DUI's, solo drunk-driving accidents, and another friend who had to go to the hospital with alcohol posioning, but I think the some of the people in Arlington are being a little bit over-cautious.

So what's the point of posting in a discussion forum if your opinion is not open to discussion?

-Nate

It gets you off the hook to say, "I think you're all full of crap, but don't want to discuss why." :)

Seems to me that there's a WORLD of difference between the society that we have and the one that alot of people would LIKE for us to have... ;)

what exactly is wrong with a teacher taking advantage of a local "hot topic" to use as a way to get her kids 1) interested in the world around them outside of Nintendo Wii 2) writing a letter, an invaluable skill later in life and 3) as said before engaged in the way our government and free speech society operates. Not to metion the fact that if you read the article, these kids were already doing a drugs and alcohol unit and if you don't realize that he message of most of those units are gloom and doom, you're kidding yourself.

So, a teacher does a great job of teaching across the spectrum using current events and simultaneously teaching writing and social studies and a bunch of coaster nerds are ready to string her up to the closest tree. We should be so lucky to have teachers this creative and involved in our schools.

And by the way have you met your average park goer, let alone your average Texan? Of course they're going to get drunk at the park, of course they're going to cause problems and if you're that hard up for a drink just don't go to the park in the first place (or continue to drink in the parking lot like people do now, especially at parks that already "control" their liquor sales like Cedar Point)

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rct247 said:

...read this and just move on.

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Wow, sounds like someone could use a nice cold one! ;)

It's always a sad day when someone can't objectively discuss the basis of their own beliefs. If you can't do that, why bother believing them? Because someone else told you to?

Understand that I'm trying to say that in the nicest way possible...but when you cut to the chase, there's really no other way it can be said.

-'Playa

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Impulse-ive said:
what exactly is wrong with a teacher taking advantage of a local "hot topic" to use as a way to...

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I for one am not naive enough to believe this isn't agenda pushing on the part of grown-ups.

and I'm not cynical enough to think that it's not a good move on the part of the teacher. In fact, if you really look at the situation, the teacher in question is in the Keller ISD which is where I just moved to from Pittsburgh. Keller is a good 30-40 minute drive from the park (since I can see into the park from my office window I can verify that distance). Folks in Keller really could care less about local Arlington matters, and frankly the issue isn't the major headline around here that this message board would have you believe. I would bet good money that half the parents of those kids in Keller hadn't even heard about the Six Flags/alcohol issue until their kid came home with this great assignment.

To be perfectly politically incorrect about it, Keller parets are more worried about gourmet meals and refueling their $50,000 cars than they are about alcohol sales at the local amusement park which is located in a pretty ghetto part of the Metroplex that they have to drive 40 minutes in heavy traffic to get to. Most would probably be as likely to fly the family to Disney as they are to visit SFoT.

So, I realize very few if any of you have this local perspectve on it but I'm telling you it's a longshot ithad anything to do with parents and I'm pretty proud to say I live in and my wife will hopefully soon work in a district with quality teachers like this woman.

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Impulse-ive said:

So, a teacher does a great job of teaching across the spectrum using current events and simultaneously teaching writing and social studies and a bunch of coaster nerds are ready to string her up to the closest tree. We should be so lucky to have teachers this creative and involved in our schools.

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You're freakin' kidding, right?

This isn't about some teacher finding a unique way to enlighten her students, this is about someone taking advantage of a bunch of malleable minds and more or less telling them what kind of opinion they should have. Do you seriously think that a bunch of kids are going to know why alcohol should or shouldn't be served at an amusement park? Most kids that age know alcohol from Warner Bros. cartoons where someone drinks out of a big jug marked "XXX" and subsequently gets silly and stumbles around. Yeah, the opinions of those kids are really valid.

This is a perfect example of some misguided ass with an agenda that's taking advantage of others that don't know any better. What's next? Is she going to "enlighten" them by telling them which Presidential candidate they should endorse? I'm sure those kids know all about immigration, abortion and tax issues.