14 Tequila Shots On A Cruise Gets You 300k? And ICYMI - 6 Great Columns From This Week - A Great Video - And On This Date In

We featured a lot of great, original content this past week. Below are six highlights of columns, one great video from the week. Oh, and I dropped a new "mini-column" right below!

Another Heroic Survivor Of The All-You-Can-Drink Frontier

At last, justice.

A grown woman out of Vacaville in Northern California went on a Carnival cruise, spent eight and a half hours touring the ship’s bars like she was conducting an official tequila inspection, drank at least 14 shots, got obliterated, fell down the stairs, and now gets $300,000.

What a country.

According to the report, this 45-year-old nurse from Vacaville stopped at six different bars, pubs, and tequileras while sailing to Baja California. By the end of the evening, she was allegedly slurring, belligerent, and visibly intoxicated.

In other words, she was not exactly hiding the ball.

And yet somehow this has become a legal parable about corporate negligence rather than a flashing neon reminder that tequila is not a vitamin and a cruise ship is not the ideal place to conduct a blackout experiment.

Now, sure, Carnival probably should have cut her off. If somebody is weaving around the deck like a shopping cart with a broken wheel, maybe stop handing her more shots. That seems fair.

But let us not pretend the central tragedy here is that an adult woman was insufficiently protected from her own Friday night decisions.

This was not a hidden hazard.
This was not an act of God.
This was not an unexpected equipment malfunction.

This was tequila doing exactly what tequila has done since the beginning of tequila.

Somewhere along the line, we decided that personal responsibility is just too cruel. So now if an adult makes a long series of aggressively bad choices, the real villain must be the nearest company with a legal department and deep pockets.

That is how you get a jury verdict like this. Drink your way across a floating buffet, fall down the stairs, and congratulations, you are no longer the author of your own mistakes. You are now the plaintiff.

When I brought this to the attention of my cousin Anthony, he had the perfect response: “She’s going to ruin the drink package for everyone.”

Exactly.

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BELOW ARE SIX STORIES FROM THIS WEEK THAT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED!

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FOMO? There are half a dozen other items that aren’t highlighted above. But you can read them here.

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One Video…

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On This Date In 1775

The American Revolution Begins!

April 19, 1775, was the day the American Revolution moved from argument to armed resistance. In the early morning at Lexington, Massachusetts, the colonial militia faced British troops sent to seize military supplies and arrest Patriot leaders. No one knows with certainty who fired first, but the confrontation left eight Americans dead and marked the beginning of open war. Later that day in Concord, colonial fighters struck back at the North Bridge and along the road to Boston, harassing British forces in a running battle that showed the Crown would not quickly crush the rebellion. Ralph Waldo Emerson would later immortalize the opening clash as the “shot heard round the world,” because its consequences reached far beyond Massachusetts. What began that day was not just a colonial uprising, but the start of a revolution that would produce a new nation and inspire future movements for self-government around the globe.

Here is the full text of “Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set today a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.]