Thursday

This is a bar in St. Louis. It's on the main floor of the City Museum.

That's right, the City Museum, the St. Louis attraction that I described on Monday as, "an anarchic, do-what-you-want exploration playground for kids." But in the middle of this children's paradise, sat a full-service bar.

It was beautiful. I was mightily tempted to worship right there and then, but it was only 11:00 in the morning and I had a long sight-seeing day ahead of me.

This bar picture captures a truth that St. Louis has apparently grasped in general: Alcohol is a good thing and ought to be widely available. Everywhere we went--the fabulous St. Louis zoo, for instance--there was a bar or other alcohol vendor. And even though I saw lots of people drinking in the middle of these family attractions, I never once saw a drunk person.

It's a testament to one of my favorite essays: "Pint Me Here and There." Though I wrote it ten years ago, my views on the subject haven't changed an iota: Normalize drinking by making it widely available. You then decrease (not eliminate, but decrease) its abuse. I think this is one thing America is slowly beginning to understand. We'll see.