[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 56 (Tuesday, May 7, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E726-E727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HONORING WORK DONE BY PARTICIPANTS IN STUDENT CONGRESSIONAL TOWN 
                    MEETING AT UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 7, 2002

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today, I recognize the outstanding work 
done by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this 
spring at the University of Vermont. These participants were part of a 
group of high school students from around Vermont who testified about 
the concerns they have as teenagers, and about what they would like to 
see government do regarding these concerns.

                           UNDERAGE DRINKING


                             April 8, 2002

       MATT ALDEN. Good morning. Thank you, Congressman Sanders, 
     for this opportunity. As I stand before you today, first I'd 
     like to share a few facts about underage drinking.
       According to the 2001 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 
     69 percent of Vermont students have consumed alcohol. 58 
     percent of Vermont seniors have had at least one alcoholic 
     beverage in the past month. More importantly, one-third of 
     our Vermont eighth-graders have consumed alcohol in the past 
     30 days. One out of four Vermont seniors binge-drink monthly, 
     meaning they have consumed more than five drinks within a 
     two-hour timeframe. 32 percent of Vermont seniors ride with a 
     driver who has been drinking. 50 percent of young adult 
     crashes in Vermont were alcohol-related, and half of those 
     who died had been drinking. According to the 1999 Vermont 
     Youth Risk Behavior Survey, half the Vermont seniors are 
     sexually active. This may not seem relevant, but one-third 
     had consumed alcohol before engaging in such activities. 
     Underaged drinking costs society $216 per man, woman and 
     child in America, so therefore, we are not only losing human 
     lives, we are also incurring more and more debt because of 
     this problem. And lastly, according to the Mother's Against 
     Drunk Driving national survey, approximately 100,000 American 
     deaths were alcohol-related. This is two times more than the 
     population of Vermont.
       As you can see, Vermont really has a problem with underaged 
     drinking. Today I propose three solutions that will help 
     Vermont's problem. My first two solutions come from the 
     Vermont Youth Summit to Prevent Underaged Drinking. This was 
     the first statewide summit held in America. Myself

[[Page E727]]

     and 51 other students from around the state gathered in March 
     2000 to create three recommendations to present to the 
     Vermont legislature.
       The two I am promoting today are, require every state ID to 
     have a bar code or strip that can be swiped at the checkout. 
     The bar codes will code your birthday and, when swiped 
     through the machine, will tell the cashier if the buyer was 
     eligible to purchase the alcohol.
       The second recommendation is to have more funding for the 
     Stop Teen Alcohol Risk Team. This is a team of local law 
     enforcement which is hired just for breaking up large teenage 
     parties where drinking taking place. Now, our state does not 
     give the START team a lot of money, and no extra incentives 
     are offered for working into the long night hours. If the 
     START program had more money, the goal of having a team in 
     each county would be met, thus making parties not such a 
     common place for teens to engage in illegal consumption of 
     alcohol.
       The last and personal recommendation to help Vermont is 
     that, if someone underage is drinking with a blood alcohol 
     content above the legal limit, their license will be revoked 
     until they turn 21. The legal blood-alcohol content level for 
     a minor is .02, about one beer for an average-weight teen. I 
     feel that, if a minor knows he or she will not be allowed to 
     drive for a long period of time, they will think before 
     getting into a car while intoxicated.
       Now the punishment is revocation of your license for 90 
     days, a fine, and alcohol-treatment classes. These are good 
     consequences, but people that are behind the wheel, drunk, 
     endanger everyone they pass on the highway. If a license was 
     taken away for a long period of time, they would realize the 
     importance of staying sober behind the wheel.
       I know these solutions will not bring underage drinking to 
     a cease, but I believe, if it saves one person, it makes a 
     difference.
       Thank you, again, Mr. Sanders, for your time and this 
     opportunity.

                         PEN PALS WITH PAKISTAN


                             April 8, 2002

       BETHANY WALLACE: I'm Bethany Wallace, and what we're 
     talking about today is the pen pal program with Pakistan that 
     our school has, in conjunction with Sara Siad from Bennington 
     College, has established, and I guess what our hopes are is 
     that, eventually, a program like this will be established, 
     perhaps, statewide, and eventually nationwide.
       The pen-pal program, we have sent two letters already and 
     gotten one in return. Sara Siad is a student at Bennington 
     College, and she is from Pakistan. I think she lives in 
     Karachi, which is the most modern city in Pakistan, and it's 
     kind like the metropolitan New York of Pakistan. And she has 
     worked in a lot of public schools there and seen an interest 
     that Pakistani students and young people have in American 
     culture, much like we have in Pakistani culture.
       What she did was to establish the pen-pal program, and we 
     all wrote letters, and then she translated them and brought 
     them to Pakistan when she went back on Christmas vacation. 
     The students over there then wrote their letters, and she 
     brought them back to us, and that is how it has been kind of 
     working.
       What it has done is opened a lot of doors to better 
     understand the Pakistani culture, especially when our image 
     of that culture has been so skewed by the media in light of 
     September 11th.
       KERRY McINTOSH: It is just interesting, in the letters, we 
     see their perspective on things, but we also see how we are 
     more similar to the people in Pakistan than we would have 
     assumed. Like lots of us, there are just lots of different 
     assumptions we have about people in Pakistan and what their 
     views would be or something, and then they write in the 
     letters, and it seems like, wow, they're really a lot like 
     us.
       I have two letters here. One of them is in Urdu, which is 
     the native language of Pakistan. But, as Sara has told us, 
     they also speak English fluently. And another wrote me a 
     letter in English. I will read an excerpt. Like, when she 
     talks about September 11th, she says. Like, first, just says, 
     hello and, like, greets me and tells me a little bit about 
     herself.
       And now let's talk a little about the 11th of September. 
     First of all, I want to commiserate you. It was really a 
     shocking news. I know how hurt it must be for the people to 
     bear the loss of their dear and near ones. It was a real 
     horrible act of terrorism. While talking about terrorism, I 
     do agree with the U.S. approach. But had Afghanistan handed 
     over the culprit, it would have been much better.
       You know, our President, Musharraf, was really in a bad 
     position. It was really tough for him, whether or not to help 
     the U.S., because some of the people in Pakistan were against 
     the U.S. But the majority of the Pakistani population 
     supported Mr. Musharraf's decision. But, you know, war isn't 
     an alternative for peace. I really wish the world was a 
     better place to live in.
       I think I mentioned something political in the letter that 
     I had written to her first, assuming that--like, not in a bad 
     way, but just assuming that she would be a little more 
     critical of the U.S., but then I found out that she really, 
     like, was supportive, and that it is just like, a minority in 
     Pakistan that is eminently anti-American people like we see 
     protesting on the streets, and that they share our concerns 
     and hopes for world peace.
       ERICA HOLLNER. Like Kerry was saying, the main thing I 
     think we are getting out of this is a better understanding of 
     Pakistan, because we have these views that are so 
     stereotypical, and we see--on TV and magazines, we see these 
     poor people and see the refugee camps, and we think that the 
     whole country is like that. But, in realty, a lot of the 
     families that we are exchanging letters with are similar to 
     us, and they're not poor, they have enough money to live 
     comfortably, and it's a lot like the U.S. in a lot of ways, 
     but we always think that it's all the same.
       And Just that, they like the same kinds of things as we do. 
     And I remember reading one letter that a girl was very 
     interested in Princess Di, and you don't think of the fact 
     that they think of the same things as we do, and they know 
     about a lot of the same things too.
       KATIE KERVORKIAN. We think that the program would be a 
     great way to teach tolerance, just so that other people can 
     understand what goes on, because many people don't know what 
     is going on in the subcontinental countries, the Middle East. 
     And to learn from someone that is our own age is different 
     than learning from magazine or TV.
       BETHANY WALLACE. And what Sarah has pointed out is that 
     nothing is realty off limits in the letters. If we bring it 
     up first, then our pen pals aren't, you know, squeamish about 
     talking about it, about communicating their views, and it is 
     a great tool to better understand what is going on over 
     there.

     

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