"Caring for Your Introvert"

I found Jonathan Rauch's style in writing "Caring for Your Introvert" both amusing and effective. He organizes the piece as an informal how-to guide, and speaks on behalf of all introverts. While he does manage to incorporate research, he doesn't repeatedly bash you over the head with facts and figures, rather he quotes sparingly and mostly allows his own personal voice to come through. I also enjoyed the author's semi-tongue-in-cheek allusions, including his introduction of himself as an introvert, which he states in the language of a twelve-step program. Rauch retains a clear sense of pride in his introverted nature, which makes him the perfect representative for what he claims is such a misrepresented minority. His bold-typed questions give the work a clear structure, and correspond well with his theme of educating the masses on how to better deal with the introvert population.

Underage Drinking

It’s a typically chilly Halloween night in Littleton, Colorado and a group of my 30 best friends and I are ready to start celebrating big-kid style. Our treats are bottles of Smirnoff and cheap cans of beer (not to mention the girls in costumes that are essentially nothing more than underwear); our tricks include not getting caught drinking underage. Unlike the fake politicians who legalized drinking for seventeen-year-olds on imaginary teenager Jenny Larsen’s birthday party, the law has not condoned alcohol consumption at Marissa’s Halloween party. None of us are friends with Senator Joe Lieberman, as the writers of The Onion outrageously claim Jenny is.
Nine o’clock rolls around, and everyone’s still in the early stages of revelry, mingling and commenting on each other’s costume choices. No one’s even made a motion to break out the alcohol; it’s still stashed in Marissa’s garage. We’re in no rush—we have the whole night left to turn into rebels. Suddenly the front door burst open and a football player dressed like a pimp runs through the door, fur coat tails streaming. Another man in a police costume pursues him. And then we realize the second guy isn’t dressed up for Halloween. His badge is as real as the angry look on his face. Just like that, the party’s over, practically before it even began.
Another couple of cops come in the front door and they make us all sit down, Indian-style on Marissa’s kitchen floor. They scold us like a teacher scolding kindergartners for being naughty. Cops in the suburbs see as much excitement as prematurely breaking up a high school Halloween party. Then one, by one they take us, genies and devils, ghosts and witches, Oompah-loompahs and Napoleon Dynamites, through the corridor for a breathalyzer test. Thirty breathalyzers later not a single one of us has evidence of any alcohol in our blood. If they’d given it another hour, we all would have been found guilty. Like “Senator” Barbara Boxer says in the Onion article, “They’re going to drink anyway, so we might as well make it legal.” It was sheer luck and not some bogus self-expiring law that saved my friends and I from all getting tickets that night.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/congress_lowers_drinking_age_to_17