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I wrote about the spate of vicious glassings (are they ever anything else...?) that have been in the news lately a while back.
No need to cover old ground except to say that the head-shaking and tut-tutting from the media was all encompassing. And rightly so, I'd have to say (though my opinion isn't motivated by the desire to sell more copy...).

What typically follows such demonstrations of dismay, is the plea - "What can we do to stop this?"
And all measures of control are discussed, from shutting bars completely to shutting them early in a (vain they'll discover) attempt to curb this almost primal of attacks on a usually unsuspecting victim.
You want to stop this? Well, you can't, frankly. There are of course ways of reducing it but that relies on people drinking less and people won't - period.
Especially when the demon liquor is virtually given away.

Take the advertisement for a large supermarket in Australia. With that time of year again fast approaching, the market has pulled out the usual stops of advertising alcohol and ridiculously low prices. The ad I saw was offering 24 cans of beer for 40 bucks - $20 off. And the choices...wow, such a variey both local and imported - Hahn, Crownies, Pure Blonde, The ever-present VB, Bud, Tooheys (New and Old), Heineken... the list goes on and on!

That's thirty percent. Reducing the price to just over half. Where else would you get such a gift? Imagine for example going into a car dealers and getting 5000 off a 15,000 dollar car. It just wouldn't happen Nor with whitegoods, furniture, TVs - unless it's from the benevolence of the jolly, fat man in the red suit.
But because it's the piss in Australia, they're almost giving it away.

Yeah...I'm wringing my hands too. Boohoo, how can we stop this?

Meantime, with shaking heads and tut-tutting voices, the hands continue to be wrung, offenders are incarcerated and life returns to normal...but with the unfortunate victim missing an eye!