Hippie Chicks

The Post has got one of those notorious trend stories, this time one that explains how girls now outpace boys--or maybe they've been "catching up" for 20 years?--in smoking and drinking and so forth and so on. I'm not as quick to dismiss articles like this as "anecdotal." Didion made me skeptical of that distinction when she noted how the political class uses the word to dismiss that which is experienced in real life by actual people. That said, the article's choice of a few binge-drinkers is awfully thin evidence. Speaking, um, anecdotally, I don't recall any particular underrepresentation of chicks in druggie circles, and if the statistics are ticking up, it's probably because someone is for the first time asking the question specifically of les jeunes filles. I am, in an event, all in favor of the development if it turns out that my criticism is off-base. "Life is better with a buzz." Amen, sister.