Why allowing 16-year-olds to vote makes a lot of sense. Plus: The alarming water-use figures on almonds
By Tom Temprano
MARCH 27, 2015 – Sixteen is a strange age for pretty much all of us. I spent much of my 16th year experimenting with questionable eye makeup, putting off English homework in favor of writing my own brooding “punk” song lyrics, and eating way too many Jack In The Box tacos.
I also spent much of my 16th year working my ass off to get on the honor roll of my independent-study high school – a high school I was enrolled in to catch up with my peers after having to drop out of school to deal with a personal medical emergency — working 20 hours a week at my local Macy’s to save up for college, and volunteering as an HIV prevention peer educator at the local LGBT community center.
Being sixteen is weird. You have many pressures and responsibilities that make you feel like you’re an adult, but the people around you, who are only a few years older, treat you as though you don’t. You can work. You pay taxes. But you can’t vote.
In San Francisco, Supervisor John Avalos is trying to change that. The efforts of a youth-led coalition to lower the voting age in municipal elections to 16 has garnered lots of attention, most notably from a Chronicle editorial that basically ignored young people all together and instead lambasted the idea as a progressive ploy (the op-ed is brilliantly re-butted by Avalos’ aide Jeremy Pollock in his piece titled “Why Is The Chonicle Hating on SF Youth?“).
It’s sad, but not surprising, to see this line of reasoning invoked. Just about every time someone tries to enfranchise a group of voters we hear the same thing.
What we need to be doing, instead of silencing young people out of fear that this is somehow going to tip some balance of power in City Hall (it won’t), is to be encouraging the sort of behavior we want to see in them for the rest of their adult lives – regular voting and civic participating. That is what you do with 16-year-olds.
Don’t take my word for it, take it from the words of San Francisco Youth Commission Intern Anna He:
“Voting is habitual. Research shows that once someone starts casting their vote they continue voting and that people who start voting earlier are more likely to be lifelong voters. At 16-17 we are quickly transitioning to adulthood and becoming more independent. We acquire many adult behaviors and duties such as working without any restrictions on hours, driving and paying taxes. Let’s add voting to that list.”
As I sit typing up this week’s column on an 80 degree March morning, it is abundantly clear that California’s drought has hit home. Last week at the bar I co-own, Virgil’s Sea Room, we 86’d our self-serve water station to remain in compliance with a new state law prohibiting bars and restaurants to serve water unless requested.
Almost more horrifying is the water usage revelations that have been unearthed about arguably my favorite food – almonds. I was as shocked as anyone to learn that not only did almond production take up 10% of all of California’s water — but that 70% of these droplets of delicious protein were then exported to China.
Mother Jones sums up Almondapocalypse, which includes hedge fund land grabs and ground waterwars, perfectly and even provided this graphic breakdown of how much water it takes to do all kinds of very Californian things (18,000 gallons for each LA swimming pool – WTF LA!?).
Based on those numbers, I have calculated that if I want to continue consuming, say, one cup of almond milk a day (which takes 25 almonds to make) all I need to do is stop showering entirely. DONE. I recommend not getting too close to me until this drought business is over.
You have heard me complain time and time again about our lack of late-night transportation here in San Francisco and across the Bay Area. Why? Because it sucks. Fortunately, instead of just complaining, BART and AC Transit are actually doing something about it. They’ve launched a late-night bus pilot program which has added stops on both sides of the bay to get both revelers and workers home safely.
You can now take a bus from 24th and Mission to Downtown Oakland and beyond in a matter of a half an hour — all for the ironic price of $4.20! The only problem with the service thus far has been that nobody knows about it – but that’s why I’m here, telling you to be audacious and plan some late-night Transbay rendezvous’. The more people who use the pilot, the better chance that it will become permanent until we somehow scrape up the billions in spare change it’s going to take to build a 2nd BART tube.
