Enjoy responsiblyHere's one for the annals of infantilization (since it's on my mind): Dartmouth College has decided to ban water pong, on the grounds that drinking too much water can kill you. "Water intoxication" is one of those things we know about only from Reuters "Oddly Enough" items, and I can't imagine anyone who's made it safely to age eighteen needs to sweat it. (As it happens, this weekend is Dartmouth's Winter Carnival. Check the Hanover police blotter on Monday and guess how many of the bicycle thieves, rogue defecators, self-defenestrators, and garden variety blue-faced pukers you find therein were intoxicated by water.) But here it is, ladies and gentleman, your tuition dollars at work:

In an e-mail sent to residents, Deal, the community director for the Choates and North Hall, cited three residential policies that water pong violates, including a policy prohibiting endangering behavior.

In the same e-mail, Deal also included a link to a CNN article titled, "Women drinks so much water she dies," which reported on a California women who died after participating in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" radio contest. Choates cluster residents interviewed said they thought the comparison to the woman in California was unfounded because students did not drink the water when playing.

When asked about the e-mail, Deal said she was looking out for her residents.

"My job is to look out for the health and safety of the residents," she said. "Whether students are drinking the water or not, it is a possible liability if someone was to become intoxicated in water."

My job is . . . there you have it. Just as the proposed iPod ban is about revenue for New York City and not at all about your safety, moronic policies like this one are really about justifying non-positions like "Community Director"—positions that, generally speaking, probably have next to nothing to show for themselves and their salaries at the end of the year. It's too bad self-reliance is getting flushed drop by drop by people who contribute so little to anything.