OPINION & EDITORIAL
Letters to the Editor
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by Letters to the Editor
Monday, September 27, 2004
I am appalled at the amount of groundless speculation that was presented in Robert Thelen III’s article last Thursday, Sep 23. As a student of political science, Robert would do well to be forever questioning and digging into records and libraries for facts and figures that would build his case for or against war, rather than to merely regurgitate what appears to be Fox and CNN news briefs.
When Robert states abstract concepts like “stay the course”, “calling cards”, “insurgents” “fight against terror” and “lose our resolution” without presenting any evidence to support such overt generalizations, he serves to misinform any readers of the newspaper and delude himself into false opinion-making.
He claims the big picture is that the “forefront of terror” is ‘Iraq”. A simplistic claim like that is ridiculous because we have seen in the past few years terror strikes in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Sudan and most of all Israel/Palestine. Clearly then it is wrong to pinpoint Iraq for the world’s terror. He then says people are wrong to tie Iraq and terrorism together while at the same time saying that connections are “blurred.” If connections are “blurred,” then people are not wrong in making any assumptions they make. If Robert presented more solid factual data first, then he could accuse people of being wrong. He says “hundreds if not thousands” of “insurgents” have entered Iraq. How does he know this? Has he been to Iraq and interviewed these hundreds and thousands? Is he sure that these people are not Iraqi nationals? Does he have a list of names and birthplaces of all “insurgents” so far killed to back up his claims? Short of doing this, these false claims have no place in a university discussion.
Further on, he claims that “our greatest threat to life and liberty is now in the heart of Iraq.” This is, in a word, preposterous.
What threat? I see all around me in Madison, people going about their business, to class or to work. People are going out to dinner and the movies, to the Badger games and to the bars. People are driving around in new and old cars, traveling wherever they want to here in the USA, just like they always have. So where is the threat? Please tell me who is staying at home with windows covered in plastic and duct tape? I really would like to see the numbers of people who have been denied life and liberty here in the USA because of what has been happening in Iraq for the past two years.
If we are talking about life and liberty, and how to make it better here in the soil on which we live, let’s consider the amount of goods and services the money that has been spent on Iraq could have bought for Americans here in Madison for example. Of the billions of dollars so far spent, we could have easily given free tuition and free books to all the freshman, or even all the underclassmen. Or we could have supplied the entire city of Madison with free healthcare for one year or more with some of those billions. Or the city could have built new middle and high schools for the entire district, or built new roads and rail links all over the state. The list goes on. Life and liberty then would surely increase for everyone here.
Steven Andloe
ss53701@yahoo.com
My enjoyment of the rowdy, spirited UW college football experience was marred by crowd behavior Saturday when Penn State quarterback Michael Robinson was injured. I was appalled when, as Robinson was strapped to a backboard and taken off the field in an ambulance, some fans in the student section chanted, “Shoot him like a horse! Shoot him like a horse!” Meanwhile, players from both teams knelt in respect and concern because they are well aware of the considerable dangers of football. The possibility always exists that a player who does not get up will never get up unassisted for the rest of his life.
This chant was inappropriate, offensive and unsportsmanlike; as such, it can only reflect poorly on those who joined in it. I hope that in the future UW football fans take their team’s behavior as an example for their own.
Sara Moorman
graduate student, sociology
Your editorial on Sep 22 (“Price of Security”) is based on false reasoning. In the first paragraph you correctly introduced the SEVIS system as an electronic database “to track and monitor international students.” Yet in the last paragraph you argued that international students should pay for fees incurred by SEVIS because they are “directly using the services.”
Anyone who can tell the grammatical difference between object and subject can detect a self-contradiction here. Now, if foreign students are the objects of the SEVIS (meaning they are obligatorily monitored and tracked by SEVIS), how can you come up with the statement that international students are “using” this service? Are they using, or used, by SEVIS?
I am not arguing against the necessity of SEVIS per se. As your editorial title vividly suggested, it is a “Price of Security.” But if security is a commodity here, then who is the main beneficiary, international students or the United States? If the purpose of the SEVIS was introduced by the federal government to safeguard the security of this country, than it is also the responsibility of the government to fund its own initiative, rather than to put universities in an embarrassing situation.
I totally agree that there are serious problems with the execution of the SEVIS. But please direct your criticism to your government, not to international students who are obligatorily monitored by SEVIS.
Jing Sun
jingsun@students.wisc.edu
Anonymous (September 27, 2004 @ 3:45pm):
I'm too old to contribute as a student (62), but I'm submitting this as
a subscriber, for what it's worth (if nothing else, it's a free lecture
on journalism for you youngsters):
Poor Dan (perhaps he was born with a silver boot in his mouth?)
Curtis Dahlgren 09/27/04
"The day when the network commentators and even the gentlemen of the
New York Times enjoyed a form of diplomatic immunity . . . is over." -
Spiro T. Agnew (December 1, 1969)
"OUR JOB IS TO GIVE PEOPLE NOT WHAT THEY WANT, BUT WHAT WE DECIDE THEY
OUGHT TO HAVE." - Richard Salant, former president, CBS News
In 1968, President Johnson told Spiro Agnew, "Young man, we have in
this country two big television networks . . . so . . big they think they
own the country. But, young man, don't get any ideas about fighting
[them]." What follows below are some of the quotes in that fight, from the
60s to the present (from The Book of Quotes, by Barbara Rowes,
BallantineBooks). And Spiro was right!
Politics is action but it is not civil war. Civil war only comes
when truth is forgotten. - Pres. Lyndon B. Johsnon
American journalists today . . have been forced and lured out of
their normal and proper role in our society. They are becoming not just
the critics in the aisle but actors in the play. - Eric Sevareid
As reporters, we should stay the hell out of politics and maintain a
private position on any issue. - John Chancellor
Journalism is a kind of profession, or craft, or racket, for people
who never wanted to grow up and go out into the real world. - Harry
Reasoner
Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper
can always print a retraction. - Adlai Stevenson
Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. -
Edward R. Murrow
The press is a little like the blackbirds in the fall - one flies
off the telephone line, the others all fly away; and the other one comes
back and sits down and they all circle and they all come down and sit
in a row again. - Eugene McCarthy
There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians. When
bought, they stay bought. - Bill Moyers
Hitler said that he always knew you could buy the press. What he
didn't know was you could get them cheap. - Mort Sahl
In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the
truth as he sees it. - Boris Pasternak
I forsook the comfortable code of many of my predecessors, abandoned
the unwritten rules - and said something. - Spiro Agnew
To strip our past of glory is no great loss, but to deny it honor is
devastating. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what one does not
believe oneself. - Abba Eban
This is the age of the journalist, more than the age of the artist,
the teacher, the pastor. - Eric Sevareid
We are faithful to our profession in telling the truth. That's the
only faith to which journalists need adhere. - Walter Cronkite
I heard from God just the other night. God always seems to call at
night. "Andrew," God said to me . . "I haven't seen . .The Passion of
the Christ, because it hasn't opened up here yet . . Anyway, as I was
saying, Mel is a real nut case. What in the world was I thinking when I
created him? Listen, we all make mistakes." - Andy Rooney
CBS producer Roxanne Russell once called Gary Bauer "the little nut,"
according to Bernard Goldberg in Bias. A writer for the St. Petersburg
Times wrote that the religious "right" is trying in "Taliban-like ways
to inject religion into public schools and the operations of
government."
There they go again, but our "academics" have no qualms about REMOVING
any mention of religion in our schools (which a few years ago was
common - be it in the history of our Founding, or as an alternative to the
quote, progressive, unquote, mores that have been IMPOSED UPON US FROM
ABOVE - contrary to every principle our Founders espoused).
U.S. District Court Judge Samuel B. Kent of the Southern District of
Texas decreed that any student uttering the word "Jesus" at a graduation
ceremony would be arrested and jailed for six months. He said, "Anyone
who violates these orders, no kidding, is going to wish that he or she
had died as a child when this court gets through with it."
WHO IS CALLING WHOM THE "TALIBAN"? THIS SOUNDS MORE LIKE ISLAMIST
FASCISM THAN AMERICAN "JUSTICE"!
No wonder some Texans, including Dan Rather, seem to actually hate the
President of the United States, who says, "We need common-sense judges
who understand that our rights are derived from God." Extremism? TELL
THAT TO THOMAS JEFFERSON!
P.S. CBS News today is covering a speech by Senator Kennedy in which he
accuses the President of "making a terrorist nuclear attack here more
likely." He even alludes to a "mushroom cloud," ala LBJ's television ads
in 1964.
On May 8, 1991 Spiro Agnew spoke at BYU and mentioned that during the
"glorious" anti-war days, only two percent out of our 6.5 million
college students protested, but as the aging hippies recall it, they were the
Majority of our youth.
Isn't it funny how the memory plays tricks on what's left of your mind
when the dominant "mainstream" networks keep reinforcing your faulty
recollections?
Final quote: "A man sufficiently gifted with humor is in small danger
of succumbing to flattering delusions about himself, because he cannot
help perceiving what a pompous ass he would become if he did." - Konrad Lorenz
Anonymous (September 28, 2004 @ 9:46am):
Hey Connie, what's the point of your comment?
