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Show O NION PAGE 8 TUESDAY 1/18 "Daily Utah Chronicle THE C H R O N I C L E ' S VIEW This could be our year T LETTERS TO T H E EDITOR Calendar's promotion of drinking is unacceptable Editor: An estimated 1,400 college students across the country die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes. Another 500,000 students are injured under the influence of alcohol. More than 600,000 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking, and approximately 70,000 students will become the victims of alcohol related sexual assault or date rape this year alone. High-risk drinking and its related consequences are a serious problem on campuses throughout the country. While the problems at the U have historically been minimal, even one of these consequences could bring a lifetime of pain to a student or their loved ones. In light of this, we at the Alcohol and Drug Education Center find the attitudes toward high risk drinking expressed in the recurring Calendar Chronicle segment to be appalling and irresponsible. One recent Calendar segment (Jan. n's "Dude, where's my Calendar?"), joked about a student going on a 17-day alcohol binge so severe that it resulted in an inflamed liver, and called this serious risk to the individual's health "a remarkable feat of human endurance." The article then continued to encourage other students to honor this occasion by going out and having a drink themselves, and that the reader should do this "because there is literally nothing else to do." The author then lists drink specials at a local bar and makes fun of the idea of drinking responsibly by stating "if you're the 'responsible' type (pssshhh), don't go have a drink," as if drinking responsibly is a laughable and ridiculous idea. This is just one example of many we could highlight of Calendar segments throughout the school year that have scoffed at the idea of drinking responsibly and idealized high-risk drinking behaviors. Russefl Short Alcohol & Drug Education Center Room 328 Student Services Building Chronicle coverage of religious divide was biased Editor: Your coverage of Mayor Anderson's forum on "Bridging the religious divide" (Jan. 13) is bland and one-sided. Was the writer not encouraged to interview other religious leaders on campus besides the director of the LDS Institute of Religion? Where is your journalistic value of fair and balanced reporting? Religious tension doesn't just exist between individual Mormons and non-Mormons. The ideology and values of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints permeate the very culture of our state. It exists in full force in the political system, real estate, the corporate culture, the public education system—our street addresses are even centered around the Mormon temple! The Mormon ideology affects what we can drink at a bar or restaurant or whether we can shop on Sundays. Gary Poll's invitation for stu' dents to come to the institute to learn about "other" religions is insulting. What better way to perpetrate an ever-present, underlying agenda to convert non-Mormons into the religion than in the center for Mormon studies? Whatever a student would learn about "other" faiths in the institute would certainly be tainted with bias. Do the Catholic, Baptist, Unitarian or Buddhist leaders have nothing to say? Were they even interviewed by your reporter? I suspect that they, too, have a vested interest in these public forums. There's more to fixing the religious tension in this state than Poll's simple solution to learn about and understand different faiths. I would hope that Utah's future journalists would have better insight and conviction to uncover why this tension continues to plague our state, why people are unhappy, why the mayor feels compelled to hold public forums about it and what other religious experts have to say. S. McLean, he needs of higher education in this state do not drastically change year to year. Each year, each university goes through the ritual of making its plea before the Legislature. This year, most of what these schools will request will sound much like what they requested last year. This is certainly true of the U. The U needs money for renovating the library to make it earthquake safe. It needs to be compensated for enrollment growth. It needs money to pay gas and electric bills. Engineering and nursing initiatives will want funding. As Utah's schools make their pleas, a checklist of needs is formed. Each year some of the needs at the top of the list are checked off and other needs move to the top of the list the following year. That means good things for the U. Many of the U's needs were ranked as high priority, but not number one. This year, the library is ranked number one. The Legislature has a good habit of taking care of top priority needs, especially those that have been on a long waiting list, like the U's library. There are other things different about this year that give reason to hope, like a new president. Believing that legislative negotiations will be drastically different with President Michael Young may be a little naive, but new faces mean new attitudes and potential for change. There will also be new faces among the legislators. Many leadership positions have changed, including the Unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of The Daily Utah Chronicle Editorial Board. Editorial columns and letters to the editor are strictly the opinions of the author. The forum created on the Opinion Page is one based on vigorous debate, while at the same time demanding tolerance and respect. Material defamatory to an individual or group because of race, ethnic background, religion, creed, gender, appearance or sexual orientation will be edited or will not be published. Notions of 'protecting marriage' are archaic Editor: When did Trevor Burnett graduate? ("Society has a moral obligation to protect marriage," Jan. 14) The 18th century? If he thinks mentioning what some "founding fathers" thought is going to help his argument, he is greatly mistaken. He just seems narrow-minded and way out-of-touch with reality. He must believe that women are property, blacks can't marry whites, and divorce is illegal. Times change, he needs to catch up and stop living in the 18th century. Furthermore, how can he compare of the textbooks they use are freely available yet, but some are, and the number is growing. To put this into context, there are currently about 580 students enrolled in Calculus I this semester. The bookstore charges $74.80 for the used version of the required text. That means that it is costing the students in those classes a combined total of at least $43,384 (as not all of them will be able to buy a used copy). What if the administration commissioned a few professors or graduate students to write a royalty free text that LOVE between two consenting adults to murder? What Andrew Cannon was saying in his article was this is a free country, let people do what they want as long as they don't hurt or affect someone in a truly negative way. If he believes that homosexuality is truly hurting him, he has way too much time on his hands. If that is true, I can argue that Christianity hurts me, because it is against allowing me to be happy, therefore has no place in this country. Paul Johnson Senior, Film Calendar's humor poorly timed Editor: In lieu of Jan. 13's "The Fellowship of the Calendar," I express my shock and concern on the use of an ethnic epithet found in said article. Riding on the success of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the writer (no author was specified by name) referred to the lead character of the films as a "weirdo with a Jew-fro," this being the highlight of several slanted and derisive comments. I am saddened that such latent antiSemitism could find its way into the Independent Voice of the University of Utah. I consider it a blight on the otherwise informative Chronicle. I find it even more so now, being printed in the middle of the Martin Luther King Jr. remembrance holiday. A retraction and an apology are in order. Maxwell Stoneman Freshman, English Editor's Note: Eryn Green, editor of ASiE's Calendar, is Jewish. Alumna, 2002 Cheap textbooks are good, but free textbooks are better Editor: Regarding your Jan. 13 editorial, "Pass go, head directly for Beat the Bookstore," I agree with you that competition is beneficial to students, but you're still thinking inside the box. Competitors like Beat the Bookstore can only save students a few dollars on textbooks, but what if we tried something radical and made textbooks free? Go to www.ocw.mit.edu and examine what MIT, one of the premier institutions in our country, is doing. They are providing free access to their course materials. Granted, not many chairperson of the higher education appropriations subcommittee. Last year U students showed their willingness to get involved in the political process by calling their representatives about the library. This year, student ambassadors will be used instead. Hopefully carrying the same power as mass calls, but in a more delicate way, these ambassadors might prove to be like a velvet hammer knocking on the subcommittee's door. This is not to say students shouldn't call, but it would mean more if they called on their own. But change happens slowly in Utah. While some things are different about this year, much is the same. And that's not good for the U. The year 2004 was incredibly disappointing in regards to legislative funding. That means it's incredibly important for U students, faculty and employees to follow news about funding for the U, If the U community pays attention to this year's differences, it will be better able to lobby our legislators. The calls and letters will mean even more. If this year proves to be another disappointment, the U community will be educated voters next year and in the next election. Keep up with local news on how President Young, the student ambassadors and the new legislators do pleading for the library, enrollment growth and other U needs. Keep your representatives informed on how you feel about this. The U is a vital part of the state and deserves to be treated as such. was licensed under a creative commons license (.www.creativecommons.org)? Once the text was completed, it could save students about $40,000 per semester, and would do so perpetually. A small initial investment would, in the long run, save students millions of dollars. If students want a printed copy, they could simply take the PDF file to a print shop and and get a bound copy for approximately $40 for a savings of about $35. That would be a good deal. Jason Underdown Junior, Physics Write letters to the editor by email: letters@chronicle.utah.edu by mail: 200 S Central Campus Dr. Ste 240, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 or stop by The Chronicle at Union 240. Founding fathers did not write constitution on 'Christian' principles Editor: Alumnus Trevor Burnett's letter (Jan. 14's "Society has a moral obligation to protect marriage leaves me baffled at how someone can get a college degree without getting an education. This nation was "founded on Christian principles?" No, the principal founders were Deists or the equivalent of Unitarians, some of whom, especially Jefferson, considered Christianity a pox on the world. True, Jefferson applied the word "Christian" to himself, but only in the sense that he considered Jesus to be a great humanist whose belief in his own inspiration was no different from that of Socrates. Now, I would not publicly insult someone's education if his or her lack thereof didn't manifest itself as, and indeed support, a stupid, intolerant moral philosophy. I may well suffer PLEASE SEND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR TO LETTERS@CHRONICLE.UTAH.EDU an "ick" factor upon imagining homosexual sex —that is only natural for some of us—but this is purely subjective and it is fallacious to conclude from your own psychological condition that homosexuality per se is objectively immoral. In fact, to conclude that homosexuality is immoral at all is impossible without appealing to subjective, irrational feelings or to religious dogma—neither of which has ever formed the basis of our legal system. As for no-fault divorce, consider the effect on children of their parents duking it out in the courtroom (and wasting money on lawyers) over whose "fault" it is that sometimes good intentions don't work out. Parents who might otherwise part cooperatively and relatively amicably are pressured to force their kids to take sides. Sean Peckham Senior, Computer Science |
