Letters to the Editor

Golf article missed the cut

The whole angle of the story was way off and misrepresented myself and the golf program at the University. I am not a "rebel without a cause" and "rules are my thing." Winning three tournaments this year gained myself respect from players and coaches alike. However, what gained the most respect was the incident at the Kepler Intercollegiate. I was extremely apologetic to my teammates, coaches and family for what happened and was commended by most for my actions. This is far from the picture you painted in your article.

First, it was not the "final hole." Second, I was not in contention to win the tournament. Most of all I did not go on some "rampage which led to my disqualification." It happened on the second hole of the day, I was 6 or 7 shots off the lead with no chance of catching up, and I turned myself in. After kicking the putter, it bent only slightly, and had I not said a word I could have finished the round, counted my score, and no one would have known but myself. However, as an honest person who respects the integrity of the game, I told my opponents and informed them of the possible consequences since I was unsure of the rule. I finished the round minus the putter and shot 76 hoping to still help out my team.

After looking in a rules book, I found the penalty was disqualification and remorsefully accepted the consequences of my actions. However, the article portrayed me as a fool running around a golf course destroying everything in my path. It makes for a good fictional story and maybe a box office hit like "Happy Gilmore," however, writing it in a newspaper about someone trying to do the right thing becomes a malicious attack on my reputation. Journalism like this has no place in the Daily and should be reserved as tabloid trash.

Michael Harris
Golf Team

Bureaucracy fuels year 2000 glitch

The programs written that have these problems are over 20 years old and lived on far beyond the expectations of the original designers. Why is a university that claims to be on the cutting edge still using equipment and software that is over 20 years old when the same institution upgrades the equipment in the campus computing sites once every two years?

For a painfully simple reason: It is easier to wait until problems are staring you in the face rather than change a system that already works. The machines that will fail are outdated mainframes that should have been retrofit years ago.

For the average student, the Y2k bug means funds wasted on a problem that should never have come up, it means programmers' time wasted retro-fitting old code rather then a newer more powerful system. It means delays in getting things processed, errors in handling requests, inefficiency and many more years of error keeping alive an old system.

Edward Chusid
LSA Senior

05-26-98