Letters to the Editor

LSA-SG vice president must have internal knowledge

To the Daily:

I would like to add one important consideration that was not addressed in the Daily endorsement of the Students' Party candidates for LSA Student Government ("Vote Harris, Madia, 3/23/99). The role of LSA-SG vice president is mostly internal development. The ideal VP would be an experienced representative that other reps could easily turn to for advice and support.

Mehul Madia is a strong candidate for MSA, but he has not attended any LSA-SG meetings. In contrast, the Blue Party candidate for LSA-SG VP, John Naheedy, has been a very active member and leader of LSA-SG for more than a year now. In fact, he helped me organize the LSA-SG retreat in January.

I encourage voters to look at the platforms of both parties and see that together with their experience and well-developed goals, the Blue Party's Seema Pai and John Naheedy make strong candidates for LSA Student Government.

Gregg Lanier

LSA senior

All MSA parties should stop wasting paper

To the Daily:

In my capacity as a student, I am dismayed that neither the Defend Affirmative Action party nor the Blue party have taken up the Students' Party's eco-friendly challenge. Last week the Students' Party decided to issue a challenge - even though it was politically dangerous - to stop all of the wanton waste and irritation created from postering Angell Hall.

Yet, as I walked through Angell hall yesterday, all I saw was a plethora of multi-colored edit-styled political gimic ridden waste! I realize that many candidates want that "all important poster spot," but really is it worth all of this waste and annoyance? For parties that claim to be "the voice of the students," the DAAP and Blue Party sure aren't listening to the deafening cry to stop the postering.

Rory Diamond

MSA representative

Pro-lifers have a fundamental respect for life

To the Daily:

I was extremely disappointed by the lack of judgement the Daily showed in printing the article from the Brown Daily Herald entitled "Clinic bombing should be taken seriously" (3/17/99). I have never before read an article of such shear ignorance and lack of research. The number of totally false statements in this article is truly startling.

First off, it implied that all pro-lifers have within them the ability to bomb a clinic. This cannot be further from the truth. At the very heart of every pro-lifer is a fundamental respect for life - everyone's life.

I, as well as all true pro-lifers, denounce the acts of Eric Rudolph and people like him.

But the Herald's error is that it equates Rudolph with us. Eric Rudolph is not pro-life, no matter what he or others like him may say.

To murder someone, anyone, be they abortion doctor or unborn child is extremely wrong and against everything that being pro-life means.

This article is also wrong in saying that pro-lifers don't try to change the law through legislative channels and don't work to help women with unwanted pregnancies.

I can't claim to know what is happening in Rhode Island, but I can say that in Michigan the pro-life movement is very involved in trying to help those women who don't want to have an abortion through such organizations as Problem Pregnancy Help in Ann Arbor (975-4357) and Abigail Ministries, which is a shelter for unwed mothers ((810) 326-0459) among many others. Also, we try to make our voices heard by writing to our government representatives and supporting Pro-life candidates.

The article was right about one thing, calling this a civil war. Pro-lifers are trying to save the millions of children killed violently each year and we are trying to do it the only way we know how, without violence and with respect for all human life.

We are trying to protect the fundamental right that deserves to be protected to the fullest extent of the law, the right to life.

Rachel Cascos

Engineering senior

To the Daily:

Mass e-mailing of large groups of people who didn't ask to receive your mail is an unethical abuse of the e-mail system, and doing it is just like cutting in line, or breaking a promise, or disregarding any of the other common courtesies that make society work.

"Why the big hassle? It only takes you a second to delete the mail if you don't want it." Let me tell you why it makes me angry. It's just like people cutting in line. It's one person breaking a societal set of rules, and it depends upon 99 percent of people keeping the rules. If everyone just walked up to the front, it'd be a mob; but if just one person cuts, they get a huge reward, and everyone behind them gets a small penalty. At a fast food restaurant, it's probably less than 30 seconds. Not really that big, is it? But I bet you get annoyed when people cut in front of you.

Imagine, for just one moment, if every time anyone had an event, or a message they wanted to get across or a thing they wanted to advertise, they sent you an e-mail. Imagine every singing group, poetry group, charity group, sending you an e-mail every time they had an event. Imagine every Christian group, Muslim group, Jewish group, Buddhist group, feminist group, Marxist group, Objectivist group, etc., sending you an admonition to join their cause or come to their thinking, every time they felt the need to inform the ignorant public of the importance of their beliefs. Imagine every person with a textbook or a car to sell, an apartment to rent, a purse or some keys they left somewhere in Angell Hall, e-mailing you and everyone else on campus, just in case someone wanted to buy or rent, or had found the lost article.

In effect, e-mail would be completely useless. The success of one's advertisement stunt depends on all of the other people and groups on campus behaving well, and using more traditional forms of advertising - just like cutting in line depends on all the people behind you staying in their place.

I hope ITD has the sense to cut off people's account for this kind of activity.

George Dunlap

Rackham

03-25-99