Fast Facts error disheartening
I have always found Fast Facts entertaining as well as very intellectually stimulating. But after reading the Wildcat on Wednesday I noticed an error that was disheartening to me as a native Hawaiian. It noted that the Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters, but in fact it has 13: A,E,I,O,U,H,K,L,M,N,P,W. The one that you forgot to mention is 'okina, it is a glottal stop that looks like a backwards apostrophe. It is located in Hawai'i, between the two i's. I know it is difficult to do background checks on all your Fast Facts, but it concerns me that you fail to look up to perfection when dealing with another person's culture and language. Hopefully this will not happen again, for it did displease me to see an error take place when many people don't know about the Hawaiian language.
Wailele Sallas
journalism junior
Telephone ticket sales unfair
I have been matriculating here at the university for five years now. Within these five years I have gained much knowledge, not only about myself but about how things work as well. For example, I have learned that this university has the capability to suck out any excitement an event might bring. Take for instance, the recent sale of Counting Crows tickets. Many of my friends and I camped out for over 12 hours to get prime seats for the upcoming show at Centennial Hall. We were all excited that ASUA was doing this for the students, putting us first and everyone else in Tucson second (it's about time!). Anyhow, the ticket offices opened and tickets were being sold.
Unbeknownst to us though, the phone lines were also open and people could buy tickets over the phone. That is where the problem lies. Why should someone who gets lucky and gets through the line be able to order better tickets over the phone, when I have been waiting in line at the hall for hours and hours? It just isn't fair. This is an occurrence which happens time and time again. It happened at the Final Four, where non-lottery winners got better seats than those who had won the lottery, myself included. It happens at McKale, and for that matter it happens anytime a student wants the same thing as an alumni.
Luckily I will be graduating in May, and won't have to deal with the b.s. politics this school thrives on. I feel sorry though for future students, they have no idea what they are getting themselves into. For their sake, let's cross our fingers and hope for some changes to occur.
David Herskovic
media arts senior
Conservatives are right
I know that Mr. McDermott will receive a bunch of anti-conservative letters over the course of the next several days for his column on Tuesday, so allow me to stick up for him and say: Tom, I couldn't have said it any better myself.
Mr. McDermott correctly portrays conservatives as those governed by the mind and liberals governed by the heart. It's a very general term, yes, but also very accurate. Conservatives attempt to speak to the people through wisdom and common sense, while liberals, though certainly providing facts in some of their arguments as well, enjoy playing on people's emotions and "soft spots." Yes, the "think of the children" mantra undoubtedly belongs to the left.
Need proof? I quote your typical Hollywood leftist, Barbra Streisand, criticizing President Bush's raising of the legal arsenic levels in water: "He's poisoning our children!" Let's look at the facts: For seven years and 51 weeks of Bill Clinton's presidency, the legal arsenic levels in water were the same. All of a sudden, Clinton, in the last week of his presidency, decides to lower the legal arsenic levels, along with enacting a bunch of other nonsense environmental regulations, such as making it illegal for washers and dryers to have a lid on the front of the machine. They may now only be legally made with the lids on top, so as to save a fraction of a percentage on energy costs. In fact, Clinton signed more bills into law over the past two weeks of his presidency than the seven years plus beforehand. Why would Clinton do this? It shouldn't take a conservative to figure that one out.
So when Bush got into office, he raised the arsenic levels back up to where they were under Clinton for his entire presidency, minus about a week. But of course, with a Republican in office, arsenic has all of a sudden become far more toxic than it ever was under a Democrat. Bottom line: If you're a liberal, you're more inclined to believe what you hear from Hollywood and those leftist political cartoons you read in the Wildcat. If you're a conservative, you're willing to actually sit down, do a little research and get the facts straight. Mr. McDermott is absolutely right... and so am I.
Shane Dale
political science sophomore
Falun Gong not angelic
Thanks to Qi Cui for reminding us of the fact that Falun Gong is not an ancient tradition. As a matter of fact, it is so young that its starter, who is, I believe, a guy named Li Hongzhi, is still living right here in the United States, comfortably and in good shape. Fa Lun Gong may share the ideas of some ancient Chinese philosophy, but giving it a religious spin does not make it a religion. Granted it is a religion, which I don't believe it is, it is a very different religion than what you might think. For one thing, Jesus went to Jerusalem knowing he was going to die at the hand of Romans. But don't ever expect Li Hongzhi to do the same. After all, the Chinese government is too unfriendly. What he does instead is to encourage suicide attempts by his followers in China. Not that he has never entertained the idea of going back. He was close. He was spotted in the Beijing Airport around the time of the Falun Gong sit-in in Tiananmen Square, miles away from the scene. As a student from China, I was not at the vigil on the Mall the other day. Not because I was afraid of being spied on, but because I believe Falun Gong is definitely not an angel either, if not total crap.
J. Yang
second language acquisition and teaching student
