Donations bypass Alumni Association

I have read with some distress of the plans to build an Alumni Plaza in front of the Administration building. This seems ill-advised for a number of reasons.

1. This is a time when budgets are tight. There is concern that some of the university's greatest assets, its educators, may leave in search of better opportunities. Why are we spending $2.6 million for what is, in effect, a self-aggrandizing landscaping project?

2. With the ILC, and now the Alumni Plaza, I see a continuing trend to chop up the Mall. As a former student and staff member, I saw that the Mall was one of the single greatest recreational assets to students. I greatly regret the choices being made in this regard. If you want to stay cool, go inside the union and get an Eegee.

3. The use of fountains in the desert is unconscionable. With Tucson struggling to save water, the university is seen wasting it.

4. Tradition is an important part of university life, with the students of today being able to share some of the same experiences that their parents and grandparents enjoyed. The loss of the cactus garden and the encroachment on the Mall chips away at this shared experience.

As an alumunus, this only reinforces my decision to contribute directly to departments, bypassing the alumni association entirely. Rather than helping the school achieve its goals to educate and enrich the community, it is busy building monuments to itself.

Edward Beshore
UA class of 1977

Individual freedom needs utmost respect

Creighton Anderson's Feb. 19 letter argues that the job of the government is to protect its citizens from their choices, in this case referring to voluntary drug use. The idea of the government as a paternal bastion of personal morality has pervaded all of American history in one way or another but has snowballed uncontrollably over the past century, leaving us with a nation of people who believe themselves to be above personal responsibility.

The argument that rational people are making is not that drugs are not harmful, nor that we as fellow human beings are excused from our moral responsibilities to one another. For example, if Mr. Anderson changes his mind and decides to start shooting black-tar heroin, I would be obliged by my concern for his safety to inform him of the dangers of his behavior. However, I would have no right, whether I were an individual citizen or a member of the government, to tell Anderson what he can and cannot do with his body; his body was given to him by God or birth and as such belongs to him and to no one else.

To illustrate the principles of an ideal government whose only purpose is to protect us from outside threats and from one another, we'll use our friend Ed as an example. Ed can be 19 or 84; all that matters is that he is an adult.

What Ed can do:

Smoke pot, drink beer, write FUCK in capital letters in a newspaper, burn a flag, have group sex with consenting adults, amputate his foot, cover his body in lemon juice and roll around on shards of glass.

However, Ed cannot:

Burn his neighbor's flag, force someone else to smoke a cigar, destroy my grandmother's Olympic spoon collection using them for crack, scream, "Fire!" in a crowded whorehouse, or operate a vehicle under the influence of drugs.

All of the above would constitute either destruction of property or reckless endangerment, turning Ed into a criminal, and rightfully so.

Each of us has a system of personal morality that dictates what we do or do not engage in or consume. As long as these behaviors don't harm other people or their property, we can and sometimes should regard them as stupid, obnoxious, and/or harmful to those involved, but in the interests of a free country and the idea that a person's body belongs unequivocally to that person alone, they should never, no matter how little we approve of them, be regarded as crimes.

Melanie Wilke
pre-computer science sophomore

First Amendment protects money

I may be a mere freshman, but it seems to me that I should respond to Joe Ellison's Feb. 26 letter and be the one to break it to him (in the simplest terms possible. No, don't thank me). In the REAL world, one has to pay MONEY for advertising time, say, before an election to prefer one candidate, a person running for office, over another.

According to the First Amendment in a very, very old piece of paper upon which our nation was founded, we have the right to say whatever we want whenever we want about whoever we want (short of advocating revolt). If I'm going too fast I can slow down for you. OK, here's where it gets tricky: When you say that I can't do something, like spend my own money to tell the public about, say, a candidate's affinity for fondling goats or baby eating, then it VIOLATES my rights given to me by the First Amendment. Can you say "violate," Joe? It's just as bad as throwing me into the Gulag (can you say Gulag?) for decrying the Soviets and helps keep the slimebags already in office there for a long, long time. Joe, can you say stagnation? Totalitarianism? Maybe we'll work on that next week.

Tylor Brand
history freshman

Blue Balls comic a 'masterpiece'

Greetings! I would like to bestow my most sincere gratitude upon the geniuses responsible for the stellar comic strip "Blue Balls." Does the student body at the University of Arizona realize what comic masterpieces they receive daily, courtesy of the gracious pens of Silas Hodges and another, more mysterious artist known only by his kenzo@u.arizona.edu moniker? Such classics, like Thursday's ode to the beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Donatello, should be savored and cherished. Punchlines like, "You're a fat fuck dude!"(their grammar, not mine) whisk me away laughing to comedic Valhalla.

The humor contained within "Blue Balls" is, like the title itself, an achievement in wit heretofore unknown within the pages of the Arizona Daily Wildcat. So please, join me dear reader, in congratulating the funniest, most original comic artists our world will ever know.

Sam Partain
UA alumnus
president and founder of the "Blue Balls" Fan Club

Elect a productive ASUA body

Just about everything Mariam Durrani prints in the Wildcat is crap! I never know if what she is saying is serious or if she is just trying to stir up issues for the hell of it. Nevertheless, her article "ASUA elections" is one of her all-time worst.

In her article, she blatantly attacks Aaron Black and Wai Sallas due to their "virgin" status in ASUA. Every year, ASUA candidates promise things that they cannot deliver. This year, Hartz and Reece feel that they have the power in ASUA to create a fall break and an optional class the day before Thanksgiving break, when we all know that it is just B.S. propaganda for the student vote. Now, green grass on the mall and misters outside of the student union sound more like a practical idea that can actually be accomplished. Maybe change is exactly what ASUA needs. I cannot remember the last time ASUA did anything useful for the student body, besides failed attempts to put on second-rate music concerts.

I just hope that the student body population doesn't buy into Durrani's idiotic rhetoric, or else we will end up with the same ASUA executives that do nothing for the student body.

Luke Fletcher
astronomy and physics sophomore

ASUA: a 'child's toy government'

Four years ago, when I was still a student and a freshman, I ran for the ASUA Senate. It was a wonderful learning experience. I learned invaluable life lessons about corruption, greed, power and fraud. On Tuesday, I found it interesting to see that all of the 17 Senate candidates were focusing on the very same issues that have been proposed to be fixed in the past four years.

It is sad really that ASUA, with a budget of over $1,000,000 can't even get a student section at the basketball games. Of course that is an issue which few students really care about. The ASUA is, and has always been, a resumŽ builder for the select few who want to become "leaders." After the elections, they disappear back into their meetings, collect their salary and are not heard from until election times the next year.

Did ASUA do anything to try and stop the destruction of Gallagher Theater, which was something that affected 10 times as many students as a stupid basketball game? Sadly, they did not. The real issues on campus will continue to be ignored by the student government. ASUA is a child's toy government, which most students wisely ignore.

Luckily, ASUA holds zero influence and has no military. Unfortunately, we can't ignore our real government, which spends our taxes oh-so-sensibly on bombs and $100 bills for Afghanistan. We can't ignore the UA administration, which raises tuition in order to raise more money-making parking garages.

Instead of building more classrooms for this growing university, they make more PAY-PER-PARKing places. But then what should we expect from the administration which supposedly has a non-discrimination policy, yet allows ROTC to discriminate against homosexuals?

I hope the UA never asks me for money. They won't ever get any from me.

Travis Klein
UA alumnus

Stop badgering students

To all of those so-called proud Jews for Jesus: You guys all make me sick. I see you guys on the mall, in front of the dorms and in front of university buildings trying to persuade anyone to come to one of your meetings or even join your group. One of my friends in my dorm one year asked me to play football with him and some of his friends. I love to play football, so I said sure. It turned out that I was attending a Wildcats for Christ football game and the whole time I was being badgered.

Well, you guys can just kiss my ass. I don't have a problem with religious groups having meetings or activities on campus, but for the love of Pete do you have to badger everyone who walks by you? You guys are an annoyance to me and everyone else on this campus. I am sick and tired of the stupid little editorial ads you put in the paper, and I am sick and tired of you period. If there were two things I could change about my college career, they would be a) to have student sections at UA basketball games and b) to ban you from soliciting in front of the dorms and UA buildings.

And to the Daily Wildcat, please stop printing this crap. You will be doing everyone a favor.

Jason Kissen
political science senior