Wednesday September 5, 2001

Wildcat should not have wasted ink

I am compelled to write about the Aug. 28 article about the human brandings at this place called the Meet Rack on Drachman. That the Daily Wildcat wastes ink and paper on stories about trashy dive bars that brand their equally trashy clientele is a profound disappointment to alumni like myself.

Well, good for them. At least with a brand, myself and others will be able to see this blasphemous "GOD" Anderson and his cronies from a mile away. Good for you! You guys got your sensational trash story. Let's see if you print this letter!

Matt Wolf

fine arts alumnus

Bookstore is still over-priced

Jessica Lee's article about overpaying for textbooks is a natural response to a hit in the gut that each student takes every semester. We students are commanded by our professors to purchase required textbooks and end up spending a few hundred dollars. It is especially disappointing when new editions are published and we are forced to spend extra cash on new books, even though the old and new editions barely differ in information at all. Ms. Lee wasted her time when she went in search of an answer to whether students are being ripped off by the UofA bookstore. Their book policy clearly states that they are willing to beat any competitor's price. That alone is enough to figure out that they are not raising book prices any higher than they have to be.

Book prices are basically identical all around the nation because everyone involved has to make a profit. If she had searched beyond the scope of bookstores in general, she would have found that there are Web sites that actually ease the pain of textbook costs. I am talking about free Web sites like TradeTexts.com that create student-to-student textbook transactions. By letting students buy and sell with each other, the middleman (the bookstore) is totally out of the picture.

Instead of selling back your book to a bookstore, you can post it for sale online. Buyers and sellers are matched up and make transactions themselves. The result is that buyers pay less for their books and sellers receive more in "buyback." If we think beyond the bookstore as our only option, we may be able to conquer overpriced textbooks.

Rudy Adler

finance junior

Peterson letter is a lie

Charles Peterson's letter in Thursday's Wildcat proves the depths to which Republican operatives will sink in order to lure in supporters.

Peterson outrageously claims that, "Democrats are dependent on the poor staying poor." Peterson is lying, and he knows it. During the tax-cut debate, Democrats pleaded with Republicans to support an economic plan that benefits all Americans, not merely wealthy Republican supporters. Yet Republicans insisted on a monstrous tax cut that keeps resources concentrated among the wealthy, and makes the poor even poorer. Peterson doesn't admit that poorer Americans, and racial and ethnic minorities, vote Democratic because Republican policies do nothing for them.

Peterson tells a bigger, fatter lie - that Kelly Ward turned away Republican voters. Peterson did not mention that the UA Young Democrats are spearheading the Campus Vote Project, an effort to encourage UA students to vote where they go to school so they will have a voice in local and state politics.

Republican and Green voters are instructed to send their forms to the County Recorder's Office so they may be more quickly processed - otherwise they must travel to the Democratic headquarters before going to the right place.

What Peterson did not mention is that the UA Young Democrats plan to register

2,000 new UA voters this semester alone - whether they be Democrats, Republicans or Greens. If Peterson wants to talk about turning away voters, he should talk about how Republicans recently tried to get over 100 Democrats - including Terry McAuliffe - arrested while they were registering new citizens. He should talk about how minority voters in Florida were systematically discouraged from voting in the 2000 election.

But Peterson wouldn't want to mention those things. Why make his party look as bad as it is when he can lie about the Young Democrats?

Sheila Bapat

political science junior