Printing is a 'requirement' - new policy unfair

April Fool's Day is here and what better way to celebrate than by having the administration at our educational institution make learning more difficult. On April 1, we students will have to start paying to use the printers at the CCIT labs. Don't get me wrong; having people pay for the use of resources is an important concept in developing responsible consumption patterns.

What is wrong about this policy is that it is hypocritical and shortsighted. First, who is going to have to pay for printing? Students without access to a printer, the majority of whom probably can't afford to buy one, that's who. Those students most adversely affected by this policy will be the ones who can ill afford more constraints on their learning. Why are we paying for this? Printers cost money to maintain and if you've seen the amount of paper used (and misused) in the CCIT labs, you would understand.

Unfortunately, the new printers don't cut down on paper consumption by allowing double-sided printing. So instead of using appropriate technology to cut consumption, the administration is curtailing our possibilities for using learning tools. Does any of the office support staff or administrators at our university have to pay for printing? Of course not, printing is an important part of their job of managing this institution.

What the administration fails to recognize is that printing has also become an important part of our job of learning. Printing is not a right - it is a privilege. But how many professors allow you to turn in hand written term papers? The use of printers has basically become a requirement in higher education. But the biggest joke of all will be realized when you consider that every single student pays for our recreation center whether they use it or not. So while our recreational opportunities are subsidized our educational ones aren't. I wish I could say "April Fool's," but this is no joke.

Lee Pagni
renewable natural resource studies graduate student

Get criminals off streets, not guns

This letter is in response to Kendrick Wilson's March 27 commentary on the shooting at Denny's (last) week. Mr. Wilson's idea of a response to this is to send John Brown, the criminal in this case, to jail and possibly execute him, and to take away everyone else's guns.

Mr. Wilson predicted I would pop up and say, "Gun's don't kill, people do." And here I am. But let me make a point. Certainly, guns can help a person kill. But the gun requires that you load it, aim it and pull the trigger. Guns can't do that on their own. A person does not, however, require a gun to kill. 90 percent of all violent crime in America does not involve a firearm in any way. And in 83 percent of all crimes classified as "gun-related," the gun is neither used nor shown. Criminals are very capable of hurting people without guns.

That does not mean, however, that getting rid of guns will eliminate even that 10 percent of violent crime that does involve a firearm. In 1976, Washington, D.C. enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, D.C.'s murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national rate has dropped 2 percent. (http://www.keepandbeararms.com/images/gunfacts.pdf) Right across the river from D.C., Arlington, VA has virtually no regulations on gun ownership. Yet D.C.'s murder rate is 35 times as high as Arlington's!

Mr. Wilson suggests that John Brown be locked up for the rest of his life, natural or otherwise. Bravo, Mr. Wilson, for having a backbone! But you miss a critical point: Brown had an extensive criminal record. He was trying to get his kiddie porn out of police custody when all this occurred! What was this man doing on the streets in the first place? We don't need to get guns off our streets. We need to get, and keep, criminals off our streets!

Mr. Wilson, 90 percent of all guns used in crimes are stolen. Intrusive background checks, registration (and subsequent confiscation) and safety requirements will do nothing to change that. Criminals do not obey the law. They will commit crimes however and whenever they choose. That is why I choose to defend myself. I am learning to shoot, and as soon as I turn 21, I will carry a concealed weapon. My gun will never be used to commit a crime, but it might just prevent one. Mr. Wilson: Just how would disarming me make you any safer?

Elizabeth Hazelwood
chemistry sophomore

How about 'accountability and responsibility'?

This is in response Kendrick Wilson's commentary concerning gun violence. It seems to me that a ban on guns falls under the category of mass punishment. You know, where you punish a group as a whole because one or two of them did something stupid. Not only is this concept unfair, but it is un-American. What's next? The department of pre-crime? Liberals have already cornered speech with all the "political correctness" rhetoric, so why not? Let's just throw out the whole Constitution ... maybe that's causing crime (those damned forefathers).

Now, I guess it is time to take the right responsible citizens have to preserve the lives of their families. A ban on guns will be as effective as all our other laws ... people break them at their discretion. So, responsible citizens will be unarmed and defenseless against criminals who are not worried about the law. Responsible citizens do not use their guns to commit drive-bys, rob banks or shoot schoolchildren. Responsible citizens defend their homes, and families against criminal predators.

Look at Mexico - with total ban on firearms, murders and crime are still high. A more feasible idea is one that gives everyone a gun and the training to use it. Mandate it. Yeah, I know, the criminals will have guns. So will EVERY potential victim. This is extreme, but it is not ineffective feel-good horseshit like the notion of a ban.

Blaming a gun for crime is a great companion for the "My daddy didn't hug me enough" or "Marilyn Manson made me do it" excuses. Let's get back to the real issues of accountability and responsibility.

Brandon Hart
psychology senior

Message to Mr. Peterson: 'Grow up'

It may be a little late for this but I wanted to respond to Mr. Peterson's letter to the Wildcat on March 25. I do not wish to argue pointlessly about politics with him but I do want to say that his letter definitely displays his immaturity and ignorance in a very effective way. I must say that if there was ever a chance of me becoming a Republican, he has undoubtedly ruined it.

Mr. Peterson fails to recognize that it is OK to have a different opinion than his own. To childishly insult the "liberals on the Wildcat staff" should be seen as an embarrassment to the political party he so strongly supports. Without listening and valuing the opinions and perspectives of others, one cannot form an educated and diverse opinion on any matter.

By calling all liberals "hippie radicals," you, Mr. Peterson, are enforcing a stereotype that is not only untrue but that makes you sound uneducated. There are people in this world who like to think outside of the box and who take into account the opinions of others, and these are the people that you so readily insult.

If you want your opinions taken seriously, be an educator, not an insulter. Listen to what other people have to say; it may help people take your opinions into consideration rather than discount them as immature and stupid like I did. Insulting a group of people only makes you seem like the person I think you must be: closed-minded, mean and uneducated. Grow up.

Sarah Monroe
undeclared sophomore

University church refuses to answer 'hard questions'

Ironically, I awoke (last) Sunday and decided to go to church. I had intended to, since returning to Tucson in January, but with the many reminders of the upcoming Passover and Easter celebrations bombarding the media I felt I should find a place to spend the holiday and perhaps continue attending.

The first church I visited, a Presbyterian congregation of my own faith, had unfortunately just ended their service, and being the devoted student I am, I found myself gravitating toward the university. Somewhere in the recess of thought, I remembered that a church group affiliated with the Wildcats for Christ, that happy little group that panders salvation on campus, holds late services in the Social Sciences building every Sunday morning. Thus, I found myself sitting in the back of a full lecture hall a few minutes later. The sermon was reminiscent of many I had heard before; about hope, living a pure life in obedience to God and about submitting to the church and to God in order to fulfill His plan for your life.

However, when the service ended with a song and offertory prayer, I found myself curious about what was being advocated. Having a religious background myself, I am no stranger to the issues of the Christian church. I approached the pastor and asked several questions about doctrinal issues that have been bothering me. I was going to ask what he thought of them and how they applied to his beliefs, but he became irritated and hostile. Instead of hearing me out or at least offering to meet later in the week, and I must clarify that I was being neither rude nor confrontational, he dismissed my queries with a curt, "Those are false doctrines. You shouldn't believe them. I don't want to talk about this right now." I pointed out that there was considerable scriptural support for some of these views and that they needn't be so easily dismissed but rather examined closely for validity or rebuttal, he dodged the issue with a an excuse about praying for some people and walked away. "You need to look at the Bible before you believe anything else," was his parting comment.

I couldn't help thinking, "What do you think I'm trying to do by coming to a man who purports to know enough about the Bible and the Gospel that he is pasturing an entire congregation? I have looked at the Bible myself, and now I want some professional opinion on what I've found." I don't know how most pastors deal with guests who have questions, but I felt both offended and dismayed by the rebuttal of a man who prides himself in his college ministry, and yet refuses to converse with the very people he is attempting to "minister" to.

I would think that a campus ministry of such visibility would be more open to answering the hard questions about their beliefs and to discussing those of other denominations without such malice or prejudice. Have they forsaken their own cherished scripture? "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." I Peter 3:15

Jacob Lauser
electrical engineering sophomore

The long view of history

With the large number of letters responding to Laura Winsky's March 25 column, "It's not charity; it's an outstanding debt," I would like to put my two cents in and gather together the bits and pieces from the different responses and compile them into a grand view of the issue.

One must step back and view slavery in the United States as part of a much larger system of production, profit, and exploitation. I agree with those who wrote that cotton was not the sole source of income in the South, or the United States in general, during the time of slavery. However, if one takes into account the total immigrant and native labor force of the United States throughout history, including African slaves, one will see that combined, that force produced nearly all the wealth of this country. Elias made a good point in saying that many immigrants suffered abuse upon arrival into the United States i.e. the Irish, Italians, Jews, Africans, Mexicans, Chinese etc. Some suffered to a greater extent than others, given the conditions of their respective eras, but all were exploited nonetheless.

Hensley points out that it would be absurd to pay reparations to all groups who throughout history have been exploited by the hands of another class. I agree that simple "check cutting" will not get to the core of the problem, just like affirmative action does not solve the problem of unequal competition. In light of the fact that exploitation is not simply a white-black paradigm, one can see that it transcends racial lines and must be simply divided between owners and workers, haves and have-nots. All the wealth of the United States and the entire world, was and is produced by a labor force, be it slave or otherwise. Slavery was a profitable enterprise for the owners, but as time passed and the modes of production changed, it had to be replaced by the more productive industrial age. Only the external severity of the exploitation changed. It is still the working class that produces and the owning class that profits. Although in a few exceptional cases, members of the working class are able to rise up to the owning class.

So yes, there are whites today who prosper from the slavery of yesterday, but it is more important to see that it is the owning class that still exploits the working class.

Chris Buja
religious studies senior