Monday October 8, 2001

Nasim did not lie

After knowing Saad Nasim for three years, I know there is no way that he lied about the hate crimes. I saw him the day before the first attack, and he was only concerned about the recent death of his grandmother.

Saad is a very humble, kind and honest person. He puts other people before him and goes out of his way to help people. He always sacrifices just to help others. It is my belief that Saad Nasim said the hate crimes didn't happen only to save his cousin Khurram Shamim. His cousin was being held in Florence, Italy, because the FBI/INS were suspicious that he was a terrorist, as he was not in the Phoenix area three days before the attacks. However, his cousin was in San Francisco for his grandmother's funeral. His cousin also may appear to look like the stereotypical terrorist to the average American. It is sad that Muslims are treated in such a way and are accused of lying after being attacked.

I've actually witnessed Saad's emotional and physical pain over these last two weeks. It depresses me to see all the trauma that he has had to deal with.

Jane Williams

German studies and linguistics senior

Wildcat coverage insensitive

By printing a photo and address of the house of the young woman who was raped on Wednesday, you have effectively revoked her power of choice in this matter and invaded her privacy. Of course, community education and identifying the rapist is important, but the details were unnecessary and potentially damaging to the young woman's healing process.

A little more sensitivity in the future would be nice.

Adria Decker

victim advocate, Southern Arizona Center Against Sexual Assault

molecular and cellular biology senior

Hagler comic offensive, wrong

This letter is in response to Josh Hagler's comic, Furnexistential, on Tuesday. Your comments about greek members in your Tuesday comic were completely wrong and borderline offensive.

Your comments of sorority girls acting stupid, dressing slutty and driving cars their parents buy them isn't "still funny," it's totally judgmental and off-base. I'd like to see what your contact with sorority girls has been. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you are just one of those assholes who believes the sorority-girl stereotype because you don't bother to even get to know them for the respectable group of women they are.

To get to your comment about frat guys; your comment of them being "rich rapists" isn't just off-base, it's completely distasteful. I find it a testament to your personal character that you would put such a distasteful comment in your comic. I am a "frat boy" as you so say it, and I am not rich, and definitely not a rapist.

You're right that some fraternity members are wealthy, but don't further a completely false and bothersome stereotype by labeling us as rapists as well.

You owe the entire greek community an apology; and I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say that. Check your head next time you think you're writing something funny.

Shaun Donovan

criminal justice sophomore

Dale's logic is flawed

Shane Dale's article, "A Lesson in Environmental Common Sense" was a lesson indeed. Mr. Dale seems to relegate the idea of urban sprawl to that of a myth, not unlike the "myth" of ozone depletion that was so hotly contested in the past. He asserted that although we have established massive metropolitan areas across the face of America, most of the actual land remains untouched.

In essence, he states that "liberal environmentalists" have no right to complain about something that he sees as a non-problem. Well, Mr. Dale seems to forget the cumulative sum of the damage can be far greater than its parts. Although there may be wide swaths of land still untouched by human hands, let's note that much of that lands consists of patches of wilderness interspersed among developed areas.

Our development and transportation infrastructure has created a severed network of wildlife habitat. I'm a future wildlife biologist, so let's address the idea of ecosystem health versus urban sprawl from my perspective.

Habitat fragmentation is the prevalent trend in landscape change in forest, plains and desert regions and is recognized as a major cause of declining biodiversity. Activities that break up habitat in such a way that population of plants and animals become isolated from each other can cut them off from processes necessary for survival. For every wilderness area that is cut in half by development or fragmentation, 15 percent of the species residing in that area will die - if you halve that area again, another 15 percent perishes.

Ecologists predict that at current rates of unmitigated growth and development, the world loses 10,000 species of animals per year. That is unacceptable to this "liberal environmentalist," it should be unacceptable to us all.

Mike Iorio

wildlife sciences senior