Thursday October 18, 2001

Individuals responsible for their own safety

This is addressed to whoever is responsible for the article about the UA mailroom and bio-terrorism in yesterday's Wildcat. I am the supervisor of the AHSC hospital mailroom. I feel that the article you wrote in the Wednesday Wildcat is extremely misleading and could cause harm to the UA community.

The U.S. Postal Service and the UA Postal service do not screen the mail for anthrax. We do screen for suspicious looking mail (bombs, etc.); 99 percent of the letters that come to the UA are not touched by human hands. Machines DO NOT screen the mail.

In the future, we will be putting mail without a return address aside and calling the department. However, it should be noted the letter the senator received that contained anthrax would have passed that screening method.

I am not trying to start more panic, but UA employees need to know that ultimately it is up to them to determine if their mail is safe to open.

Pat Rickards

UA Postal Services

Armstrong column antagonistic

Dear Mr. Armstrong, I was excited when I started reading your article on prayer shields yesterday, until I realized that your intent was not to truly investigate what the world view is behind churches setting up prayer walks and 24-hour prayer, but it was really to be antagonistic toward something that you don't really understand and don't want to understand.

If you had researched this a little more, you would have learned that most churches believe in the power of prayer, and that many churches do the sort of thing this church in Colorado does. The Christian worldview regarding prayer comes from the following: When God created Adam and Eve, he gave them authority over the earth. After the fall, Satan gained that authority. When Christ died and rose again, man was once again able to have the authority originally given to him in the beginning. This authority is gained when one accepts Christ as Lord of his/her life.

Prayer is not something that has to be done exclusively. I pray in my car, walking along the street, etc. There are times when I get together with my friends to exclusively pray, and it is awesome because we all have a relationship with Christ, so it's incredible when he's telling us the same thing regarding certain things we're praying about, it sounds weird, but why knock something until you've really investigated it?

Selena Mahoney

English and linguistics grad student

Lee column hit home

This is in response to Jessica Lee's "Go tell it to the mountain" story in yesterday's Daily Wildcat. First of all, let me tell you that I find your stories to be interesting, Ms. Lee, and that today's story really hit home. I am Western Apache and a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe of Southern Arizona. Our people have been fighting this particular battle for some time now aside from the many other environmental battles that we've had to face in the past.

Our1.8 million acres of land is so unique that we've had to fight to keep every resource since the beginning of time. We possess so many different forms of resources on our reservation that it makes outsiders' eyes light up with dollar signs. Our land provides excellent wildlife habitat for all forms of life and in return, for respect of the land, we are blessed with top quality wildlife that has been and still is an important part of our traditional way of life.

The telescope atop Mount Graham is a sight that just doesn't fit into our way of life. The mountain is a very sacred place for many of our people, it's the same thing as a church. Our people go there to pray and connect with another world on another level. There is a sacred run that is done annually which finishes atop the mountain where all the participants are blessed and prayed for. These types of ceremonies are not the same as they once were, outside interference has changed something.

This struggle will never end, and our way of life has been changed forever, a permanent scar on sacred land. In all, it's nice to know that someone else out there knows the truth of our struggle. I think you put it best when you said, "stained our good name." how could UA do such a thing? Thank you very much for your time.

Daniel Juan

wildlife, watershed, and rangeland resource sophomore