Punk rock above record-store definitions

This is to address Sanders Fabares' Tuesday review of Unwritten Law's Elva. Just because you get to review a "punk" CD doesn't mean you have the right to define punk for the rest of us! Was the review about Unwritten Law or about punk music? All you did was say "this song sucks" and "this one is about love." Music is a constantly evolving genre, and if it were always the same it would be boring, just like if every movie had the same ending. Your grade of the CD may be valid, and I haven't heard it yet so I don't know if I agree, but that doesn't mean you can knock punk.

Maybe you could take a lesson from Charlie Bertsch and "expand the definition of punk music instead of fitting the record-store definition." Or maybe you would consider that "selling out."

Cristin Carey
psychology senior

Dale column filled with half-truths

In his defense of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Shane Dale in his article, "ANWR: What are we waiting for?" parrots the same misleading facts and half-truths that have unfortunately dominated this debate over the past year. Lest anyone be taken in, here are responses to each of Mr. Dale's arguments:

Drilling supporters love to claim that "the drilling site equals the size of an airport," and that "less than 1 percent of the refuge would be touched." Unfortunately, these numbers depend on how you define the word "touched." The 1 percent figure includes only the actual footprint of land touched by drilling platforms and structural pipeline supports. That's like claiming that the chair I'm sitting on only takes up four square inches of floor space (counting only the area where the legs contact the floor). In the case of ANWR, those footprints are spread out over thousands and thousands of acres, effectively occupying the majority of land in question. Oh - the 1 percent figure doesn't count roads needed to connect those footprints, either.

The USGs estimates quoted by Mr. Dale describe the amount of technically recoverable oil present in ANWR. This number is fairly meaningless; what really matters is the amount of economically recoverable oil present, which depends of course on the market price of the oil in question. At the current price of around $18 a barrel, the mean estimate of economically recoverable oil drops to about 2.5 billion barrels - four times smaller than the figure provided in Mr. Dale's column. Using this more realistic estimate, drilling in ANWR would increase the world oil supply by only 1.5 percent. Even if OPEC decides not to cut production to offset this increase, drilling in ANWR would hardly dent our dependence on foreign oil.

Mr. Dale claims that "the caribou would be just fine" with drilling in ANWR. Actually, a study conducted by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded exactly the opposite. The report was so damning that the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, felt the need to alter and misrepresent its findings in her testimony before Senate committee. Secretary Norton's testimony has been brought to the attention of the Senate Government Oversight Committee, and is currently being reviewed.

Sorry, Mr. Dale, but when you consider actual facts, ANWR just doesn't make any sense.

Jason Hamm
physics graduate student

Blue Chip program will keep itself afloat

In your article "Deans report: Fewer classes, no technology, vacant positions," you report that the Arizona Blue Chip Program will be terminated if it does not get university funding next fall. This is entirely false. The Arizona Blue Chip program is funded by UA, but it is primarily funded by the Arizona Student Unions, corporate sponsors such as IBM, and private donations from people associated with the program. If the Blue Chip program lost its university funding, it would still have a substantial amount of funding, allowing it to remain one of the most distinguished programs on campus. Next time you report something in an article, verify the information and sources before sending it to print.

Patrick Bogle
pre-business junior
Arizona Blue Chip member