ÎGet over it!' Some people took B-Fish comic a bit too seriously

I just want to make two points in regard to Ms. Cardona's and Ms. Gibson's letters concerning Dave Low's bulimia comic (Monday, "'Horrified' to see comic's Îdisgusting' joke about bulimia," "B-Fish comic crossed the line by poking fun at serious condition"). First, I sincerely doubt it was Mr. Low's intent to poke fun at eating disorders. I think this is a case of people making something out of nothing. Had the comic been titled, "Bulimia: Smelly puking habit," I might feel differently. I think Dave Low was simply mocking the inappropriateness of the situation, not the disease.

That being said, I move on to my second point. Grow up, people! Even if Dave Low meant to be offensive, get a thicker skin. I would like to point out that the Wildcat covers issues such as the war in Iraq, campus shootings, murders, and rapes. Why not write letters about those problems? I'm sorry, but when someone feels the need to complain about a comic, I think they've gone too far. You can't be funny all the time and not step on some toes.

So my advice to anyone who was offended: One, re-read the comic, because you obviously missed the point the first time; two, if you're still offended, don't read his comic anymore! Or, in simpler terms: Get over it! Don't waste your time and mine by running crying to the editor.

We're in college here, people. If you can't handle a harmless comic, I have serious doubts about how you'll handle the real world.

Laura Tarris
art history senior

Campus requires a moratorium on building, increase in salaries

Hooray for Ms. McCabe's Wednesday letter "Forget a new U ÷ Students tired of construction." I, too, love the UA and can appreciate the fiscal challenges the Likins administration faces.

But after witnessing the physical transformation of campus the past few years, I wonder, "Why must tuition increase yet again when all these construction guys on campus continue to have tons of work?"

It may well be that campus construction projects and academics are unrelated in how they are financed. But the perception is that there's plenty of money for new buildings. In the aftermath of last month's tragic shooting, it's ironic to see the administration trot out a rehashed plan from 1988 calling for more construction to "bridge the divide" with the UA Health Sciences Center.

How about a moratorium on further capital improvements? Make those monstrosities coming to life on Sixth Street last for a while. Perhaps the money saved can be used for non-capital improvements, namely faculty salaries and department operating budgets. I think these are the administration's real customers.

Stu Williams, MBA
accounting graduate student

Once ÎTomey's malcontents' are gone, Mackovic team will shine

Thank you, Mr. St. Germain, for a well-written and astute analysis of this attempted rebellion by Tomey's spoiled boys (Monday, "No good reason for Mackovic to resign"). I dropped my football season tickets this year because the players didn't play hard enough, demonstrate pride and weren't ashamed of losing.

I figured once Tomey's malcontents were gone, I would pick up my season football tickets again. I agree with you that a Mackovic-coached team will be a winner.

Philip Goisman
systems programmer, physics

ÎWhiny' players acted like kids who went Îrunning to Mommy'

Remember those kids in elementary school who used to run to the teacher after recess and whine that you obviously must have cheated because you won the kickball game and they didn't? These same kids have become grown men and are now playing football and representing excellence and tradition for the UA.

In place of the teacher, Dr. Likins hears the players blame the team's distress on big, mean coach Mackovic. His words hurt their sensitive feelings and instead of using their big-boy skills, like addressing the issue directly with coach Mackovic, they hide behind the authority of the school president.

Were there no members of the athletics staff who could have facilitated a civilized discussion between coach Mackovic and the disgruntled players? Either the athletics department needs to be more attentive to the environment of the student athletes, or the students need to take their welfare into their own hands in a more appropriate manner. But running to Mommy is not considered an appropriate manner by the majority of adults.

The newspapers reported that most of the players who met with President Likins are upperclassmen. These grown men, about to enter the world as responsible adults, chose to avoid the self-inflicted shame of a losing season by refocusing that shame. The players found a scapegoat for their own immaturity; taking responsibility by working with the team as a unit to address and remedy the problems might have been more rational, less embarrassing choice of action. It also would have indicated a basic respect for the program that has given these whiny players an extraordinary opportunity.

Regardless of coach Mackovic's propriety, the football players' retaliation using President Likins as a mediator was equally sophomoric and has contributed to an irrevocable stain on the university's football program.

Meghan Abele
political science senior

Cheaters in the business college don't represent all its students

I am writing in response to a quote made in the page 9 article of the Wildcat titled "Cheating," printed on Tuesday. In that article, an unnamed business major was quoted as saying, "All we do in the business college is cheat." I say, speak for yourself.

I am in the business college and I don't cheat, and I know plenty of other business students who don't either. I don't know who this "we" you are referring to is, but you and your conspiring cohorts should be embarrassed for yourselves. What happened to integrity and taking pride in your own work even if it doesn't make the grade?

If you are so proud of your fraud that you described as being so creative, why did you choose to be anonymous? If you put your name next to your quote, it might be the first time your name has ever been next to your own words.

Dylan Lauzon
business economics senior

Arts festival fails to meet up to UA mission, increases sex risks

According to its mission statement, the University of Arizona exists to "discover, educate, serve and inspire." In reference to the controversy over the recent UA-affiliated Sex Worker Arts Festival, Matt Ortega, spokesman for the Arizona Board of Regents, indicates that our state universities are forums for the exchange of "ideas as the basis of learning" as long as those ideas are not "harmful to students or the public."

In defense of the event, Julianna Piccillo, director of the festival, claims $2,700 in public funds will "empower (women) to make healthy choices for themselves," provide students with a venue to explore pornography (since students "admit they liked pornography") and provide a venue to talk about "technical ways" of performing "fisting" and other masochistic practices. After all, she relates, students need enlightenment since coeds get "insanely mixed messages about sex."

Excuse me? Mixed messages? How about aberrant, destructive messages? Ms. Piccillo and Mr. Ortego need to make a clarification. Does highlighting lifestyles and sexual practices associated with an increased risk of female infertility and ectopic pregnancy, HIV infection, hepatitis A,B and C, cervical carcinoma, rectal carcinoma/perforation/prolapse, drug resistant gonorrhea, syphilis, battery, depression, anxiety disorder and intravenous drug abuse (to name a few) promote wellness? Do these sorts of outcomes contribute to the empowerment of women? The answer is clearly no. The medical literature from around the world is replete with evidence documenting these and a host of other risks associated with commercial sex work, sex with multiple partners, and sex associated with the masochistic "techniques" exhibited at this festival.

As a UA alumnus (College of Medicine, 1983), I'd like Mr. Ortega to explain what sort of milieu he envisions for our state institutions of higher learning. How does enlightenment, service and inspiration emanate from demonstrations of "fisting"? Do all ideas, even prurient ones, warrant time and space in the public square? Doesn't the survival of democracy depend on the exchange of ideas that promote truth, wholeness and virtue? Or is the value of tolerance so extreme now that we will sacrifice anything, even the sacrifice of truth itself?

Mark D. Lacy, M.D.
Class of '83

Math test cheater in Wildcat photo got the equation wrong

In the Wildcat's well-written article about cheating, you had a picture of a girl reading the quadratic equation off of her hand during a math test. I fully understand a student's need for assistance (even though I do not endorse it), but unfortunately, the quadratic formula has a negative sign before the first "B." I hope this student does not work for or represent the intelligence of the staff at the Wildcat.

Jacob Levy
pre-business freshman

Sex worker festival workshop Îinformative and empowering'

This letter is in response to Daniel Cucher's Tuesday column concerning the Sex Worker Arts Festival ("Sex festival showcases skewed ethics.") Cucher claimed that the festival was unethical and that it was wrong for taxpayer money (from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council) to be used for such a purpose.

The money from TPAC was specifically used for the film portion of the festival, and nothing else.

The films I saw at the festival were self-made films by strippers and prostitutes, describing what led them to work in the sex industry and the dangers and exploitation they faced while doing so. Rather than promoting stripping or prostitution, these films underscored the dire choices facing poor women in our society; women who need to pay for college and need to feed their children.

Cucher's column claims the festival sought to make it more socially acceptable for people to solicit prostitutes or hire strippers. No. The festival focused on workers in the industry, not the consumers of pornography. The point is that these workers should not feel ashamed of the work they do. If Cucher wants to assign shame, let him go after the comparatively wealthy men who consume these services. Or, better yet, let him work on expanding the employment options available to poor women.

The much-maligned "fisting" workshop was actually a safe-sex lecture. The point of the workshop was to explain how to safely and pleasurably use fingers and hands in sexual activity.

I don't understand why this has caused so much controversy. Using fingers and hands is actually a way to engage in a sexual encounter without fear of sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. By most definitions, this is even a chaste activity. I found the workshop to be informative and empowering and I applaud the festival organizers for presenting it. Where else can I get this type of information?

If Mr. Cucher had attended any events at the festival, he would see that he has completely misrepresented it in the Wildcat.

Rachel Wilson
Infant Speech Perception Lab
psychology doctoral student

All animals need to be held to similar standard of dignity

Jason Baran's opinion piece on Monday ("Tom Turkey has a friend: Moby fights for fowl rights") was full of all the arguments of someone who I guesstimate has thought about the issue for two whole minutes.

His definitions of suffering, rights and cognition apply categorically to humans and no one else.

But try an experiment. Place your dog in a box where it can't move and leave him or her there for several years. If you don't believe that animals can suffer or think, then this should make no difference to you. Just ignore his cries to be free.

When the two years are up, club him on the head and before determining whether or not he's still conscious, slice him open. Then eat him.

You may counter that dogs are simply special animals, but you don't realize that you've already breached the categorical human-animal divide, and you have to justify your distinctions. You have to ask yourself what it is exactly that makes human suffering different from or similar to dogs, and what makes dog suffering different from or similar to chimp suffering, or turkey suffering.

Mr. Baran also draws upon his see-no-evil ignorance of the livestock industry and his inability to make ethical sense of the world to support his points. For instance, if preventing a sow from standing up her entire life (via a gestation crate) is not malicious, then I'm missing something. Florida just banned gestation crates. Factory farms are hells on Earth, and many former factory farmers like Howard Lyman have attested to this. His longest argument is a straw man.

No one is advocating giving human rights to animals. Animals are not interested in things like the right to assemble peaceably or form unions. They do have certain interests however, mandated by DNA. We can start with the need to move around (evidenced by the presence of legs and/or wings) and the need not to be in constant pain (evidenced by the presence of a pain center in the brain).

And finally, Mr. Baran's false dilemma: You only have so much energy to apply to world problems, so focus on the human ones. What he doesn't tell you is that all you have to do to stop supporting the factory-farm industry is to

Not do something: Just stop eating meat. While you're not doing that, it's easy to do something else.

Patrick Bolger
second language acquisition and teaching graduate student

Separate church from state, then talk about death penalty

I'd like to applaud Caitlin Hall for taking a stance, though I don't agree with her views. But I have to argue with Mr. Konty.

In the first place, the bible condones and even commands that society use the death penalty (for those who care, Gen 9:6 is just one of 21 different references, only three of which are capital crimes these days; and stoning is a heckuva lot more painful than the injections we give), and in the second place, did you forget about the whole sepataration of church and state thing? Don't use the bible to justify your politics, because while whatever you believe is fine, you shouldn't force it on others. It is society's role to be just. Justice calls that the punishment be equal in severity to the crime. Hence, the only way for a killer to have a punishment as severe as killing is to be killed, rather than living out his days in relative comfort in some cushy jail. Granted, mercy is sometimes called for, but you can never find fault with a society that is only just, while you can find fault with a society that forgoes justice for any reason, even mercy, becasue sometimes it is a slippery slope that could lead to trouble. Oh, and nice try, throwing that biting comment about the second amendment at the end, but without it, if only governments could have the guns, then there would have been no revolutionary war. Maybe it's a little outdated, but who knows? What right do you have to tell me I can't possess something that does you no harm, unless you are trying to harm me?

Edward Dobiecki
creative writing freshman