Teaching excellence announcement overdue

Time is running out for the announcement of the 2003 Summer Session Excellence in Teaching Awards. In a Jan. 30 letter to the editor, Beth Acree, the summer session senior program coordinator, clearly indicated that the awards would be presented this semester. Yet no awards have materialized. Last summer hundreds of students nominated the outstanding instructors who inspired and motivated them. Now the university must recognize those instructors.

Any further excuses or delays by the summer session program will reveal the travesty of this administration's commitment to "focused excellence."

Tom Cuevas
UA alumnus

ÎB-Fish' comic misses mark with Bush joke

"B-Fish," by Dave Low, is sometimes a funny comic. But lately, Low has demonstrated just how vulnerable his foundation of logical fallacy jokes (which Gary Larson made famous) is to degeneration into parroting dumb, hackneyed smears of George W. Bush's military campaigns against terrorist organizations and the states that sponsor terrorists.

Case in point: Tuesday, Low accused the president of storing a captured Osama bin Laden in a Gladware container until election week. Tupperware aside, it begs the question: What is the working premise behind the joke? Do the "Democracy Now!"-radical type of thinkers whom Low is mimicking oppose the capture of bin Laden or other terrorist plotters? If not, do they honestly think the public is cynical enough to buy such a paranoid conspiracy theory? Or do they wish to insult us American voters by suggesting we are so fickle or forgetful as to support the hawkish Bush only as long as we remember his military victories? Or is it that they oppose presidential candidates' pandering to public opinion and think presidents should act more unilaterally? (I doubt it.)

Whatever the premise, either repugnant or completely in contradiction with the punch line, it made for as flaccid a joke as it did a criticism of Bush. Better luck next time.

Erik Flesch
geosciences senior

Students had good reason to vote down fee

So, students shot down the activity fee. Wow. Who could have predicted it? What I want to know is why are people (especially some of the senators) saying it wasn't a fair election? Some are saying that the election process wasn't just. Well, no offense to any senators or anyone else, but it would be intimidating to have someone standing over you while you vote.

There's a reason why voting booths have partitions. Your vote is your vote and nobody else has the right to know who or what you voted for, unless you choose to tell them. For those who felt uncomfortable with the voting, next time tell people standing around you to back off. Don't let your vote be changed because you're intimidated ÷ stand up for yourself!

Sen. Buchanan said he believes students said no on the fee because we were unhappy with the election process. There are two things I find wrong with this statement. First, what if votes were swayed the other way and students voted yes because a student leader was standing 10 feet from them? Maybe the true vote would have been an even larger margin between yes and no. Second, I voted no. I didn't vote no because I didn't like the election process. I voted no because I work damn hard as a grad student and a TA for biology. I earn my money. I don't go to concerts. I don't care about campus activities. I don't care about most of the organizations on campus. I either don't have the time or the energy to do anything but study, do homework, prepare for my labs and grade papers. I pay for my own tuition and fees. I'm not about to give up more money each semester so other people can enjoy the benefits of my money.

So, the fee may have been refundable. I would rather not waste time trying to get it back. I would rather not have to pay it in the first place.

So, to some of the student leaders, stop bitching about the results (especially when there's already a tuition hike in place), and take the word of the students who did vote ÷ the majority of us don't want to pay an activity fee.

Erin Tucker
natural resources graduate student

Appropriate to televise trained killers' deaths

For those of you that missed Sara Warzecka's column yesterday, let me sum it up for you: "Oh, those poor Americans being forced to watch scenes of death, agony and war. It's horrible to see." Yeah, well try experiencing it; I bet it's a lot worse. She argues that as Americans we are entitled to our ignorance and bliss while others die for our luxury. Keep in mind these were not the Iraqi victims of war, but those who volunteered to participate in such. Did you know that while CNN looked like a video game, CNN International showed real images of death and war? If we're supposed to be so great and understanding, how come the media treats us like little sheltered children? Isn't democracy and freedom dependent on an informed population?

She did have a good point in explaining that these images were used solely for shock value, but she then proceeded to drop the ball. These images were propaganda, meant to make Americans believe that Iraqis are savages. What she and almost every other publication fail to mention is that those killed were not simply U.S. contractors but mercenaries. That's right, hired killers. Many of who hail from the South African apartheid, recently out of work with an itchy trigger finger. They kill for love of money and/or killing, and you're paying them to do it. It is not only irresponsible, but reprehensible, of the United States to hire those convicted of crimes against humanity to respect life and restore order.

Mike Sousa
art education senior