Hazing a result of social, evolutionary mechanisms

Cara O'Connor did a nice job on the article about hazing last week.

As she mentioned, hazing is rooted in millions of years of human evolution. Its function is to turn on social reorienting brain mechanisms. The extreme form is called Stockholm Syndrome or "capture-bonding." It was the way captured members from other tribes were socially reoriented to the tribe that had captured them. Capture-bonding is what happened to Elizabeth Smart when she was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City.

Recognizing that hazing actually has a social bonding function rooted in the remote past might help research into effective but less harmful ways to develop strong group social cohesion.

Ms. O'Connor mentioned my (informal) involvement in evolutionary psychology research (my degree is in electrical engineering). If your readers want do dig further, they can try "sex drugs cults" (without the quotes) in Google. There are links from there into various aspects of this field.

Keith Henson
UA alumnus

Jews have historic ties to Israel, right to be there

Isn't it ironic that there are those that decry the inadvertent killing of "innocent" Palestinian civilians at the hand of the Israelis, while championing the cause of the Palestinians as they purposefully terrorize Israeli civilians by blowing up their children? Kris Brown is either negligent or ignorant when he condemns the Israelis for firing missiles into Palestinian-controlled areas (areas with abysmal living conditions since they have been under the PA, I might add). The Palestinians do this exact same thing with homemade rockets (or those Arafat buys for them)! The only difference is that the Palestinians intend to kill civilians, while Palestinian civilian deaths are completely unintended.

Finally, most of those living on the land Israel now rightfully owns fled in 1948 when the every Arab nation simultaneously attacked Israel when it was first created. The only Arabs that are there now are those that were relocated there from Jordan so as to pester Israel in the future. They do their job well. To make a comparison to Arizona belonging to Mexico is absurd. Mexico is not an ancient nation, and its peoples have no historic ties to this land. At best, the Aboriginal Americans living in Mexico have a tenuous tie to this land, although because they didn't believe in land ownership, I don't see how they can rightfully claim it.

Silas Montgomery
history sophomore

APJME promotes radical agenda instead of peace

Personally having met Noah Haiduc-Dale and Carrie Brown when they first started their group to figure out just what they were about, I can say that when APJME president George Torrieri claims that anyone who fears his group misunderstands it, he is wrong. Those who fear are not misunderstanding; they are seeing the APJME for what it really is. After I met with Noah and Carrie over a year ago to discuss their positions, I went away feeling that those who truly care about justice and peace in the Middle East had not an ally, but a rival. For example, even though Amnesty International had declared suicide bombings a crime against humanity, they would not commit to condemning such terror attacks without the common "we condemn attacks against all civilians" bull. The other causes they purport to push are in fact intended to make others think they are a broad-spanning group. Why else would the APJME have so much face-time in the campus press when one of its members is kicked out of Israel? Is it because they are active in promoting the welfare of Afghanis or protesting the U.S. presence in Iraq?

The APJME deftly and deceitfully uses vague language, avoidance of hard questions and a veil of objectiveness to push, not an agenda of peace throughout the Middle East, but rather a campaign to de-legitimize Israel and create an atmosphere of hostility on campus toward that country. That's the real APJME.

Jeremy Slavin
political science senior

Anti-Defamation League doesn't have credibility

As APJME president, I would like to commend the Wildcat for writing a balanced and professional article about our group. As someone with both Italian and Jewish heritage, I would like to respond to the director of the Arizona Anti-Defamation League, who expressed "concern" about us.

Last week, the ADL gave its Statesman of the Year award to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, commending his "support in the war on terrorism."

The week before that, Mr. Berlusconi outraged everyone with an ounce of sense by claiming that, "Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini sent people away on vacation, in internal exile" (presumably meaning the 8,000 Italian Holocaust victims Mussolini helped ship to Auschwitz, as well as thousands and thousands of political opponents of all nationalities. For more on this, see http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.09.26/news6.berlusconi.html.). I am therefore extremely happy that an organization on record for giving prizes to Holocaust deniers expresses "concern" about us.

I am, however, also puzzled that anyone would accord such an organization any credibility for judging anyone's Anti-Jewish or Anti-Israel bias.

Giorgio Torrieri
physics graduate student

Opinion substitutes for facts in Lombardi column

As an avid sports fan, I typically enjoy reading the Wildcat's sports section regarding our university's performance and occasional commentary by the staff writers. However, I'm disappointed in Branden Lombardi's shallow commentary in his article "Prediction for October: A Fall Classic by the Bay" (Oct. 2, 2003).

His heavily biased and uninformative commentary was simply a waste of space in the paper. I could have summarized the commentary in one sentence: "Lombardi is from the Bay area; therefore, Lombardi predicts Giants or A's as World Champions." Lombardi fails to predict each MLB game winner on the basis of historical performance data and instead follows his own emotions ÷ which, quite frankly, most of the student body doesn't care about.

Granted, I give credit to Lombardi for his proven knowledge of baseball. Still, it's unfortunate that he does not utilize it efficiently enough to give logical predictions. For instance, he uses "reiki treatments" and hatred towards Yankees as reasons for the Twins to beat Yankees. He also defends his Cubs vs. Giants prediction due to a lack of booze. C'mon Lombardi, show a little substance in your argument.

With that in mind, I suggest that any future predictions should have minimal emotional appeal and instead include a defendable argument ÷ similiar to any avid professional sports journalist from ESPN, Sports Illustrated or Fox.

Kristie Manalo
engineering sophomore