Pride highlight of home football games

I just have to respond to the letter from Toni Wright commenting on the Pride of Arizona's performance at the USC game. I too was sitting in the same area, but failed to notice the Trojan Pep Band "taking over the stadium." Did I miss something?

If you mean that the Trojan band blatted their annoying repertoire of two whole songs over and over again, then maybe you're right. The POA tries not to be annoying to fans by only playing when it is appropriate. As for the halftime show, I cannot believe you take issue with how they came off the field and gripe because after halftime the band members are allowed 15 whole minutes (after a strenuous performance and being in those uniforms for four hours) to get a drink and wait in line to use the restroom!

The band does work hard. It is on campus day and night for a whole week before classes start in August, and marches its butt off in the heat, the rain, the cold and the dark for hours every week during the fall semester. Unlike where I went to college, band members here receive no compensation, no pre-registration and no scholarships. They are stuck in a small, dirty corner of the stadium like an afterthought because the "fans" want the 50-yard line seats, and are subject to constant pissing and moaning from apathetic alumni who sit on their hands during every performance.

If any "lessons" are to be taken, Ms. Wright, I might suggest something for you: contact LSU. Its fans applauded loudly for the POA, and they even came to the post-game rally to shake hands with band members in appreciation of the kids' hard work. They are a marvelous example of what true "fans" should be, and role models for us all.

I come to the games specifically to see the band, not football. If the band bothers you that much, you can always bring a book and read while they play. I do that when the band isn't playing, and it seems to work just dandy.

Patricia K. Scott
San Diego State University band alumna

ÎRhythm' lacks good grammar, humor

Here's the thing: The artist who creates "Suburban Rhythm" is not funny. It's not funny when she takes other people's jokes and uses them as her own, it's especially not funny when she tries to think of her own jokes and it's not funny when she consistently spells words incorrectly (i.e. misspelling "those" Monday and "wrong" Wednesday). I would expect that from someone at Pima, but defiantly not at the UA. Here at the UA, we are forced to take endless classes in general education; some even have a strong emphasis on writing. Still, people manage to misspell common words and write incoherently on a daily basis, even when technology has provided us with the convenience of spell-checking. Normally this wouldn't irritate me so much, except that it's being printed in the paper at least twice in one week and no one's catching it. Finally, I ask that those in charge at the Wildcat think long and hard about next semester's comic lineup and consider allowing a worthwhile comic to be in five days a week to fill that humor void (and by that I mean "Optimal Stubble").

Leslie Coffman
communication senior

Renewed enforcement mystery to students

This letter is in response to the article titled, "Agencies go after underage drinkers." Throughout the semester, countless editorials have battled back and forth about underage drinking and its effect on the university as a whole. On one side, there have been the people who preach about the pitfalls of underage drinking and the fact that, yes indeed, it is a crime. On the other side are a majority of students who attempt to justify their right to consume alcohol freely regardless of what others may think or enforce. Personally, I am apt to side with the students for one reason: Tucson Police Department and other agencies throughout Tucson have turned a blind eye to the stigma of underage drinking until now. I am just perplexed as to why these agencies have decided all of the sudden they actually care that students are participating in underage drinking. Why now? Intense enforcement of this law should have been going on 30 years ago when they increased the drinking age from 18 to 21. These agencies are now facing an incredible amount of backlash from the student community because they have decided that they are going to judiciously enforce this law rather than occasionally observe its presence. Underage drinking has gone from the equivalent of jaywalking to the equivalent of murder almost overnight. Students are now becoming disillusioned with the newfound righteousness of Tucson authorities, who are more liable to hand someone an MIP than find the people who stole my car stereo or robbed a bank. This law went from being an afterthought to the main focus of the authorities' attention, and it has created a skewed sense of priority for the individual officers who enforce these laws.

Underage drinking is already a fact of life for some people at this university, and if these agencies had wanted to prevent this from happening, they would have stepped in many years ago. Now, their overbearing presence is merely a futile gesture. Maybe TPD and other agencies should start to focus on where underage drinking gets started: high school.

Kyle Booen
pre-pharmacy sophomore

High testing standards do little for poor schools

I just took a break from writing a report on the move for standardizations in education when I came across a letter by Ariana Ford. She criticizes the Democrats for practicing hypocrisy by accusing the Republicans of being racist and then holding their own racist views. I don't care to address this directly because I think that trying to label either party as virtuous or deceitful is to create a meaningless dichotomy. She does, however, bring up an interesting point in her last paragraph that deserves some attention.

She claims that the Republicans, especially President Bush, are trying to help minorities by increasing standards of education in poor socio-economic neighborhoods. The problem with this view, as many of the authors I have been reviewing can vouch for, is that raising the standards does nothing if the availability of resources and funds is not raised simultaneously. This would allow schools in poor socio-economic neighborhoods to operate and educate at a level that is comparable to that of the high socio-economic schools the source of the testing standards they are supposed to meet. In this way, the current Republican regime has undermined the education and advancement of many minorities (who tend to inhabit these poor socio-economic neighborhoods). Instead of raising the standards of education, they have raised the test standards with the assumption that everything else will miraculously fall into place on its own and that these disadvantaged schools will simply lift themselves out of despair.

This is foolish and dangerous because the real result is that these students are labeled stupid by arbitrary tests while their education goes unimproved. If Bush really wants to help (which I'm not convinced he does, considering his educational budget cuts in favor of war funding), he needs to combat the inequity of resource allocation that currently plagues our school system. Once this disparity is gone, we can expect all of our children to consistently meet higher standards.

Ravi Arora
psychology senior

Multiculturalism creates room for disagreement

In regard to Susan Bonicillo's column, "Multiculturalism, a misguided outlook," I can only explain Bonicillo's attitude toward multiculturalism as a misinterpretation of this notion, or as a classic example of distortion. When she defines this ideology, she states that the ideology requires one to "be entirely accepting of other cultures." However, confronting stereotypes does not necessarily mean accepting a culture in its entirety, nor does it mean taking everything a culture has to offer with "a blind eye." In order for us to understand a particular difference within a culture, one that we might strongly disagree with, first we need to accept the culture in an unbiased, intimate way. Once we truly understand how these differences may have originated, either as a result of certain social circumstances or political forces, we may still continue to disagree with the differences, but come to learn our similarities. As a result, we can become tolerant of this culture, one that we were previously unaccustomed to.

In concluding her column, Bonicillo shifts her scope and states that the United States values ethnicity more than personal merits. However, she is missing the point ÷ the reason many universities value multiculturalism is because people who come from certain countries and study in the United States may have been disadvantaged in terms of their grades or financial status. Yet those people have other qualities that they can offer to the diversity of a campus and to a society. What is more troubling in her column is that Bonicillo does not offer any alternative to confronting stereotypes or even how to bridge that gap between people. I strongly believe that learning how to accept a culture is different from accepting it without criticism. Bonicillo fails to seek this fine line.

Ayse Guner
UA alumnus

Abortion ban dangerous due to unclear language

On Nov. 5, 2003, President George W. Bush seriously endangered the health and human rights of women in the United States by signing the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban. As medical students, physicians and public health workers, my colleagues and I are concerned about this ban due to its vague language and the negative effect it will have on women, children and families throughout the nation. The passing of this ban sets a dangerous precedent toward outlawing safe abortion procedures in this country, leaving women, especially those without resources, with no choice but to utilize unsafe or self-inflicted methods to terminate a pregnancy. In countries without legally protected abortion, women die at over 1,000 times the rate of women in countries with safe, legal abortion procedures. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban is a legal document written by non-medical people, which leaves health professionals unsure about the actual restrictions of the ban. Many Americans have been misled into believing that the ban only refers to certain abortions. In fact, the ban is written in language so medically ambiguous that it does not refer to just one abortion procedure ,but could potentially apply to some of the most common and safe abortion procedures performed. While abortion opponents describe partial-birth abortion as a procedure that takes place late in pregnancy, the law against the procedure does not include any language specifying the timing of the procedure. This means the ban potentially criminalizes abortions performed as early as the 14th or 15th week of pregnancy. Most importantly, the ban does not even allow for these procedures when the health of the woman is endangered. We encourage you to challenge the legality and morality of this legislative decision and demand that the united states government protect the health of women.

Jaime Michaelson
second-year medical student

Stop voting; participate in direct democracy for once

Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, once said, "If voting changed anything, it would be illegal." This is still true. If you waste your time at the polls next year, you can vote for a murderous, racist oil junkie ÷ i.e. any candidate. If you vote for Bush, he will tell you straight-up that U.S. taxpayer money will be going to big oil, pharmaceutical and logging interests. On the other hand, you could vote for a Democrat who will tell you he will not bow to corporate interests and will make the standard of living higher for everyone; then he'll turn around and continue to sell this country to big business while people starve and die of depleted uranium exposure worldwide. Voting in this country is a waste of time; but still, if your candidate wins, if it goes against the wishes of the ultra-rich, the Supreme Court will just appoint the candidate it wanted in the first place (remember 2000). Finally, even if you do vote, how much does any bigwig in Washington, Phoenix or even the city council know about your life, and how much can they possibly represent everything that you believe in when trying to balance some ideology against the corporations that have bought them their office? Instead of voting, go out and find an organization that believes in direct democracy and doesn't waste time trying to convince people that voting will actually make a difference in our lives.

Patrick Bigger
geography sophomore