Cats RIDDE, SafeRide provide wrong incentives

There has been much talk recently about a program called Cats RIDDE which would provide a "free" ride home for students who are too drunk to walk or drive home safely. It is common sense that such a program is not free as someone has to pay for the service to run -either in Arizonans' taxes or students' tuition.

It is a shame that in our society, safety has shifted away from the responsibility of the person to the responsibility of the government. I should not have to pay money to keep students safe who choose to make stupid decisions. What ever happened to calling a cab? Freedom does not come without responsibility, but the UA Cats RIDDE program would give students freedom with irresponsibility. If you make a bad choice, you suffer the consequences. But I guess if you don't have to make your own decisions, you cannot be responsible for your own mistakes.

A similar program is SafeRide, which is also not free as tax or tuition money must pay for it. This program takes students nowhere a $3 cab ride wouldn't. If you feel unsafe walking home at night or are stupid enough to get drunk without a ride home, that's your problem; so take responsibility yourself.

Stop asking the rest of us to bail you out with our tax dollars.

Eric Austin
Engineering Physics sophomore

Greek organizations also raise money

I wanted to address the gentleman who wrote about greek philanthropists. Sir, you do make a good point - people do need to do hands-on volunteer work. However, there needs to be a balance between donating money and donating time. Without money, the people who can spend time volunteering will not have anything to work with. I wanted to point out that you have chosen two completely wrong examples to make your point. First off, Theta Nu Xi, along with other greek organizations, donates plenty of time volunteering in our community. We volunteer at places such as Casa de los Niños, hospices, the Brewster Center, LifeCare, the YWCA and the YMCA (when people go to these places, it does not get published in the paper the next day!). However, due to our busy scheduling and lack of money, we were not able to fly all our girls to Sri Lanka one Friday afternoon to volunteer there. So we did the next best thing - raise a lot of money to put into the hands of professionals who can help those in need. Sometimes, big organizations just need money in order to implement plans they have to help people, and I hope you can respect the fact that we did what we had the power to do. Regarding Alpha Epsilon Phi's effort to raise money for AIDS research, I wanted to say something similar. Most college students do not have the lab experience and knowledge needed to find the cure for AIDS. So what do we do - the next best thing. We raise money professionals can use to purchase supplies and other things in order to carry out their research. As college students, we have a lot on our plate. Therefore, we do everything we have time for and everything we are capable of. I hope that you can realize this and not be so judgmental next time you target a community.

Mansi Kotwal
physiology senior

Fashion show good example of service

Although I am not a member of the particular sorority you decided to target, I find it very rude and offensive that you would bash an organization for trying to do a good deed. I attended the fashion show that took place about two weeks ago, not to go see the clothes but to support an extremely needed cause! I assume you were not there and missed the slideshow they presented about the tsunami victims and the speech about how one of their members is taking the money herself to particular locations! Of course you are entitled to your opinion and like most, you most likely are going from hearsay. I think you need to check your facts about the greek community not being "hands on;" just to name a few, my sorority and another fraternity are in fact going to Habitat for Humanity for the second year in a row this Saturday. And what about the Greek Or Treat that is put on every fall by all fraternities and sororities, not to mention each chapter's individual philanthropies that they focus on and promote through out the year. So check your facts, and I will be looking forward to actually seeing the Wildcat at some of the wonderful rewarding philanthropy events that the greek community puts on!

Julie Winn Greer
psychology sophomore

ASUA needs to take risk on conservative speaker

This is in response to Cerridwen Johnson's comments in Monday's paper regarding Michael Moore's visit. What the the vast majority of people at this campus don't seem to understand is that although the ticket sales for the Michael Moore speech did pay his fees, ASUA would have been stuck with the bill had ticket sales not covered it. That is what it means to sponsor a speaker. I would have no complaints against ASUA if they had been willing to take the same risk for a big name conservative speaker. ASUA gave no assistance to bring Ann Coulter to Centennial Hall. As for the repeated comments by Mr. Johnson to "grow up" and "get over it," the Republicans have acted far more maturely than many Democrats have in the past. Although some Republicans did vocally interrupt the Moore speech, none of them attempted to assault him physically. I will get over ASUA sponsoring Michael Moore's speech and not sponsoring a big name conservative speaker when I see ASUA and Alistair Chapman formally apologize for being more than a little biased in their presentation of views.

Jereme Bintz
political science senior