UAPD doesn't help or care about student issues

I have a question. What exactly does our UAPD do? Can anyone tell me? From what I can see they do nothing at all. They sure don't help the students in any way, shape or form. As for what I see, their purpose in being here is only to give MIPs, raid our parties and write parking tickets in the Zone 1 lots.

OK, well hear me out. I called the police for property damage caused by several members of a fraternity. But the police came to take a look, wrote a report and left. They didn't take any pictures or even go ask questions to the members of the other fraternity in which both sides know who did it. They wouldn't even investigate the issue at all. That day, if the police had made everyone step out of that fraternity house, I with several other members, could have identified the members of that fraternity who committed the vandalism. All they said was that they would patrol the area more often. To me, this proves that all members of fraternities can, in fact, get away with vandalism crimes with nothing to worry about. Fraternity members throw cans of paint at each other's houses, they steal $3,000 composites from the sorority houses, and even send their pledges on scavenger hunts with a list of items that are in other fraternity houses. We all know this is old news, yet the police do nothing.

UAPD doesn't care about our students in the littlest way. I summoned one of the officers at UAPD for my court date and she didn't even show up. When you are summoned, it's the law that you show up. So our own police break the law. Maybe she was paid off by the party I was suing not to come. You would think UAPD would want to help you, after all we pay their salaries. So you tell me what has UAPD done for you and your stolen bike, your stolen computer, your spray-painted walls, your stolen stereo or your broken car window? I bet it's the same answer: nothing!

Chris Gabe
mechanical engineering senior

Basketball season still a success for Wildcats

Here's hoping that you can find it in your hearts to dedicate no more than a millimeter of print to any fair-weather fan who now, all of a sudden, "hates Arizona basketball," "thinks Stoudamire was overrated all along," "knew this would happen," etc. I am always amazed by the audacity of people who do not hesitate to discourage and criticize "amateur" athletes who do not perform to their liking when the most pressure-packed situation that many of them have faced compares little to the situation that the Wildcat basketball team faced Saturday.

We all know that the team will be called everything under the sun today and perhaps all week by local, regional and national media. Chat rooms and blogs will overflow with words such as "choke," "couldn't close the deal" and "can't get it done." And most of the people leveling those criticisms could shoot a basketball off the front end of a boat and not hit the water.

So if you must criticize, at least be original. If you have theories about the refs having chosen Illinois to win it all in their office pools, or about Arizona losing because Saturn and Mars were aligned, or stories about rituals you performed all season that you might have broken last night - and of course, that's why the UA lost - then tell those stories. Otherwise, walk it off.

I want to be among the many who congratulate the Cats on their season (as well as the Lady Cats, who balled 'til they falled against No. 1 LSU and was barely mentioned by our collective, and apparently sexist, local media) and wish the student-athletes and coaches speedy recoveries from what must have been heartbreaking losses for them.

William Broussard
rhetoric, composition, and the teaching of the English language doctoral candidate

Arizona showed class in NCAA loss against Illinois

To the UA basketball team and coach Lute Olson:

I know that you probably don't want to hear this from an Illini fan and alumnus, but you won a huge fan on Saturday night. The class that you have shown in the face of such a heartbreaking end of the game is truly inspiring. Please note that I did not say loss or Illini win. I fully and freely admit that I gave up on my team in the face of your onslaught. It was the most impressive game that I have seen any team play against ours.

I congratulate you on the success of your year and hope that we meet on a regular basis. You exemplify everything that college basketball is supposed to be about. I think that the athletic departments of our two schools should figure out a way to play a series similar to the "Border War" that we play with Missouri every year. Maybe a dual neutral-site series in America West and the United Center.

Thank you again for a great game and season. I can't wait until we meet again.

Jim Trail
Illinois basketball fan

Thank you Cats for a great basketball season

Thank you. Thank you for exceeding last year's progress. Thank you for outlasting Duke and Washington. Thank you for giving our school national recognition. Thank you for reminding us of Lute Olson's greatness. Thank you for the buzzer-beater against Oklahoma State. Thank you for the tears of joy and tears of disbelief. Thank you for taking our minds off the news for a few weeks. Thank you for inducing high-fives that made our hands bleed. Thank you for giving us your senior year, Channing, Matt and Salim. Thank you for the many phone calls we made to brag to our high school friends. Thank you for giving us superstitions (we stood in the same spot every night). Thank you for giving us a reason to hate Bill Murray. Thank you for reminding us why we love to go to this university. Thank you for leaving it all on the floor. Thank you for bringing together thousands of people with just one common bond - Arizona basketball.

We would be selfish if we didn't say this was a magical season.

Welcome home and know you've represented Arizona well.

AJ Rountree
secondary education sophomore

Minnesota rampage not covered well in Wildcat

I do not know how many of the readers realize that on the morning of March 21 a suicidal student went on a shooting rampage in a small reservation town in Minnesota, killing nine people in his high school before taking his own life. This is not small news. This is a tragedy that should have received better coverage. I read the Daily Wildcat Tuesday and was blissfully unaware of what was going on. Maybe I skipped over the world news and there it was mentioned, but something this important I would expect on the front page. So it was not Arizona news, I still think something so horrible and sad should have been mentioned and students should be made better aware of what is going on. Even in a later paper I found information, but it was a small blurb several pages in. I understand the Daily Wildcat is supposed to publish articles that are important to UA students, but I feel we are out of the loop enough as it is, with having so much to do, that it is hard to keep up with what's going on in our world. I think maybe situations like the one in Minnesota are much more important then some of the news that is making headlines in this paper.

Kristen Ferguson
sophomore majoring in French

Illinois team saw no better than UA

It just ended, and my first thoughts are that this was one of the greatest games that anyone will ever witness, and it is an absolute shame that one team had to lose. Arizona played brilliantly all night long, and the final score is far from indicative of the effort that was put in by the Wildcats on this night. Even after surrendering a 15-point advantage, even after being down by six in overtime, they still found a way to claw back with a chance to win at the buzzer.

But it was not to be. And this is the horrible shame of the NCAA Tournament - that someone has to lose. Take absolutely nothing away from your team or your school because you deserve every compliment for the way your team played. Arizona played the best basketball anyone has played against us all year long. You were proven to be our match - and I am sure we will meet again.

Thank you for a fantastic game we will never forget.

Matthew Rarey
University of Illinois

Men's basketball team choked

I have been a fan of Arizona basketball for as long as I can remember, and I can remember some times in Arizona basketball history when our team has choked, but never like they choked on Saturday night. I don't know what our team was thinking in the final minutes of Saturday's game, but to me it seemed that the only thing running through their minds was "We don't deserve to go to the Final Four, so let's hand it to a team that does." After watching Saturday's game, that's a sentiment that I agree with wholeheartedly. When we play like we played, we flat out don't deserve to go to the Final Four. When you all but have a team beat in the final minute, then do everything you can to let that team win, it can only be summed up as yet another classic choke-job by our beloved Wildcats.

Brett Moeller
pre-business junior

Protests over much more than pennies

I take issue with the editorial on Wednesday in regard to the Taco Bell boycott.

First, the boycott began on April 1, 2001, so it has actually been going on for nearly four years. Tucson, in fact, had the longest running Taco Bell protest in the country.

Second, this victory was about more than just a penny more per pound. (Although that penny, when passed on to the workers, nearly doubles the picking rate for farmworkers, a more than substantial increase.) This is the first raise that the workers have received since 1978, and deserves more acknowledgement than an uninformed, sarcastic editorial that shows no actual research into the issue.

In addition, Taco Bell agreed to establish dialogue with the workers for the first time - farmworkers will have a seat at the table with growers and Taco Bell executives. And third, Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W and Long John Silvers, has agreed to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to establish a code of conduct for any company Yum! does business with. Being that Yum! Brands is the largest restaurant chain in the world, this victory will affect the lives of thousand of workers worldwide.

Rather than guessing that there are more worthy causes than tomato pickers in Florida, you should be applauding the work of the CIW, who has assisted the government to uncover more than five slavery rings - yes, slavery rings - in the United States in the last seven years. What does the Wildcat consider more worthy than ending modern day slavery?

It is disappointing that the Wildcat decided to make snide comments about pennies and chalupas rather than grasping the scope of this historic victory and what it means to the social justice movement. You obviously missed the point.

Kat Rodriguez
former Taco Bell protester

Newspaper coverage of protesters a joke

As a person who was present at the protest rally outside President Bush's Social Security extravaganza at the Tucson Convention Center, I must disagree with your glib characterization of the protesters. Far from being a pitiful group of people holding signs with four-letter words, the large multigenerational crowd that assembled formed a sea of signs and banners cleverly critiquing the president's policies. And while it is true, as you stated, that many were there to address "other" issues (notably the Iraq War), more than a few people did have signs directly addressing the president's Social Security proposals. For example, my sign read, "Welcome to Bush's traveling Social Security Snake Oil Show." In writing off the protest as a joke, you follow the example of the Arizona Daily Star, which chose in its coverage to virtually ignore the demonstration. But I believe the number of demonstrators was, if not equal to the organizers' estimate of 1,000, at least close. Anyone there that morning could see that it was a significant number of impassioned, but mostly well-mannered, demonstrators that massed on a Monday morning first at two locations near the line of people awaiting entry to the event and later along the side of the road the president was expected to (and did) arrive on to express their opposition to both the war and the president's Social Security "reform" plans. "Protesters accomplish nothing" (as your subheading read) only when the mass media fails to fulfill its duty of presenting an accurate picture of an event to those not present.

Steven Wind
anthropology graduate student

People handing out Bibles not bad guys

Josh Garber's discontent about Christians sharing their beliefs on campus is unnecessary. Though yes, it is a bit irritating to have to pass six or seven Gideons handing out New Testaments on your way to class, it's hardly something to get so upset over. If you don't want a Bible, all you have to do is decline. A simple "No, thank you," if even that much, is all that is necessary. But apparently it is permissible to call the person offering religious discussion an "asshole," because obviously the kind old men are the ones being rude. "Would you like a Gideon New Testament?" Rarely have I heard such abrasive speech! Furthermore Mr. Garber, yes, it is a far off comparison to compare the Gideons to the KKK, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I don't know if you've ever opened a Bible and read any of it, but there is nothing in there that says God loves everybody but African-Americans. In fact, John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world ..." That means everybody. It doesn't say, "For God so loved white people ..." The KKK claims to use the Christian Bible as the source of their beliefs, as do the radical Christians who resort to violence in some degree (for instance Jed Smock), but they have missed crucial instructional verses, and for you to judge these kind people on the same rhetoric is absolutely ridiculous. I completely fail to see how handing out free material is even vaguely along the same lines as the racist allegations Smock made or the atrocities committed by the KKK. Before you say you are a full proponent of freedom of speech, be sure you are not about to follow it with a series of unfounded accusations and cookie-cutter religious bigotry that reveal otherwise about your First Amendment beliefs. I guess people are allowed to say what they want as long as you agree with it. If not, well, then they're as bad as the KKK.

William Carroll
pre-computer science sophomore