Homeless 'problem' misconstrued

I am writing in response to Mike Morefield's column regarding Tucson's homeless population. He is correct in classifying this situation as a serious problem. The homeless people who litter this city's streets and parks do need help. More needs to be done to fix this situation and Morefield's column was an excellent step in making this fact evident. However, treating this problem and its solutions as a "moral obligation" - referring to the homeless people themselves - is not the right way to look at the situation. Terms of morality should be reserved for considering how it will benefit people who do not choose to selfishly remain poverty-stricken and homeless. The ones who have been "dealt the wrong cards" have usually been playing with a hand laced with rampant drug addiction and recurring violations of the law. Ridiculous displays of abandoning personal responsibility for a crack pipe do not deserve the positive face Morefield's statistics indicated: If 69 percent of them want to be more than panhandlers, then why do they spend countless wasted hours on street corners doing something they could easily avoid? What deserves positive attention are the benefits productive members of society will receive once appropriate steps to solve this problem are taken.

Erin McMahon
Spanish and psychology sophomore

The Wildcats don't need Rodgers

Although I don't understand everything about basketball, I love the Arizona Wildcats, and enjoy watching them play. I know this season has not been as great as we all hoped, but it definitely just got better without Chris Rodgers on the team. Sure he had some skills, but he was definitely not as skilled as he made himself out to be. He didn't strike me as a team player; it didn't even appear that he thought that he was part of a team. I was furious and appalled at an interview he gave a few weeks back after he had to sit out for 10 minutes because he was late for a team meeting. He went on and on about how the team's chances would have been better had he started and how the team needed him. I could not believe how highly this guy thought of himself, thereby undermining the rest of his team's efforts and its members' individual skills. Since then, I have watched him closely at games and I realized that in his arrogance, he has very little to no respect for his coach and all the other players.

I applaud Lute Olson and his staff for doing what was right and sending the message that to play for the Wildcats, you must learn to value being part of a team. Lute Olson didn't become one of the top college basketball coaches around for no reason. He has talent, skills and the right focus to make a great player even better and has put together a team that works. I think Thursday night's victory was a start for the team to re-examine what makes the Wildcats great in the first place. It's all about teamwork, and if one cannot respect that or appreciate it, then he has no place on one of the best college basketball teams in the country.

Samantha Goodwin
UA alumna

Bible Jim, detractors equally bad

Bible Jim is gone, and I, for one, will miss him. Apparently he's off to ASU, where he hopes his bigoted, acerbic form of Christianity will be better received. It seems to me that amidst the howling, hatred and heated harrumphing, people failed to see the good that Bible Jim and pals brought to our campus. Their ridiculous hijinks brought an entire community together - Muslims (or as Jim called them, "Islams"), Jews, Sikhs (or as Jim called them, "Islams"), agnostics, even Christians, united by contempt for Bible Jim and his band of merry hatemongers. I only regret not earning one of the coveted "award" buttons that he gave to the most distinguished hell-bound individuals.

One incident I found unsettling, however, involved one of Bible Jim's most vocal opponents, an angry atheist with a bullhorn. He spent most of his time chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, these Christian fascists have got to go," and other uninspired rhetoric. I was also left unimpressed with his intriguing but ultimately baseless accusation that Bible Jim was a part of some elaborate plot by the Bush regime to transform the U.S. into a theocracy - apparently every crackpot with a sign is now an employee of Homeland Security. Most disturbing was when he insisted that, and I quote, "fascists don't have the right to free speech," apparently oblivious to the hypocrisy of such a statement. When I mentioned it to him, he stood by his remark, and repeated it to me (at point-blank range, with the bullhorn). I would like to remind the Arizona Daily Wildcat's readers that freedom of speech applies even to people we don't like.

Sadly, those of us who found both sides morally repugnant were left with nobody to root for.

Daniel Perezselsky
Near East studies and political science senior

Comprehensive border policy necessary for U.S. in longterm

Friday at 8 a.m., the friendly people who support Randy Graf welcomed Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado to our city of Tucson. They passed out stickers with the slogan "Secure America now! No to amnesty." Rep. Tom Tancredo apparently does not understand that it will take comprehensive immigration reform to provide real security on the Arizona-Mexico border. The bill he helped pass in the U.S. House of Representatives, HR 4437, only throws more money after solutions that have failed to work for over a decade. His answer to our broken immigration system makes good sound bites and bad policy.

Is Tom Tancredo running for President in the tradition of another memorable one-issue candidate, George Wallace? Or is he merely trying to revive the Grand Old "Know Nothing" Party of the 1850s? Only he and his political consultants know for sure.

The Pima County Interfaith Council knows that for the sake of our national security, we need comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of the bills sponsored by our own Sen. John McCain and Reps. Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe. PCIC knows that only reform legislation that includes a secure border, a guest worker program, a plan for the 11 million undocumented immigrants to earn the right to be here and a plan for family reunification will move us to a real solution.

PCIC knows that our dynamic Arizona economy requires the work of immigrants who are here and others who will come in the future. We know that Arizona businesses in industries such as agriculture, tourism and land development require immigrant labor to grow and thrive. We know that their success is our success.

What does Tancredo have to offer Arizona and our nation by way of real solutions to real problems? Apparently nothing. We bid him and his useless ideas a speedy goodbye.

Adrienne McCauley
Anthropology senior

Bible Jim, "Islamophobia" linked

Last week, Bible Jim attracted a large, angry crowd and upset quite a number of people with his "warning." It was apparent that most people simply did not like the method he was using to convey his message. After observing this for three days in a row, I felt there was a need to draw an analogy between Bible Jim and the current Islamophobia phenomenon: Many people did not like Bible Jim's particular brand of Christianity or perhaps just simply felt repulsed by his seemingly hateful method of presenting his faith. Most Muslims do not like Osama bin Laden's interpretation of jihad - in fact, they condemn it. Many of the UA students did not reject Jesus Christ, Christianity or God; they rejected hate. Most Muslims do not reject God or peace or understanding; they reject hate. People who knew nothing of Christianity may have had a false impression of the teachings of the Bible and how it promotes peace and love. People who are only exposed to bin Laden's Islam will certainly be persuaded into thinking that the Quran actually taught hate and discrimination.

As an American citizen, it saddens me to know that the mass community has trouble understanding exactly who its enemy is. Naturally, the Islamic communities could have done better jobs of making the public aware of what Islam was prior to Sept. 11 and the media could have tried not to sensationalize news by exclusively presenting a minority of the Islamic community. But we have to remember that as Americans, and especially as educated young adults, that we have to see past generalizations and the obvious. We have to be able to distinguish between an ideal and an opinion. We have to use the knowledge and logic that we have learned. We have to be humans.

Qadri Tung
Molecular and cellular biology junior