Glad non-debates, elections are over

I for one am so happy that Election Day has come and will be gone tomorrow. People will no longer be subjected to the onslaught of negative, knee-jerk reactionaries out in this world.

Each day I read this paper and find no intelligent debate over what might be done to better this country. Instead I see the lefties complaining about Bush and what he will "do." Then I read something from the righties about what Kerry will "do."

Let us all be clear that neither one of these individuals will "do" much of anything because the bureaucracy that plagues this nation is sickening. To get back to my point though, there was no debate at all this year. There were a bunch of sniveling little babies who wanted nothing more than to put down the person they dislike.

Tomorrow there will be a sad, pathetic group of losers who write in and complain that the election was fixed and that the country is going to hell in a hand basket. To all those people, maybe you will remember this election and in four years you will have intelligent debate. Then you can win people over based on rational thought rather than telling everybody how wrong the other person was.

We might actually be able to change things then.

Rob Lofgren
elementary education senior

Volunteer to fill 'post-election void'

Perhaps Brett Berry and others like him should rethink what politics means and how it impacts their lives. Maybe then they would know what to do to fill the post-election void.

If we really want politicians who respond to our needs and actually care about the people they represent more than they care about special interest lobbyists who pay the campaign bills, then the first thing we should do is stop acting like politics only matters come election day.

Voting is important, and for those who haven't even taken that simple step, it s a good place to start. But it's not the end. The day after the election is just as important as the day of; it s the day when those who voted for the president-to-be (assuming we have any idea who that is) hold him accountable and make sure that their votes were well-cast. It's the day when those who voted for the president-who-was or the president-who-never-will-be remind the winner that he still has to represent them, that today's winner can quickly become tomorrow's loser.

A good place to start would be to show up for the Don't Just Vote! Take Action for Peace, Freedom, and Security rally at De Anza Park. The party starts at 3:30 pm the day after the election.

If that's not your cup of tea, then volunteer for a local non-profit group or political party. Go to a City Council Meeting. Write your representatives, state and federal. Write a letter to the editor. Make your voices heard and your actions seen. You may only get to choose on Election Day, but your elected representatives will be making choices on your behalf the other 364 days of the year. Let them know what those choices should be.

Jason Silkey
second-year law student

Likins sculpture 'hackneyed eyesore'

I can't believe the University spent $170,000 on that god-awful statue in the Alumni Plaza. Don't we have enough statues of bobcats around here? It comes as no surprise that Likins came up with the concept - God forbid he consult people in the art department that are trained in communicating ideas through a sculptural medium.

Instead the UA now has this horrendously trite and hackneyed eyesore dreamed up by an engineer-turned-university president and created by some artist from Tubac, Ariz. How much thought could have gone into the concept of a couple of bobcats sitting around anyway? Would it really require all that much more thought to come up with something that conveys something meaningful without resorting to such an incredibly obvious theme as a freaking bobcat? Then to make matters worse, the eyesore gets dedicated to its creator, Mr. Likins himself. Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to dedicate it to an actual alumnus? Likins went to Stanford, for Christ's sake.

And then we have this plaza that took them a year to complete that consists of nothing but a few raised slabs of colored cement and a fountain that looks like 50 people lined up and are pissing against a wall. Yep, this confirms it - the UA campus is the ugliest I've ever seen.

This is how the university spends our money?

Couldn't we have raised a couple of professors' salaries so that they don't take off for Stanford? Or maybe built a pedestrian overpass on Euclid avenue? Likins could have named it "UA alumni Overpass: a monument to money spent wisely."

Stewart Croft
education senior