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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
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Green Day pick for Grammy misguided

I'm not sure what type of point your GoWild editor was trying to get across, or if he was trying to make a joke, but his reason for choosing American Idiot by Green Day to win the Grammy in the Wildcat Thursday was a little out of line, especially when you consider which month we're in. Just mentioning "Birth of a Nation" as a tool which teaches that "white people art" is superior to any form of art frankly disgust me. But hey, freedom of speech is for everybody, even the ignorant.

Jason Holmes
mechanical engineering junior

Gays deserve to marry

I just wanted to comment on the "Rally for Rights: Same Sex Marriages" article. I think it is funny that people are opposing the idea of letting the gay and lesbian community take part in marriage. Take a look in the past, people, and you would see that the only reason we have marriage licenses and laws were to insure that blacks were not getting married to other blacks or trying to do the interracial thing. The union of a couple is all determined on a single piece of paper that was denying civil rights to African-Americans. Wow...how history repeats itself! What's next: separate drinking fountains for the gays and lesbians? Come on people, grow up!

Lena Hollen
philosophy Senior

U.S. needs to reconsider priorities

In regard to recent comments suggesting that Social Security needs to be privatized in order to guarantee future benefits for all Americans, I recommend that Republicans reconsider their priorities. Social Security is going bankrupt? Well, the United States is currently spending billions of dollars on a war that is unpopular with the majority of Americans and that has no end in sight. We are also granting tax breaks to those Americans who are in the highest income brackets. At the same time, we are not satisfactorily funding education in order to help our children obtain higher paying jobs (so that they might not need to depend so much on Social Security - gasp!) and we are not allowing seniors to get prescription drugs abroad (which might save them a large chunk of the Social Security checks they are getting). President Bush can say what he wants about my future Social Security benefits, but he has so far not proven himself to be concerned at all with my future.

Megan Hendricks
history sophomore

Pretending to free the world

I was just wondering, how come someone can take the principles of freedom and democracy and twist them to serve their own ends? Is what has been happening in Iraq the right way to build a relationship with another country? Does anyone really care about the soldiers who fight, live and die? Or is their fate balanced by how much we gain? What has happened to the use of wisdom in power? Where are the responsibilities and morals of being a leader of this world? Is it greed that has pushed some to use their power as a tool to serve their selfishness while pretending to free the world? The Iraqi people are making choices, but they are based on the goals of American democracy, not on the Middle Eastern culture. Can't some use the knowledge of the 21st century to solve a people problem rather than seeking a new planet to find a good reason to get out of what we are in? Where are the scientists, scholars and wise people? Why don't you talk? Why do we see this silence and for how long will we? Don't some realize that there is an end to this life? Why is it that some care about Princess Diana and her son while others do not care about a child who is left alone? Do Americans care more about taxes than someone's life? What is the meaning of life if you trade off your happiness with the sadness of someone else? Do we want a poker game to be a zero-sum or a win-win game? Why don't we think of the world as one village in a tiny place? By these words, I am trying to give you something to think about rather than worrying about your own future.

Mubarak Alruwaie
MIS senior

Wildcats won't refute East Coast bias this year

I am writing about Shane Bacon's "Five Worst Traditions in College Hoops," mainly his East Coast Bias section, which he chose as the worst tradition. First off, the Atlantic Coast Conference doesn't stand a chance to send seven teams to the NCAA tournament; they will put up six at most, and they are in line to put up five as of now. The Big East, on the other hand, has a chance to put up seven. Speaking of which, the Pacific 10 Conference isn't being disrespected as five teams look to be headed to the tournament at this time of year when one could make the argument that only two or three deserve to go. Second, it's hard to put Salim Stoudamire in the same category as two players that don't exist (McNamarea and Reddick). Their names are McNamara and Redick. The reason Stoudamire doesn't get the attention that they get is because he is not as valuable to his team as Redick and McNamara are. Third, the reason people put Sean May at 6-foot-8 and a junior as a better center than Frye is because he is putting up better numbers than Frye in a tougher conference and on a team in the University of North Carolina that is probably going to see their entire starting lineup get drafted in the first round in the next two years' draft. The UA's current lineup might get lucky to send one player in the first round to the NBA draft in the next few years. Lastly, it's hard to take you seriously talking about college basketball because you got one more thing wrong within about three sentences. Syracuse isn't the Orangemen ... They are the Orange. When writing, stick to something you know, because you clearly do not know college basketball. And for all you other delusional Wildcat fans, you're all going to be disappointed when your team won't advance to the Sweet 16. Sucks...

Kyle Buono
undecided freshman

Social security not as successful as claimed

David Martinez misses the point in his Thursday letter. Many of us do realize that our financial future is at stake and thus demand changes to our social security system.

It is apparent that Martinez doesn't follow the United States' and foreign markets. If he would start, he would see that there has never been a long-term decline. Many of us young, working Americans are investing in these markets anyway; it would be nice to be able to do so tax-free. How does it currently work for an investor? Receive a paycheck, have the government steal 25 to 30 percent of it, pay a commission to buy into a company, pay a commission to sell out of a company and then have the government steal a percentage of the profits. This doesn't exactly encourage investment. A system in which a percentage of my pay could go directly into the companies of my choice, before taxes (much like a 401k), is much more desirable.

Currently, we are forced to blindly pay into a system in which we have little to no faith, which yields lesser gains than the world's markets. Is it asking too much to want control the responsibility for my own financial future?

On another note, Social Security is nowhere near our most successful program. That designation goes to the Tennessee Valley Authority initiated during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Not only did it put workers devastated by the depression to work but also provided the needed hydroelectric power to build the atomic bomb and other wartime supplies which allowed us to finish the second World War.

Brian Danker
UA alumnus



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