Rec Center cooperation is best for workouts

I found Taylor Kessinger’s column (“”The weight room: A laughing matter?””) about the Rec Center very narrow-minded and simplistic. Most of the observations that he used to play his “”game”” were either not relevant to lifting weights or were complaints about alternative styles of lifting.

The commonly accepted idea for weight lifting is that your muscles are made of short twitch and long twitch fibers. Working out with light weights for a longer period of time will work out your long twitch muscles and make your muscles more toned, while doing fewer reps with heavy weights will work out your short twitch fibers, causing you to have bigger muscles that are stronger but lack endurance.

Taylor also noted that there were people doing the exercises wrong shortly after writing about people that are not exercising with enough weight. The fact is that it is best to learn how to do the exercise right at a lower weight than incorrectly at a high one. Incorrect technique can hurt you and cause you to not even work out the muscles that you originally intended to work out.

I would also like to point out that gaining muscle would be more relevant to the second law of thermodynamics since you are increasing the organization of muscle in your arms by lifting weights. Lifting weights doesn’t break this law, however, because gaining 50 pounds of muscle would require you to digest (disorganize) a much greater amount of food.

I think the key to most of our Rec Center problems is cooperation on everyone’s part. If you see someone exercising incorrectly, offer your advice. The employees at the Rec Center are also a good source of information and will even spot you on some of the more dangerous exercises.

Fletcher Jones pre-pharmacy freshman

Hardaway sign at Saturday game inappropriate

Something very disappointing happened on campus Saturday afternoon. I am not talking about the fact that our basketball team did not show up once again on national television. However, the incident did occur at the game. A student was holding a sign with the phrase “”Tim Hardaway for President.””

I was more dismayed when nobody around the student appeared to do anything about it. For those of you who are unaware, a recent quote from Hardaway, a former NBA player, was, “”I hate gay people,”” among other discriminating remarks. I do not know if the student who was holding the sign thought it was going to be funny, or maybe he thought it was an innocent incident, just like the “”black-themed”” party held recently off-campus, or maybe he truly believed Hardaway should run for president. Maybe David Duke could be his running mate.

Is this the message we want to send to the rest of the country about our school? We received national attention about the theme party incident. Thankfully, either CBS was smart enough not to put the sign on camera or somebody around the student told him to quit holding it up. Either way, the poster board could have left another poor representation to future students.

We need to ask ourselves as a university community: Do we want our school portrayed as one with prehistoric thinking or do we want our school portrayed as a forward-moving breakthrough university? We each need to think about the consequences of our actions or words before we try to have a cheap laugh at the expense of someone else.

Wade Wietgrefe planning graduate student

Dems support troops in a different way

Friday, a letter by Erin McMahon (“”‘Support the Troops Week’ nonpartisan””) was published which contains incorrect information. While it is true that the UA Young Democrats were kindly invited to participate in the College Republicans’ Support the Troops Week, we did not accept the offer for several reasons.

UAYD also “”supports the troops”” but in a very different way. Our vision of supporting our servicemen and women is bringing them home as soon as reasonably possible and taking better care of them while in the field and after their service. We owe it to them for their incredible service and sacrifice. We feel that the presence of military recruiters at the College Republican table this week was inappropriate to their cause of “”supporting the troops.””

UAYD would normally choose not to comment on a College Republicans event such as this; however, Erin McMahon’s article demanded some clarification. We respect our young activists from across the aisle and would never encourage demeaning statements about their characters or motivations.

Casey Catlin president, UA Young Democrats senior majoring in English and psychology

Prayer can’t replace action

The students praying for campus (“”Students pray nonstop””) for 40 days are not directly harming or offending anybody, including me, an atheist. However, prayer can be dangerous and harmful when it takes the place of action.

If you think racism, discrimination, and bigotry is a problem on campus, then get involved through a club like Diversity Initiatives. If you think drinking is a problem on campus, then host some safe, alcohol-free events like a movie screening on big drinking days (such as Dead Day).

It’s all fine and well to pray if you are diagnosed with cancer, but you also get chemo. The same principle operates here: If you want to change campus prayer alone isn’t going to cut it, you need to take action as well.

Chris Bischof history senior

Purpose of ‘Monologues’ funding misconstrued

I’m writing in response to Henry Prestwick’s letter in Tuesday’s paper (“”‘Monologues’ uses women’s rights as cop-out””). Prestwick seems to have done about as much research on this subject as have all the people who say “”The Vagina Monologues”” is a play about periods and man-hating.

For a man who’s so interested in balanced ideas, you’d think he’d take the time to find out what the Vagina Warriors used their funding for. Not a single solitary penny of ASUA money was spent on chocolate vaginas. What was it spent on? Production costs for the show. I don’t know if Prestwick has ever produced a play himself, but I can assure him that venues are not free, programs do not print themselves and lighting is not a magically occurring event.

If Prestwick had seen the show, he’d know that the Vagina Warriors had to ask patrons to recycle their programs so they could be reused the next night. Had they received the funding they had in previous years, perhaps that would not have been necessary.

I also question Prestwick’s assertion that “”a large portion of the student body”” was made uncomfortable by chocolate. It seems Prestwick doesn’t understand that the show is meant to make you feel uncomfortable. I would be horrified to learn that anyone on our campus was “”comfortable”” with sexual assault, which is what the play is trying to highlight.

I’d also say, on average, more people were offended by the eight-foot mutilated fetus that no one could avoid seeing than the two-and-a-half-inch chocolate vagina, which was not forced on anyone who did not wish to purchase it. Contrary to Prestwick’s letter, the UA is very vagina-friendly place. I love mine, and I’m sure that if Prestwick had exposure to real-life vaginas, he’d love ’em too!

Katie Mann junior majoring in English