Let’s go to Vegas, Dr. Shelton

So, once again our football team was able to use their homecoming magic and beat a team that is ranked! But what was even more amazing than beating the No. 8 team in the country, being on national television, doing the first-ever card stunt in the state of Arizona or rushing the field was that both during Bear Down Friday and the bonfire, President Robert Shelton said the score would be 28-24 with a Wildcat win. So in a year and three months (when I turn 21) I hope Shelton will accept my birthday invitation and come to Las Vegas with me! Or even better yet, we can head down to Mexico before next week’s games. So congratulations on the huge win Wildcats, and Shelton, I am still impressed with the call you made. Lets keep up this homecoming tradition!

Sara Pat Badgely
family studies and human development sophomore

FGM a barbaric procedure

In her “”Collision of Cultures”” piece, Vanessa Valenzuela was positively tepid in her assessment of the barbaric practice of female circumcision. In fact, the article read more like counsel to would-be immigrants: Abuse your daughters before coming to America. Sage advice. Why should Valenzuela, or anyone, be troubled at judging this practice and the cultures that perpetrate it as anything less than barbaric and, indeed, inferior? Simply put, why should child abuse be “”a polarizing topic”” as the author stated? If there exists in this country a pro-child-abuse lobby, I’d like to hear its arguments. In the 19th century, Gen. Sir Charles James Napier, ruler of the British holdings on the subcontinent, said of the custom of Seti (the immolation of widows), “”We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them.”” Similarly, in the United States, when parents abuse their children (regardless of their ancestral homelands), we rightly send them to jail. A note to the author: The purpose of opinion writing is to espouse an opinion, not regurgitate multicultural platitudes and the harebrained ruminations of a corporate sensitivity training seminar.

Patrick McNamara
UA alumnus

Pro-life movement seeks to preserve all life

Damion LeeNatali’s article about the pro-life cause (Wednesday’s “”What it really means to be pro-life””) is amazingly accurate on only one point: Those who are truly pro-life think that the life of those yet unborn should be protected at all costs. His view is that this fact has been kept quiet by most pro-lifers as they attempt to repeal or weaken abortion laws. He concludes that with states like South Dakota and nations like Nicaragua seeking to ban abortion entirely that the “”mask”” of the pro-life movement is being removed. Unfortunately LeeNatali is confusing politics with actual belief. Those who support the pro-life agenda are not trying to hide anything. All pro-life advocacy groups believe that the life of the child must be defended and addressed. However, when abortion enters the realm of public politics, then opposing views must be addressed, and as with most political agendas, compromises must be reached.

While it is true that most pro-life politicians would not dare promote a complete ban on abortion, it is also equally untrue that their constituents are trying to promote a hidden agenda. Those on the pro-life side see the necessity of limiting abortions in any way that they can. If political compromises can be reached to limit the destruction of unborn humans, then every pro-life group would support that. This does not make them hypocrites. Neither does it mean that they believe “”some fetuses are more worthy than others”” as LeeNatali suggests.

It is in fact the liberal faction of the political spectrum that has skewed the abortion issue. They refuse to speak of abortion as the ending of a human life. This simply cannot stand for those who see abortion in such terms. Hence any means by which a human life can be saved is viewed by the pro-life groups as a step forward to the ultimate cessation of the human genocide that is abortion on demand.

Joseph Morgan
non-degree-seeking graduate student

Engineering students hurt Raytheon strikers’ efforts

I was dismayed to read the recent article on university students and the Raytheon machinists’ strike (Thursday’s Arizona Daily Wildcat). My dismay stems from the fact that there was no discussion in the article of the fact that each time the students go to the plant for employment or internships, they are crossing a picket line. Some brief mention was made of the nature of the machinists’ demands, but none was made of the fact that the engineering students are not only not supporting the strikers, but are also hurting their efforts by helping management keep the plant open during the strike. The university administration must address this situation to ensure that members of the student body will not be allowed to cross picket lines and to be used as unpaid scabs.

Paul Gattone
history graduate student