Baggy pants ban restricts personal freedom

When I started to read the article “”Atlanta considers banning baggy pants,”” (Monday) I was disgusted. The thought that the government would put a city-wide dress code into place is so frightening it’s almost laughable. So what is all the fuss about?

Apparently some of the people in Atlanta believe that people who show their underwear are promoting “”jailhouse behavior”” and not “”thinking about their future.”” To reform this so-called indecent behavior they want to control what people can wear, prohibiting any bra straps or underwear from being visible. Walking around campus every day I see plenty of guys who seem to be wearing their pants around their knees and even more girls who are sporting tank tops in the 100-plus degree heat. I myself have, on many an occasion, had my bra straps visible in public. Yet, I do not believe that my future is in jeopardy or that I will develop some kind of criminal behavior merely because the world can see a thin strip of fabric that just so happens to be connected to my undergarments.

I fail to see why this kind of clothing should be considered so offensive that there needs to be a law restricting it. Upon hearing that this ban is being seriously considered by the city of Atlanta and has been implemented by several other places in the U.S. I have to ask myself, if this law goes though what will be next? V-necked shirts show too much skin so ban them too? And arms and legs are also indecent, so no shorts or T-shirts? If these kinds of laws are put into place then I truly fear that we could easily end up having the same mandatory dress code as the strictest of Islamic countries.

Doesn’t the government have enough to worry about without concerning itself with what we wear? I think that the government should stop proposing stupid, petty, laws that constrict personal freedoms, lest the America that we know and love lose the freedom that it was built upon.

-Tiffany Shucart
engineering physics sophomore

Hidden costs in bottled water

In Alyson Hill’s column (“”There’s no excuse for bottled water,”” Monday), the link between energy and bottled water consumption is absolutely correct. Unfortunately, the real cost of bottled water is much higher than has been recently reported.

The Pacific Institute estimates that more than 17 million barrels of oil were needed to produce the plastic water bottles consumed in 2006 – a figure that doesn’t even include the energy necessary to fill the bottles with water at the factory, move it by truck, train, ship, or air freight to the user, cool it in grocery stores or home refrigerators, and recover, recycle, or throw away the empty bottles. To put this in perspective, the total amount of energy required for every bottle of water is equivalent, on average, to filling a quarter of a plastic bottle with crude oil.

The real cost of bottled water is high. Hopefully the recognition of the large environmental and economic impacts associated with bottled water will urge more people to turn to the tap.

-Courtney Smith
Pacific Institute
Oakland, Calif.

At least water is healthy…

NestlǸ Waters shares Alyson Hill’s concern about plastic water bottles (“”There’s no excuse for bottled water””). As she mentioned in the article, we are doing our part by reducing the amount of plastic in our new Eco-shape bottle. It contains 30 percent less plastic than most other plastic beverage containers currently on store shelves. We also advocate for stronger recycling programs that would recycle all plastic food and beverage containers whether they contain ketchup, peanut butter or water.

One important point missing in the article is that bottled water is a healthful and convenient alternative to bottled sugared drinks. On average Americans get 226 more calories from beverages than they did a generation ago, and the number of overweight and obese children is up 360 percent. Clearly, Americans need to drink more water ð- whether it is tap or bottled.

We are committed to rigorous testing in our production – once every hour. The safety of drinking water is critical to the health of our consumers. In addition, most of our water sources are natural springs and we own more than 14,000 acres of land around our springs that provide watershed protection, habitat and open space.

-Jane Lazgin
corporate communications director
NestlǸ Waters North America.