‘Monologues’ uses women’s rights as cop-out
I am responding to the absurd article in the Arizona Daily Wildcat, “”ASUA decries bias in choices,”” stating that the representatives of the women’s play, “”The Vagina Monologues,”” had “”their rights pushed aside in a travesty of injustice.””
Yet again, and a consistent theme of this year’s Wildcat, is an article delivering misrepresentation and bias. Conveniently excluded from the article is the fact that “”The Vagina Monologues”” was planning to use ASUA funding to distribute chocolate covered vaginas on the mall to students and other various vagina-related material.
Although the board’s choice to revoke this funding may seem like an infringement on freedom of speech, the board has every right to deny funding to organizations that will make a large portion of the student body feel uncomfortable. This semester, the appropriations board has also denied funding to other clubs that were using inappropriate material for promotions and fund raising. The only difference: Those clubs did not send female representation.
The article also portrayed very intelligent and fair leaders of ASUA as people “”who don’t know what they are doing.”” The Wildcat made the mistake of buying into the political travesty that encompasses ASUA every year around election time. Even the American government does not put on such a two-faced political show as the executives, senators and election candidates come February in March.
The article included a myriad of misleading and didactic quotes from other senators. But remember, no quote or article in the newspaper is ever accurate or indicative of ASUA’s true character – ASUA has none.
So before hopping on the women’s rights bandwagon, look at the situation as it is: The Board viewed vagina-related funding as inappropriate and “”The Vagina Monologues”” cried “”Women’s rights!”” to rally the troops (including the Wildcat) to get their $970.
Way to go, ASUA senators – hope you get more votes in the upcoming elections. As for the Wildcat, you have a journalistic obligation to be fair and I give you a failing grade.
Henry Prestwick political science junior
Congress should move to relieve student debt
Yesterday Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke to an audience of Arizona college students and other concerned Arizonans about what the new Congress is doing to make college more affordable. Arizonans should thank the speaker for prioritizing the issue of college affordability, passing concrete legislation to address the issue and urge her to do more to help students and families.
In January, the U.S. House of Representatives voted by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, 356 to 71, to lower student loan interest rates by cutting subsidies to private student lenders, saving borrowers thousands of dollars over the life of their loan. Nearly 40,000 Arizona students a year at four-year colleges receive the subsidized Stafford student loans. The interest rates on these loans would decrease incrementally over the next four years from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent.
Over the past decade, as states have cut funding to higher education and federal grants aid has slowed, more of the cost of college has been passed onto students in the form of deeper debt. More than two-thirds of students now borrow to pay for college, and their average debt more than doubled between 1993 and 2004.
Student debt can affect a graduate’s post-college opportunities. Many students graduate with high debt-to-income ratios. According to a recent report by the Arizona Public Interest Research Group (Arizona PIRG), 29 percent of public four-year college graduates would have unmanageable debt as a starting teacher in Arizona. High student debt also can determine whether or when to buy a house, marry or start a family. In the worst cases, high debt can lead to default, ruined credit, and wage garnishment that can take decades to resolve.
Lowering interest rates is a great first step to reduce student debt but there is more Congress can and should do to help students deal with their debt. The biggest step would be to cap the percentage of income that recent graduates need to devote to loan repayment at 15 percent. By protecting graduates from unmanageable loan debt, we can ensure that students are able to take advantage of all the opportunities provide by a college education.
Thank you, Speaker Pelosi, for your dedication to these serious issues. We hope the members of Congress will show similar support to our nation’s university students.
Alexandra Gloriosois project coordinator, Students for Arizona PIRG Higher Education
Devin Mauney board chair, Arizona Students’ Association
Erin Hertzog president, Associated Students of the University of Arizona
Iran not ‘stupid enough’ to start war
In response to Kara Karlson’s column last Tuesday (“”IAEA cuts nuclear aid to Iran (finally)””): I have not seen any responses to this editorial yet and that disturbs me. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the United States supported Iraq in its invasion of Iran and then President Reagan was aware of the biological weapons that were being used against the Iranian people and the Kurds of Iraq.
We held in place a “”shah”” in Iran who reigned in the country and could not in the most liberal definition of the word be considered a democratic leader. The Iranian people revolted and started to rebuild their country.
The editorial I question considers the Iranian government uncivilized and barbaric. So is it civilized to repeatedly invade other countries using the guise of “”weapons of mass destruction””? Is it civilized to allow our government to use our tax dollars and misplaced nationalism to fund our own nuclear program? Is it civilized to allow the deaths of over 3,000 Americans and then send more to their deaths because we did not succeed in democratization?
Is it civilized that nearly one fifth of our states’ citizens live in poverty and one fifth are in prison? Is it civilized that we send thousands upon thousands of animals to their deaths so we can clog our arteries, have the luxury of colon cancer and see our children’s delight when they receive a worthless plastic toy manufactured in China? And is it civilized to resort to name-calling and undiplomatic, even callous, unfactual statements against a highly educated, diplomatic, even peace-loving group of people? Is it civilized to support Israel in their killing, their nuclear programs, their invasions? Is it civilized to stand by and allow Israel to send children and other innocent civilians to death in Lebanon because they made a mistake, because Israel has a right to defend herself?
I do not think the Iranian government or people are stupid enough, mean enough or amoral enough to “”wipe”” a country off the earth. It is my belief that Israel has both the means and the emotional and military ability to wipe their enemies off the face of the earth while we sit back and watch. The United Nations gave Israel a right to exist as a nation but in doing so did it give the Palestinian people a right not to exist?
In the 1960s and 1970s, we justified our actions because we were fighting the evil communism. Now we justify our actions by convincing ourselves this is not to maintain access to one-third of the world’s oil reserves.
Anna Ragland senior physiology research specialist
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 weight 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
