Wildcat columnist wrong about Limbaugh

To Shurid Sen, it may seem that Rush Limbaugh is the manifestation of obesity, hypocrisy, demagoguery and the evils that neoconservatism has wrought on mankind (Sen’s column Thursday, “”Rushing to judgements””). But if Sen truly wanted to comment on the events occurring on this glorious planet, perhaps he should have gone directly to the source: Rush Limbaugh. All it takes is a little effort and open-mindedness to find out that Limbaugh is actually a fan of Michael J. Fox and, as he was watching Fox’s commercial, was commenting on how Fox was not as composed as he usually is on television. Limbaugh stated that he believed Fox was either “”acting”” or “”off his medication,”” based on his knowledge that Fox doesn’t use his medication at times when he wants to display the effects of the disease.

Anyone actually listening to Limbaugh talk about this can tell that there’s no malicious intent behind this. Limbaugh’s actual political opposition to Fox was a defense against Fox’s outrageous implications that only Democrats want to cure diseases and that embryonic stem cells are the best and only path to curing Parkinson’s disease. Why, then, all the opposition to Limbaugh? Because Limbaugh questioned Fox, a man stepping into the political arena and supporting a candidate who supports a bill that concerns human cloning, not stem cell research (a practice already legal in Missouri). If any should be accused of demagoguery, indecency, pugnacity, partisanship and ignorance, they are journalists and commentators such as Sen who have an obligation to inform citizens, not deceive them.

Daniel Greenberg
political science freshman

Saddam’s sentence outdated, inhumane

Saddam Hussein is to be hanged. Yes, hanged. Hanged for crimes against humanity. Does this seem weird to anyone else? We bomb the country with fighter jets then noose its ex-dictator with a long piece of thread. It seems outdated, inhumane and just plain cruel. Maybe when we find Osama we can tar and feather him. Whoever decided to execute Saddam with a slipknot should be stoned, drawn and quartered and tattooed with a scarlet letter, just to stick with ancient and cruel forms of punishment.

Jesse Yarbrough
senior majoring in Spanish

Dems blame GOP rather than come up with solutions

When reading the columnist face-off on the editorial page Monday, I found something rather comical. There was the opinion written by the token Democrat and an opinion written by the token Republican. However, when you read the first word of both columns, they both began with “”Republicans.”” Upon reading both articles, I noticed that they were almost entirely about Republicans. It seemed that even the article from the Democrat didn’t have anything to say that was positive about his own party. The entire article was anti-Republican. In contrast, the Republican article showed statistics and points why his party deserves a vote. When you think about it, this is really the climate of politics in today’s society.

Democrats aren’t saying how they will do things better, or mentioning what specific plans they have; they are going with the highly successful strategy John Kerry used in 2004 of blaming President Bush and Republicans. Now, you would think that they would at least say they have a plan, or they know what they want to do. However, they choose to blame the Republicans and even in the opinion column yesterday, all they can say is Republicans have too much power and that’s why you should vote for Democrats. As a voter, you are left with a party that is in power and may have made bad decisions, or a party that hasn’t made any decisions other than to oppose. Makes you think about who America will be safer with.

Adam H. Lewis
political science sophomore

Subcomandante Marcos not as heroic as his portrayal

Mark Poepsel’s hero worship of Mexico’s Subcomandante Marcos reads like a politically correct sacred text. In his guest column on Friday, he writes: “”what the man in the mask represents is the indigenous person against the big, subsidized corporate farm of the United States and Canada.”” What the masked man is, however, is an upper-class white boy with a Catholic school education who was a college professor in Mexico City before making his way to the jungles of Chiapas to lead the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. It is common knowledge that the real identity of this sanctified, pipe-smoking Maoist with “”un corazÇün de oro”” is Rafael Sebastián GuillǸn Vicente.

Though I think it is highly unusual for grown people to conduct business in costume, it was heartening to learn that Marcos is “”smart enough to know when violence is necessary and smart enough to put violence on the shelf for more than a decade to conduct meetings, take notes, smoke his pipe and laugh.”” And now that I am armed with the knowledge that Marcos “”holds keys to the biggest secrets of lasting global peace,”” I no longer fear for humanity. Still, I shall pray that our masked messiah will not drop those keys when he stops laughing and decides to pull his trusty AK-47 off the shelf.

Tom Gelsinon
program coordinator, UA Mexican-American Studies and Research Center