Listening during class might change student's outlook on events\nI have never attended a class taught by professor Abdulkader Sinno, but based on the article published ("Student's complaint stirs controversy," June 17), I feel confident that I can tell which students are giving the most accurate version of his lecture. \nSenior Lev Wismer and sophomore Kimberly Ventresca have not only learned what Hezbollah does (community service), but why (to gain local support). It sounds to me like these students have gained a deeper understanding of their subject matter based on this pedagogical criterion alone. In contrast, the anonymous student who complained about Sinno on the Students for Academic Freedom Web site only heard Sinno placing the group into one of two fairly simple categories -- terrorist group or charitable organization. Perhaps the student believed these two categories to be mutually exclusive; perhaps he or she never stopped to question whether that assumption is necessarily valid. \nWe can't know for sure. But I think we can safely infer that this student was not listening in class as well as Wismer and Ventresca.\nIn the past, it seems that a student who didn't pay much attention would probably only hurt him -- or herself, for the most part. Now due to the increased ease of sharing information via the Internet, an ill-informed student can potentially do more damage. \nTo me this just highlights a broad principle of our modern world: Greater power means greater responsibility for all of us. With information unfolding around us in unprecedented volume, we all have a greater burden to evaluate it. Please, listen more carefully to what people are actually saying.
Elizabeth Rytting\nGraduate student
Necessary to put Hezbollah's history \ninto context\nI am not familiar with professor Abdulkader Sinno, but I do have knowledge of Hezbollah and its origins.\nIt should be noted that outside of Israel and the United States, Hezbollah is not considered a terrorist organization by the generally accepted definition of terror; that is, an organization that primarily attacks civilians to achieve political ends.\nHezbollah doesn't come close to that category. It came into existence in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, which ended up taking close to 20,000 lives, most of them Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.\nThere were no Israeli civilians involved in that invasion; Hezbollah's attacks were directed against Israel's occupying forces and were as legitimate as the French and Italian resistance to German occupation in World War II.\nThat resistance was also described as "terrorist" by the Germans.\nIn its early days, Hezbollah was accused of blowing up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, although other groups, including Druze, took credit for it as well. Even that horrible act would not be considered "terror" in an international court because it was against a foreign army which, while allegedly there as "peacekeepers," was allied with the Israeli-installed Lebanese government.\nI was there at the time as a photojournalist and was aware, as were other journalists, what the situation was preceding the bombing.\nThat being said, it is a sad commentary on what passes for academic freedom these days when a professor is required to consult the Patriot Act before lecturing on the Middle East.
Jeff Blankfort\nFormer editor, Middle East Labor Bulletin\nUkiha, Calif.
Defending the reasons to vote for Kerry\nRecently, I read a column written by Jonathan Blanks ("Is anyone for Kerry?" June 17) claiming that no one could give him an answer as to why anyone should vote for John Kerry. Well, I find this statement to be extremely arrogant. But I decided that I would educate him on some reasons that someone should vote for Kerry. \n1. As Blanks even conceded in the column, Kerry was a decorated veteran, whether he threw his medals or not. At least he had the medals to throw, unlike some current world leaders we know. \n2. Kerry is an extremely experienced member of the Senate, especially in foreign relations. In our current situation, to me, it seems like foreign relations are something that our current administration is lacking. \n3. Kerry is an extremely intelligent man. In fact, he graduated from the same institution that President Bush graduated from, Yale. \n4. Kerry does not wish to sacrifice our nation's environment for the benefit of our short-term energy needs. He fought to preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. \n5. Kerry actually cares about the rights of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community and is not supporting the constitutional amendment to block states from granting gay and lesbian couples from obtaining the rights that heterosexual couples are granted. He also supports lifting the ban on gays in the military. \n6. Kerry believes giving tax cuts to the nation's richest just gives the people who could spend money already more money that they will not necessarily spend. \n7. Kerry believes that spending more than $100 billion and still giving tax relief to the nation's wealthiest doesn't make sense.\nNow, I do not believe Blanks will now change his vote. He and I simply have different sets of values. But at least I am not arrogant enough to ignore the fact that other people have different values than me. Clearly, Blanks, you are smart enough to understand that people fundamentally disagree on many issues and that this is very natural in politics. \nYou are a political science major, right?
Atticus Westerfeld\nJunior
Kerry's character, world views would put U.S. back onto right path\nReferring to Jonathan Blanks' column ("Is anyone for Kerry?" June 17), Howard Dean has lost the Indiana presidential primary. This means that if you are registered to vote in Indiana, you cannot write him in and have your vote count against Bush. Dean himself would like everyone to vote for Sen. John Kerry. I was a Dean Meetup coordinator, and these are some of my positive reasons for voting for John Kerry:\nIt has become clear that Sen. Kerry is naturally cautious, one might even say prudent, in his speech and actions. If Kerry were president, this would help in reestablishing America's credibility abroad. He also seems likely to reorient American foreign policy to pay more attention to world poverty, disease, labor conditions and climate change. Taken together, for me, these spell moral leadership in foreign policy.\nSen. Kerry has also shown plenty of issue backbone recently. He has not backed down in the face of some very threatening rumblings from conservatives in his own church on the subject of a woman's legal right to control her own body. Single women, Kerry will not betray you.
David Terret\nBloomington
