Peace means understanding\nI am deeply disturbed by Edward Delp's column in the Indiana Daily Student (Nov. 17) about Arafat's death, which shows no more compassion than understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\nThe conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not between the good and evil. Both sides have their responsibility in the spiralling violence in that region. Israel was created on a land that was inhabited and this has given the Palestinians the frustration of displaced people, something nobody can imagine without living it. Now these people fight for their recognition and for their sovereignty over sacred land of Islam, such as the city of Jerusalem (the issue that caused the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations).\nArafat, for years, has represented the voice and hopes of his people. At the beginning, he had to choose violence as a means of expression, because he did not have any other way to be heard. Even if I cannot support it, violence is the means of expression of desperate people.\nAt the end of his life, Arafat was an old man prisoner of his "palace" of Ramallah. His "government" was founded on infrastructures that were either bombed or controlled by the Israeli Army. He had the duty to restore peace and calm among his people, but was never given the means to achieve those goals. In these circumstances, isn't it a little easy to accuse him of supporting terrorism?\nArafat, whether you liked him or not, was crucial in giving a voice to the Palestinians and, that way, guaranteeing a dialogue between Israelis and Arabs. His passing will not help efforts toward a balanced peace process but might allow the united States to move to restore its status of neutral mediator in this crisis.\nTo resolve this conflict, Americans need to address the reasons of violence, the poverty and hopelessness of a very proud people who do not deserve their fate and has to live as prisoners of their own land.\nPeace implies understanding, something the American society, world champion of diversity at home, urgently needs to expand beyond their borders.\nAdrian Borbley\nGraduate student
ACLU hardly terrorist organization\nI am saddened by Edward Delp's column "Domestic terrorism, lurking nearby" (Nov. 29). He twice calls the American Civil Liberties Union "legal terrorists," for its recent lawsuit against U.S. government (specifically military unit) sponsorship of Boy Scout units. I am not a member of the ACLU. I have been a Boy Scout leader (assistant scoutmaster) for over a decade, and I have mixed feelings about the specific matters in that legal case. But Mr. Delp has stepped out of the bounds of reasonable discourse with his label and his argument -- unless he chose that label purely to be provocative, in which case he is guilty merely of sophomoric journalism. \nBecause the ACLU is arguing in a court of law a legal viewpoint that Mr. Delp finds radically at odds with his understanding of fundamental American values, he chooses to call them terrorists. At the end of his column, he compares the ACLU's advocacy of "un-American" values in a court of law with the advocacy of the Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux Klan. If the KKK and the Aryan Nation didn't pursue their agendas in violent and illegal ways, they wouldn't fit the label of terrorist organizations in most people's opinion. Mr. Delp's extravagant and sloppy use of the term "terrorist" -- which he may have picked up from the outgoing secretary of education's labeling the National Education Association as terrorists -- reminds me of the extravagant and sloppy way student journalists have at times tossed around the term "fascist" when describing conservative groups or politicians with whom they find themselves in serious disagreement. His column does no credit to the IDS as a forum for reasonable discourse; rather, it coarsens and degrades the forum and he should be ashamed of what he wrote.\nCarl Horne\nStaff
Free speech for everyone\nIt was hilarious to read the reactions of conservatives to Americans who are considering leaving the U.S. because of President Bush's election. Have these people forgotten how they foamed at the mouth for the eight years that Bill Clinton was president? Emigration seems mild compared to charging the country's chief executive with murder or threatening him with assassination if he visited certain Southern states.\nEdward Delp's column on the ACLU proved to be even funnier ("Domestic terrorism, lurking nearby" Nov. 29). Conservatives have vociferously complained that their tax money should not be spent in ways objectionable to them, like abortion. Apparently they lack the intellectual honesty to extend that idea to those of us who don't want public funds spent on organizations like the Boy Scouts that discriminate on the basis of religious belief and sexual orientation.\nHis attempt to link the ACLU with child molesters would also be funny if it weren't so lame. The ACLU has stood up for all kinds of free speech, much of it very unpleasant. Allowing people to express ideas that we find repugnant is the price of living in a free society. If Delp wants to limit the right of free speech, who will determine what can be said and what cannot be said? I assume he intends that he or people who agree with him will determine what is acceptable. I find that a very scary idea.\nRoger Alexander\nBloomington resident
Hoosiers did not deserve to win\nThe Hoosiers did not deserve the win in the soccer game Sunday afternoon at Armstrong Stadium. I am not talking about the IU mens' team, which took the great win over Boston College on the third round of NCAA Championships. I am talking about Hoosier fans that showed disrespectful and derogatory behavior toward the Boston College's multicultural team. Shouting racist remarks and mocking foreign English accents do not show the appreciation that the IU's men's soccer team and IU as an international community deserve. If the players are able to respect their opponent, why can't the fans?\nTei Laine\nGraduate student
Stoops' coaching justified\nI disagree with virtually all of the assertions presented in Wednesday's sports commentary article ("Scoreboard Stoops ticks me off" Nov. 17). Ryan Phillips claims that the Big 12 is a bad conference. While this may be true of the Big 12 North, the South division is the toughest in the country. Oklahoma and Texas are Bowl Championship Series-caliber teams. Oklahoma State and Texas A&M are ranked in the top 25. Texas Tech is 6-4 and bowl-worthy. Baylor is the only bad team in the division.\nPhillips claims that Stoops ran up the score on Texas A&M last year. Utterly false; check some facts next time. Oklahoma scored no points in the fourth quarter of that game. White had no touchdowns in the second half because backup quarterback Paul Thompson entered at halftime. In fact, Stoops and Dennis Franchione agreed that the clock would run for the entire fourth quarter, even after incomplete passes. Oklahoma's 77-0 win was entirely legitimate.\nDid Stoops try to run up the score on Nebraska this year? He did. What the article doesn't mention is that he was justified in doing so. Oklahoma had just won two very close games against Oklahoma State and Texas A&M. As a result, his team was penalized by the voters, losing ground to Auburn in the standings. You can't have it both ways -- if you penalize teams for close wins, coaches are going to do what it takes to ensure that wins aren't close. That means scoring the extra fourth quarter touchdown if there's a chance it will get you even one or two more votes. Given how close OU is to Auburn in the standings, Stoops' move was justified.\nIn addition to spending less time listening to ESPN's hype jockeys and doing more research, Phillips should channel his anger differently. Hate Oklahoma for Switzer-era cheating or for their weak fight song, but not because Stoops ran up the score in one game. And if you want to see less of that type of behavior, agitate for a college football system where championships are not decided by secret ballot.\nJeff Ruder\nGraduate student
Voting is inherently selfish\nI would like to respond to the letter posted by George Lyle in the Nov. 11 issue of the IDS ("The New American dreamers"). Where you live in America isn't an issue when it comes to voting. However, clearly there are cases being made about it. I believe the portrayal of cities or towns of which exist in the void between inner city life and rural areas is totally inaccurate and an insult to those of us who have lived in those areas. These areas contain people who believe many different things and have different backgrounds. Where we live has little to do with how we vote. Your assumption that we are not affected by tax increases, crime or the Iraq war is also inaccurate. We are also affected by these things. Many students who live in these areas have their college tuitions paid for, while many others don't. His attack against voters who voted on moral values is also very disturbing. What may be considered a moral issue for some, may not fit his description. That doesn't make either party more right or wrong, simply different. \nThere is no rule that says people should vote to help others, or that a person should vote in the best interests of his neighbor instead of himself. And there is certainly nothing saying we should vote for "the guys pushing brooms and emptying trash cans." Voting is a selfish act and that is how it will stay. I vote for the candidate who I believe represents my beliefs, my actions and my voice better than the other. If Lyle feels so empowered by wanting to help out others, I encourage him to drop out of college, sell his car and everything he owns and give his money to those less fortunate. He, according to his statement, is not thinking about other people by spending his money on wasteful education when he could be feeding someone's baby tonight. How dare he. I vote for who represents me, and I do so with the same knowledge as anyone else in this country.\nTodd Waugh\nJunior
Morals a personal matter\nThis is in response to Daniel Hiester's editorial from Wednesday, Nov. 17 ("Don't panic!"). It is so difficult to be a Christian conservative student, even one who has a degree in journalism from IU, when all we are exposed to is the liberal Democratic Party crybabies whining about what the church should or should not be on the editorial pages. Whatever happened to freedom of choice or is that just for killing unborn babies and perverted lifestyles? The church can decide to do whatever it wants; you don't get to approve it. The church doesn't alienate itself from people who differ from it. They alienate themselves. You wouldn't want me to come to a bar and tell people who they should accept as normal behavior. It may be true that only 22 percent said they voted for morals, but that is incredible when you think of the war and terrorism, plus the fact morals wasn't a choice offered. Who said that Dr. Dobson or Pat Robertson speaks for the whole church? Nobody. That is what liberals do. They make a false statement about Christians, then report it, then argue against it. \nI am a God-fearing, Bible-toting person, but in case you haven't noticed, witches are not being burned. Liberals use radical language to make people who are different seem extreme. If they really believe Kerry didn't lose because of "God stuff," whatever that means, please run a pro-choice, anti-family candidate again in four years. Please! And lastly, it is funny that Hiester would say that this is not the most important election in our lifetime, rather it was just another day, because it was John Kerry who kept saying it was over and over. I guess that's only if you win. \nWesley Stephenson\nGraduate student
Thank you, values voters of America\nI hope that IDS readers recognize that George Lyle is as naïve in his opinion column, "The New American Dreamer" (Nov. 17), when he called America's suburban residents "selfish" and sheltered voters. According to Lyle, middle-class citizens who vote based on their principles and values do so only because they don't "have any other pressing concerns." As a citizen of this country, I sincerely hope that the most pressing concern that Americans have is the destruction of our country's values! Lyle touched on topics like war and inner-city crime to push his position, but I'd like to point out that terrorism, war and crime all spring from valueless societies. Put simply, cities like Chicago and Fallujah aren't dangerous because of a shortage of law enforcement, but because of an absence of ethics and moral values! This country was built on a foundation of personal responsibility and virtue. If it wasn't, slavery would still exist, women wouldn't be recognized as citizens and Hitler would probably be in power today. Thank you "values voters!" All I'm asking you to do is think for yourself -- and whatever else you do, don't forget your values.\nKatie Vinson\nSenior
Article doesn't represent students\nThe article "Grading the Grade" does not properly display the attitudes of the student population (Nov. 17). The professor quoted is comparing his GPA from forty years ago to the average today. It might seem that he is below average in that department in the year 2004, but isn't that the point of education; to keep raising our standards of students. We think we should be more concerned if students aren't achieving higher scores than they were in 1964. What would this show if the grades remained constant? That IU hasn't been able to improve the educational value given to students. It's not fair to pressure the faculty into thinking that they're being too lenient in grading. They are college graduates themselves, and understand that sometimes no matter how much a person tries they'll never pass. However, shouldn't their effort be taken into account? We're not saying that students need to receive A's for effort, but effort should be some part of the grade. Grades should be confidential and kept between the student and professor. Therefore, no student in the class should know whether another students score is based on effort or the graded work. If a student is trying, and we've all been that student, then it's fair to take into account the time and energy they're putting into to their grade. As education majors we have been taught that all aspects of a students work and learning abilities should be taken into account, not only a test score. Is education simply going to turn into students coming to class to take a test and turn in work? Aren't there more serious things we should be concerned about than a School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation professor's GPA forty years ago compared to today and the amount of A's distributed each year? As future teachers, we hope that our education system doesn't come to the point where we are only concerned with a students letter grade without other factors taken into account. \nBecky Hurless and Katie Rogers\nJuniors
Misplaced faith\nI was reading Edward Delp's biweekly-conservative-extremist column the other day, and something strange happened. I was inspired by something he said, specifically, "Arafat was a murderer and master manipulator who caused his people to suffer while making himself and those around him rich. Sound familiar?" Why yes it does Mr. Delp, the moment you said that I immediately thought of the few presidents I have grown up with: Reagan, George Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush. These are the only leaders I have experienced in my short lifetime, it's all very sad. I have very little "faith" in this country currently. Come to think of it I stopped having faith in high school when I realized that all those nice ideals of freedom that our country has, are based around conformity (to the right or the left) and a disindividualized populace (see capitalism, moral litigation, etc. ...). I must say though I do have faith in George, faith that he can unite the world against us.\nJared Pool\nSophomore
A sad Ramadan\nThe holy month of Ramadan usually marks with the celebration of Eid for Muslims all over the globe. Yet, this lunar year sets for another somber celebration in the midst of indiscriminate killings which are currently in progress in Iraq and Palestine. Despite Gen. Richard Myers' affirmation on the urban warfare's objective of attaining a peaceful election and a secure day-in-day-out-errands for Fallujahans, the observing world community has yet to see a more concrete counterargument to Lancet's claim of poor war "strategeries" that led to higher post-U.S.-led invasion civilian mortality rate. Unofficial reports from humanitarian agents put the minimum civilian casualties figure at five digits. Let alone the fate of the trapped Fallujahans without drinking water or electricity with the smell of blood and flesh running all over the place. If that's not enough to bother the mood of Eid, how about the loss of innocent lives in Gaza. Arafat, the man Sharon deemed legitimate for a killing target and confined for years, had been recently nicknamed "the father of international terrorism" by the pseudo-liberal Minister of Justice Yosef Lapid. At least Arafat did condemn all terrorist acts towards Israel despite the irrelevance and defenseless state of the Palestinian Authority. Did Sharon, with his full "biggest democracy in the Middle East" mandate, ever condemn the killings by illegal settlers on the victim's own land? Let alone the elders, women and children who were either pierced by supersonic Israeli bullets or crushed by gigantic American-made bulldozers during Sharon's reckless dismantlement of terrorist nest. The act of negligence that results in the loss of an innocent soul is prohibited per se by any moral standards. Two wrong does not make a right. I am very surprised at this level of insensitivity and recklessness the policy makers and the war mongers, with their fullest authority, mandate, privileges and trust, have towards the insensible loss of innocent souls who should be celebrating their greatest celebration of the year by now. Seems that there is more gap between the mere dawn-to-sunset fasting exercise and the real suffering of the unfortunate as the calendar unfolds.\nMuhammad Zulkarain Hamzah\nAlumnus
