ONLINE ONLY: Jordan River Forum

I'll grant Christina (Galoozis', "Open your mind," Wednesday) that there are closed-minded people in the world today, but I think it's only fair that people who accuse others of being closed-minded should be the ones looked at closest. With that in mind, I'd like to ask what magic wand did you think taps people the summer between high school and college that makes them stop teasing people? I don't know about you, but my freshman year I was pretty much the same sarcastic guy I was in high school. So your complaints of getting teased your freshman year all fall on deaf ears to me. Four years in Collins, and I still trade jabs with my friends about our political and religious views. I think you need to learn to tell when someone's disagreement with you is closed-minded. If I were to say that all people with last names starting with G should be put in an internment camp, I would not find you calling me a psycho and refusing to come to any compromise with me being closed-minded at all, because my stance puts you or someone you care about in danger. As for your opinions, they might be closed-minded if you fail to recognize some key points. For example: pro-choice people think taking the abortion option away is even crueler than the act of abortion. Nixon (a Republican) established the quota system for affirmative action, so take it up with your own party. Also, when did the idea of "protecting the sanctity of marriage" become important to the American people? Was it after "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette"? And I don't let Hollywood do my thinking for me. If I did, I would have been one of those poor saps who thought the "Blair Witch Project" was real or that Harry Potter was attacking Christianity (although I suppose the latter is more an example of letting the "Christian Right" tell me how to think). Frankly, I think true tolerance and diversity can only be achieved if we treat this like a dance and accept that toes will be stepped on from time to time. Because not listening to others because you believe them to be closed-minded is just hypocritical. Terrence Dellinger
Senior I completely disagree with Christina Galoozis' article ("Open your mind," Wednesday). I think she is ignorant about what the term "closed-minded" means. The only good point she made was that anyone who wants to associate solely with people like themself is closed-minded. However, in the paragraph where she asked whether or not she was closed-minded, the answers to all of her questions were "yes." I don't think that she has taken the time to understand why people believe she is closed-minded. Just because you don't believe in abortion or gay marriage does not give you the right to prohibit other people from doing it. If you personally wouldn't have an abortion, that is your business, but a woman has the right to choose. If you personally are not gay or are uncomfortable with the thought of gay people being married, that is your business, but you do not have the right to tell somebody else that he or she can't be gay or that he or she can't get married just because they are gay. Trying to prevent somebody else from exercising their own freedoms is the very definition of being closed-minded. I am sure that people ridiculed Christina for voting for Bush because he is a closed-minded president. He wants to make constitutional amendments and bills that take away the very freedoms that this country is supposed to stand for. Voting for Bush means you support taking away people's freedom -- and this is exactly why she was ridiculed for voting for him. As for her comment about IU President Adam Herbert, the fact that she dismisses the idea that any of his criticisms could be racially based also demonstrates that she is closed-minded, and so does her stance on affirmative action. You can't just dismiss the possibility of racial inequality because you don't think people are racist. She does not even attempt to understand what it's like to be a minority and know that minority experience is having people see the color of your skin first and your abilities second. Just like homosexuals, people believe racial minorities or religious minorities have "some type of agenda that they want to further." I do not condone playing the race card in any situation, but minorities always have this doubt in the back of their mind. To not take this into consideration is, in fact, being closed-minded. Only wanting to associate with people like yourself is closing yourself off from other people, meaning you are closed-minded. Not taking the time to try to understand someone's life experiences and just saying, "This is wrong" means you are closed-minded. Therefore, Christina Galoozis is closed-minded, and people's criticisms of her are warranted. Meredith Evans
Junior Your editorial "Tick ... tick ... tick..." (Jan. 26) and column by Brian Stewart ("Unsung Heroes," Jan. 26) regarding America's "role" in the world left me dumbstruck. To say that these pieces show a simplistic patriotism and utter failure to understand history and politics is not enough. The ideas espoused in both are honestly dangerous; your writers have assumed that there is a simple correlation between U.S. intention and the good of humanity. This idea is both naive and historically inaccurate. Your editorial criticizes the "undemocratic" government of Iran for attempting to develop nuclear weapons and attempting to "export" their values. Sounds familiar. You mockingly refer to the religious beliefs of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while utterly ignoring the fact that our own president claims to speak personally to "God." Try to be consistent. It is also beyond the pale of your discussion that the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was a reaction to the brutality of the regime of the last Shah. A government almost entirely the puppet of America and our oil companies . Iranians are sure to have noted that only one country, the one whose CIA trained their Shah's internal security forces in torture techniques, has ever used the sort of weaponry they are attempting to develop. It is also of note that said country has, in the last four and a half years, invaded and occupied two states directly bordering Iran. Brian, yet again, writes an apologia for the occupations. Most alarming in his column are a few little phrases which strike me as, well, problematic. Certainly he is correct in stating that America's "world-historical influence will continue to be felt," but I fear he assumes that this influence is in some way positive. His reference to American "internationalism" can only be a joke considering the callous manner in which this country has always flouted international law when said law is inconvenient. The hypocrisy is visibly oozing from his words. Most troubling of all is the reference to the U.S. military's "all important national role to improve the world." This is simply too similar to fascist and communist rhetoric to be ignored. The history of America (with slavery, untold Native American dead, Hiroshima/Nagasaki and My Lai) makes it apparent that the desired improvement can only be countless Muslim dead. Philip Leflar
Alumnus I am writing in regard to Kirk Nathanson's column "One Hell of a Drink" (Friday). The column was offensive in so many ways, without the excuse of being humorous, although apparently the author was attempting a particularly brash form of humor. People being killed because of union organizing at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia is no joke, and Coke's involvement is undeniable: inaction is complicity. Mr. Nathanson shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the anti-Coke lobbying campaign that No Sweat! has engaged in. The No Sweat! students are trying to use the collective power of the University to make one of the most powerful corporations in the world face up to and abandon its complicity in labor bashing. Meanwhile, the most significant thing Mr. Nathanson has done is beat the dead horse of anti-French jokes to death -- without being the least bit funny. Isabel Piedmont
Administrator, Department of French & Italian
President, Bloomington Professional Staff Council Kirk Nathanson, in "One Hell of a Drink" (Friday), slams No Sweat! for calling upon IU to cancel its contract with Coca-Cola due to the company's failure to respond to its Colombian plant managers encouraging paramilitary death squads to murder, torture and kidnap organizers attempting to unionize their plants. Demanding that IU stop my hard-earned tuition dollars from buying products from a company complicit with human rights abuses hardly makes these students "beverage Nazis." Mr. Nathanson asserts that if reports of these abuses are substantiated, "it doesn't really change anything. As a capitalist society in a global marketplace, the consumer is responsible for finding the best value." What is "the best value?" Responsible product choices will not only reflect expense, but also other "values" that are not related to money. Consumers routinely purchase products at higher prices because they are of high quality, are made of recycled materials, or are supplied by a business that is locally based or is known to contribute to charitable causes. Informed choices are not based on money alone. This is a pillar of capitalism, which is not as simple a system as Mr. Nathanson suggests. In a capitalist system, responsibility does not stop at the bottom dollar. To me, "the best value" always includes my basic moral values of rights and dignity for other people. I am thankful that No Sweat! members are taking the time to stand up for these values in the marketplace. I hope that IU administrators will listen carefully to their concerns. Christy Campoll
Graduate student I am writing in regards to an article printed Jan. 31 about our fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi ("IUPD responds to pair of assaults during weekend"). It told of an assault that happened on our property that was reported to the IUPD Jan. 29. The IDS, though, not saying that the man was not a brother, portrayed to readers that the assailant was a brother in the house. It is important to us and to our image that members of IU are aware that this man was not a brother and was immediately dealt with once the situation occurred. As a fraternity that prides itself on being known as gentlemen, we feel that a wrong has been done in writing the article the way that it was written and portraying us in the way that we were portrayed. Jordan Roraus
Sophomore
Vice president, Phi Kappa Psi So Joanna "McSpeeder" Borns got a ticket ("America on speed," Jan. 26). Boo frickin' hoo. Am I assuming too much in supposing that this is her first speeding ticket? Has she really been this fortunate to drive for about five years, never be caught, and the first time she does, she uses her editorial space to whine about it? Gimme a break, Joanna. Grow up. First off, were you so unaware of your surroundings that you didn't know what speed you were going? All those shiny gauges in your daddy's BMW weren't working. Did you just forget that's why they put them there? Maybe you forgot they even are courteous enough to place speed limit signs every couple of miles. You speak of equality, eh? Hypocrisy I cry! "I wasn't adorable enough to get away with just a warning." Hmmm, sounds to me like you would have gladly let the officer let you off with a warning, if, based solely on the fact that you were a hot female. Doesn't that strike you as more of an inequality and injustice than say, "Joe Blow" got away because he got lucky? If you had gotten off, would we be reading about how unjust it was that an attractive woman got away with speeding just because of her looks? Don't think so. What equality do you speak of when one gets his car searched because their Grateful Dead stickers supposedly gave the officer the probable cause needed to perform this search? Or worse, when a black man is hauled out of his car and handcuffed because he "fits the description" of a suspect? With all the inequalities and injustices being perpetuated all over the globe, was this really the most significant one you could find, or are you really that concerned because Daddy might make you pay this one yourself? In the words of somebody famous, "You do the crime, you do the time". Speeding was your choice. You made your bed, now sleep in it. J. Marc Huffman
Senior The article "Under Pressure" about IU's contract with Coca-Cola (IDS, Jan. 24) as a whole is one-sided. No effort was made to contact SINALTRAINAL, the primary union involved in the bottling plants in Colombia, or the International Labor Rights Fund, though both are easily accessible and eager to communicate with the public. IDS readers are not being given the full truth if only the opinions of the director of public affairs and communications for Coca-Cola are cited. Also, the University is portrayed as having considered No Sweat!'s demand to cut the Coke contract, but there has been no official dialogue from the administration on this issue. No Sweat!'s attempts to contact IU President Adam Herbert have been in vain. We have repeatedly given him the opportunity to engage us on this issue, both officially through the anti-sweatshop advisory committee and by trying to meet with him face-to-face. Obviously his office does not "always take note of the concerns of students," as IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre claims. The president reiterates in public statements that his primary concern is to serve the students of IU. It's time for him to live up to his rhetoric and give No Sweat!'s issues the attention they deserve. Lauren M. Spencer
Solomon Boyce
Members of IU's No Sweat! chapter I am writing to take issue with gross misrepresentations of the situation of the Coke campaign at IU ("Under pressure," IDS Jan. 24). Dean of Students Dick McKaig is quoted in the article as saying "the possible investigation report will shape the decision." The fact is that no investigation is possible. Since the end of last school year, a group of University administrators and students from all across the country, myself included, have worked to create an investigation protocol into Coke's labor rights abuses in Colombia. Coke has flat-out refused to participate in this process, and New York University and the University of Michigan cite this as the major reason they have suspended selling Coke products. As well, Pablo Largacha of Coke is quoted as saying "two judicial decisions did not find any evidence that our bottling management collaborated with paramilitary groups..." To the contrary, the case brought by the International Labor Rights Fund on behalf of the workers in Colombia is still being litigated in a U.S. District Court in Miami. Since the filing of this suit, a number of other suits have been brought against Coke citing labor rights abuses in other countries. Largacha is also quoted as saying, "The allegations against the Coca-Cola Company come from a lawsuit that was filed back in 2001 ..." The allegations have come directly from the workers; students are not sifting through legal records trying to drum up campaigns. The boycott of Coke products was called for and has been sustained by workers in Colombia, with wide international support. I find it quite disturbing that there are a total of eight quotes from the administration and Coke officials, but only two from the IU student movement, one of which was grossly misquoted. The writers of this article should have spent more time looking for correct information and less time searching out high profile quotes. Philip Shelton
Junior It appears that the lack of coaching leadership is finally catching up with our beloved Hoosiers. The team looks uninspired, unmotivated and undisciplined. I'm sure Coach Davis is a decent person, but I believe he lacks the experience and ability to take IU to the next level. This is Indiana basketball. There was a time that a 20-point loss to the last-place team in the Big Ten was unthinkable. I certainly hope that the administration takes this opportunity to find a coach with the credentials that are worthy of leading one of college basketball's elite programs. IU's proud basketball legacy, as well as its fans, deserve better. Kevin A. Gray
Alumnus In response to IU's student radio station going FM, I would like to congratulate the hundreds of students who worked tremendously hard. They've made a long-standing quest become reality. WIUX was only a pipe dream; no longer is student radio an afterthought. 5.6 watts? Not anymore. As a former member of the station, I'm very proud to have been a part of the 44-year history of WIUS. Those who get to experience life at the station house from now on will only do so because of the hard work of students who made this happen. Listen up, Bloomington -- your future is on the air! Matt Rodewald
Alumnus
2002 WIUS sports director