Letters to the Editor

Take off the dunce cap

While I understand and generally support Omari Taylor's "War on Drugs" (April 23), I would like to correct an implication of his article. Discussing harm reduction of drug use, specifically heroin, Taylor states the following:

"Money is also funneled to places where addicts can go and get clean, free, sterile needles, to avoid spreading AIDS and blood-borne pathogens. This does not happen in a country such as the United States, where lawmakers and the dunces who support them have outmoded ideas about how to correct this problem."

Actually, the dunces appear to be losing their grip. Taylor would be proud to learn about Thomas Locke, a doctor and member of the Washington state Board of Health. Locke recently wrote an open letter to lawmakers supporting the passage of the Substitute House Bill 1759. What does this bill entail? Sponsored by Rep. Jeannie Darnielle, D-Tacoma, it would allow anyone 18 and older to walk into a pharmacy and buy up to 10 clean hypodermic needles. Gov. Gary Locke signed House Bill 1759 at the end of March. Sweetening the deal, he vetoed a clause that would have required needle buyers (including those who are diabetic and not just heroine addicts) to turn in as many used needles as they bought.

The moral of this story? Washington lawmakers and those who support them are not necessarily dunces.

Kaci Spurlock

junior, psychology

Praise for demonstrators

I would like to commend all parties who were in attendance at the pro-Palestinian rally on the HUB lawn on Friday afternoon ("Pro-Palestine students protest on HUB lawn," April 22). Although there was a handful of verbal outbreaks, for the most part, all those who made their voices heard, both those calling for Palestinian rights like the Muslim Students' Association, Hayaat, the International Socialists and the Coalition Against the War (my apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently omitted), and the HuskIPAC counter-demonstrators were generally on their best behavior. While emotions were definitely high, civility prevailed and most everyone agreed on one another's right to disagree. And did so peacefully. Speeches, signs and literature distributed also tastefully avoided inflammatory language.

I would particularly like to thank the scores of non-Muslims who maintained a respectful demeanor during the Islamic Friday prayer service that kicked off the rally. The rally as a whole, I feel, was a victory for First Amendment rights and carried out in the best tradition of student activism.

David R. Hunsicker Jr.

doctoral student, Near and Middle Eastern studies

The other protest

Thank you for a fairly accurate portrayal of what happened on Capitol Hill Saturday ("Saturday's protests had a few tense moments," April 22). I was there, and witness to some of the uncalled brutality on the part of the Seattle Police Department. One incident involved a youth nearly having his head stamped on by a rearing police horse, right in front of SCCC. It is unfortunate that horses are deployed in large protest situations, and this was a prime example of the dangers of such animals in the inner city. I think the march was a victory, because it gave us all the feeling that there is still hope for a different way of life, in a country where the power is falling into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. Didn't Jefferson warn about that?

Andrew Tarter

junior, premajor

Unhelpful 'aids to reflection'

As a citizen of the European Union, I was offended by Edward Alexander's gratuitous insults ("10 aids to reflection on the Middle East," April 22). Unlike the United States, which has clearly failed in its role of honest broker between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people, the European Union had the courage to denounce the Israeli Defense Force's recent massacres in the West Bank. By claiming that this encourages anti-Semitism, professor Alexander draws a dangerous parallel between condemnation of the actions of a sovereign state and unjustifiable crimes committed against people of Jewish faith.

As a human being, I was sickened by Alexander's attempt to justify the Israeli army's murderous rampage through the refugee camps and villages of Palestine. No historical anecdote or past injustice can excuse the murder of innocent Palestinians or the destruction of their homes. For every "aid to reflection" Alexander proposes in his unconditional ode to Israel, one could write a similar anecdote showing the horrible injustices committed against the Palestinian people, and both would be right.

I pray that would-be writers will think of the purpose of their letter before writing a similar diatribe. By now, we all know that all parties involved have copious amounts of blood on their hands. Alexander's inflammatory rhetoric does nothing toward solving this conflict, and showering the European Union with unwarranted insults only serves to remind the citizens of those "greedy and pusillanimous" countries how intolerant and narrow-minded Americans are, even among the faculty of a major university.

Adrian Johnson

sophomore, aeronautics and astronautics

Kleptocratic Palestinian leadership

In Ameer Hashish's letter ("Nurture, not nature," April 23), he asked us to "imagine a dead economy" and "imagine children not able to attend school."

In the midst of that teary-eyed imagery it's easy to forget to imagine the 40 percent of the Palestinian National Authority's (PA) annual budget which is embezzled and misappropriated by the PA leadership (according to their own audits).

It's easy to forget to imagine that, as British MP Micky Fabricant rightly noted in the House of Commons, Palestinian per capita income has dropped an astonishing 18 percent since the Oslo Accords due to malfeasance by the PA "leadership."

It's easy to forget to imagine that, of pre-"Intifada II" aid to the PA, 85 percent came from Europe, the United States and Japan, while an amusingly paltry 5 percent was tossed at the Palestinians from their oil-rich Arab "brothers" (read: the hodge-podge of military dictatorships and absolute monarchies whose periodic pouting about Palestine is motivated entirely by their desire to deflect world criticism of their own abysmal human-rights records).

Hashish needs to imagine the world of reality: For the leadership of the Palestinian kleptocracy, suicide bombings are nothing more than a popular distraction by which they can maintain their opulent Tunisian villas and fleets of armored luxury cars at the expense of the Palestinian people. The only winners in Palestinian terror are the companies in Herr Arafat's gargantuan investment portfolio: Mercedes-Benz, Air Maldives and RMC.

Blaming Israel for Palestine's economic woes is like blaming a drug counselor for the syringe tracks on a heroin addict's arm.

Toby Nelson

alumnus, '00

Women will rule the world

I want to clear some things up that seem misleading about these "equal pay" rallies ("Students rally for equal pay," April 17). First, there is no systematic discrimination against women that causes these pay differences. "Women make 76 cents for every dollar a man makes" does not take into account equal experience or education (and is exaggerated regardless). For most of the working U.S. population's lives, women have had less education and work experience, mostly due to the fact that they take time off to raise children. Women who don't take time off from education or work actually make MORE money than their male counterparts (possibly because of affirmative action-type policies or decisions). In fact, women aged 16-23 make almost $1.10 for every $1.00 a man makes, because few of these women have taken any time off of work to raise children.

Now that many women are becoming "career women" and more women get higher education than men, I suspect that the statistics will be the opposite once I'm retired.

Jeremy Fuller

senior, psychology

Don't compound the crime

I believe that abortion being such a beloved right for women today is a sign of society's increasing laziness and self-denial, especially with all the anxious couples out there waiting to adopt. I would be considered a pro-lifer by most, but even I am willing to grant that there are exceptions to this rule, including incest, genetic defect and rape.

Scott Loveless' argument last Monday ("That lump of cells is a human baby," April 22) does not take into account some important facts in a rape pregnancy case:

1) The pregnancy of a rape victim came to her by no fault of her own. She should not have to bear pain to conceive her rapist's child. It almost like the criminal wins twice, he violates and then procreates.

2) This is child born not of love and not even lust, it a child born of a horrible invasion. Why should a mother be forced into raising her attacker's child? Granted, she COULD give it up to adoption, but would you want to adopt a sex-offender's baby?

3) The child will have to live with being a rape baby the rest of his or her life. That is a horrible stigma (especially if the child is male) to carry around with you. I'm not sure anyone would want to live with that, famous singer or not.

Women who choose to have the children of their rape are extremely self-sacrificing and should be commended. But the standard should not be to force crime victims through yet another ordeal.

RJ Miller

junior, communications

Open letter to A&F

The Greater Seattle Chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans writes to officially convey our shock and disgust at Abercrombie & Fitch's recent line of graphic T-shirts adorned with Chinese caricatures. These grotesque misrepresentations of Chinese Americans rely on racist stereotypes for their source of "humor." We, as most Americans, strongly believe that belittling and essentializing an entire race and culture along with its struggle in the United States, for the sake of selling T-shirts, is not only offensive but displays an ignorance of history.

Slogans such as "two Wongs make a white" or "get your Buddha on the floor," partnered with stereotypical portrayals of Chinese laundrymen wearing pointed hats and buck-toothed grins, have no place in a modern organization looking for the business of Asian Americans. We must seriously consider: If the lack of humor and tact that would have been questioned by a first-year business student eluded A&F, then what of the sensitivity and intelligence of every level responsible for designing and marketing the T-shirts? If you're going to be racist, you might as well be equal opportunity. Where is A&F's line of African American tees with stereotypical "Sambos" and "Uncle Toms?" It is not funny, never was, and we can't imagine how it could ever be confused to be so. We are demanding a public apology with the distinct knowledge that this issue is not a mere difference in sense of humor, but A&F's blatant racial insensitivity.

Chia-Chi Li

Organization of Chinese Americans

senior, computer science, philosophy