Letters to the Editor

Students information not to be sold

I have heard that the University has given permission to the Alumni Association to market information about students to credit-card companies. In fact, I have heard that they may have already been paid.

I disagree with this decision. I do not believe that the University is being responsible to the students when they allow our information to be marketed. I do not believe that the Alumni Association has any rights to my identity; they should not recognize a profit from their association with the University.

Students generally have two credit cards and substantial debt when they complete their educations. If there are student loans in addition to credit cards, the student may have years to pay back these costs before they break even. I do not believe that enticing students to add another credit card is worth the monetary gain.

Of course, all students have the right to option out of any marketing policy. I suggest a second course of action. I suggest that we forward every spam e-mail to the Alumni Association. Let's flood its in-boxes with junk mail, as it will assuredly flood ours. Perhaps then the message will get through.

-- Mike Cook

junior, business

Basketball over rollerskating

I just wanted to write you a letter expressing my thoughts about rollerskating nights at the IMA. Me and my friends frequently play basketball at the IMA as it is usually too cold or wet to play elsewhere; we usually do this on the weekend because I am too busy with homework and other stuff during the week.

We were playing at the IMA this weekend on the new gym that just opened up. There were already maybe 50 people in that gym, and then around 8 p.m., about 20 new basketball players came into that gym from the other one. They were kicked out for scheduled rollerskating. It was very full. We had lines of people just waiting to play.

I think this is a complete waste of IMA resources; I never saw more than four skaters in the other gym that whole night, and there were easily 30 people sitting on the benches constantly waiting just to play basketball. Rollerskating at the IMA costs a lot of people's valuable time! I do not like waiting half an hour just to play 15 minutes when two basketball courts are practically empty. Isn't this simple economics? There is more demand for basketball, period. Or they should at least schedule skating for a time when the basketball courts are not at their fullest!

-- Victor Hsieh

senior, business

Stick to one point

While I appreciate David Greenspan's Jan. 27 meditation on the appropriateness of suing gun manufacturers for Beltway sniper attacks, I must disagree with the main premise of his argument. Greenspan writes, "You cannot sue a company for making a product legally!" This is quite false. Many have (successfully) sued tobacco manufacturers, though tobacco remains legal. If Greenspan wants to differentiate between these two types of lawsuits, he will need a new distinction. If he thinks both types of lawsuits are wrong, then he needs to argue for that general claim, but it is factually untrue that you cannot sue a company for making a product legally.

Also, Greenspan claims, "The gun manufacturer was not doing anything illegal, immoral or otherwise wrong." Legality of making guns is certainly established, but let's not confuse that with morality -- a separate issue here. For instance, manufacturing and selling (to the right people) cluster bombs or landmines is not illegal. Defense contractors do it all the time, but I might argue that it is immoral. Making guns might be similarly immoral, even if legal. Let's not confuse the two, or else we will be allowing the government to establish our ethics for us -- a scary proposition indeed.

-- Ben Almassi

graduate student, philosophy

Balanced sources

Regarding your informational piece on the effects of drugs ("The dirt," Jan. 27), may I suggest all interested parties follow that up with a visit to www.erowid.org, which includes a wealth of scientific information on drugs, both legal and illegal, in addition to first-hand experience reports, positive and negative. Jenn Green and Monika Jones used the National Institute on Drug Abuse Web sites as two of their sources (www.nida.nih.gov and www.clubdrugs.org, not www.nida.com and www.clubdrugs.com as the story has it), and I believe a balanced approach to drug education is preferable to one provided by the federal government.

-- Benjamin Lukoff

UW alumnus, 1997