Letter to the editor

By
June 30, 2004

Commencement criticism

I completed my Master of Science degree last summer and marched in the June 12 Commencement ceremony. I thought that August Wilson's speech was excellent, one of the best speeches I've heard in years. There was criticism of President Bush in the speech so I can understand why a Bush supporter might want to reply. Unfortunately [Jason] Chambers ("No Agenda Please," June 21) seems to confuse criticism with calumny and vice versa.

Chambers' admonished Wilson to get out of Seattle more often. I don't know Wilson or Chambers, but I'd be willing to wager that a 59-year-old, two-time Pulitzer prize winner has seen and sees far more of the world than a 20-something college student.

The implication of Chamber's column is that Wilson does not love America and thinks that terrorists are brave souls. There was nothing in the speech I heard that said anything of the sort, and Chambers doesn't offer any quotes supporting the implication. There were criticisms of Bush, but does Chambers really believe that to criticize the president is to hate America? Shades of "L'Etat c'est moi!"

-- Charles E. Grant

UW alumnus, 2003

Comments

Post a comment

You are not currently logged in. You must log in using your Facebook account to post a comment. It's fast, easy, and we don't store any of your personal information, except your first and last name when you post a comment.

Why?

Our old comment system was abused to leave racist, sexist, fradulent, or simply useless comments. We're hoping this verification step will improve the quality of our comments.

I don't have a Facebook account. I'd like to verify my identity using my MySpace/Google/Yahoo!/OpenID/SSN/주민등록번호/MasterCard.

Let us know. We're open to suggestions. Over the next few weeks, we'll be testing other authentication methods.

The FBI/CIA/TSA/CoS/Emmert is out to get me! I need to stay anonymous!

We're working on a way to allow this. If you have any ideas, email us.

I think this website is ugly.

It's going to be a work in progress all summer, so it may look and act differently from week to week. If you want to influence this process, email us. We read every email, and respond to most of them.