Editor, Christopher Sanchez's article, "Preacher reaches out from an unlikely pulpit," in Monday's Daily Lobo seems too reverent. First, the Rev. Michael Venyah's choice of venue is hardly unlikely, as many people visit campus to preach God's word. One who preached from the exact same spot caused even more of a ruckus.
Editor, An article in Wednesday's Daily Lobo detailed a dormitory association's plight for a lounge space. The space is also one of the many possible future spaces of the Agora Crisis Center. We at Agora felt compelled to make clear some misunderstandings in that article.
Editor, In Friday's Daily Lobo, Mark D. Erasmus suggests that efforts taken by Muslim students at UNM to introduce a moderate and gentle interpretation of Islam to their non-Muslim peers via free food and open discussion amounted to a dangerous plot by multiculturalists and those Muslim students alike to "equivocate the nature of Islam.
Editor, The Rev. Michael Venyah and his family's story is a very intriguing one. He is a man traveling around in an RV, preaching his opinion of Christianity and getting much criticism along the way. Why is he doing all of this? Well, it is hard to believe that someone would dedicate his life to intentionally making people pissed off.
Editor, Yes to polygamy. Why not other forms of marriage? I agree with the '60s author Robert Rimmer that the law demanding that all marriage be defined as one man and one woman in sexual monogamy is unrealistic, unimaginative and typical of the hypocrisy of post-Victorian Puritanism, not to mention as an enforced tenet of the prevailing U.
Editor, President Bush has borrowed more money from foreign creditors than all the presidents before him combined, from George Washington to Bill Clinton. The U.S. government is $10 trillion in debt. The U.S. Army is at the breaking point. The U.S. has to borrow trillions from China to pay for tax cuts and the Iraq War.
Editor, Much of the winter soldier eyewitness accounts during March near Washington, D.C. - unreported by the media - confirmed the worst suspicions about U.S. conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the horrific violence committed, it is redeeming to see soldiers publicly confessing to war crimes they witnessed and committed.
Editor, The flowers are out, the sun is shining, and Earth Day is around the corner Tuesday. It comes this year on the heels of President David Schmidly's announcement of UNM policy proposal 2100 for sustainability. The policy calls for UNM students to take an active role in making our campus environmentally friendly.
Editor, It's spring time again at UNM. The warm weather is here, and the flowers are blooming, apart from other developments at the University. Once again, white students and faculty are forced to sit back and watch something our tax and tuition dollars are paying for, yet we are not invited to participate in it.
Editor, Jason Darensburg reinforces what many know: When confronted with facts they do not like, many liberals resort to hyperbole and ad hominem statements just as Darensburg did in his letter published in Thursday's Daily Lobo. Darensburg has never met me, does not know who I am, does not know my family or friends, but he says, "I doubt Howell even knows any minorities, so he can't ask them what they think.
Editor, Mark Erasmus's letter in Friday's Daily Lobo epitomizes the concept that religion is inherently irrational and a source of conflict, evil and bloodshed. While all religions have been exploited to justify conflicts and bloodshed at one point or another, the real reason has nothing to do with religion.
Editor, First of all, I would like to congratulate all the newly elected Associated Students of UNM senators. It is evident that the future of our student body is in good hands. I am, however, disappointed with the politics behind ASUNM elections, and I think there is a need to re-evaluate the process.
Editor, I personally find the Islamic Awareness Week a disturbing attempt by multiculturalists to equivocate the nature of Islam. Along with the good that Islam may embrace, this week should also be an opportunity to illuminate Islam's role in the misery and war that it advocates throughout the civilized world.
Editor, I am a visiting engineering professor from Pennsylvania State University with a specialty in alternative energy. In the honors program, I'm teaching a course on climate change and its impact on New Mexico. Every day I walk to UNM, I marvel at the brightness and intensity of the solar energy splashing down on me and the campus.
Editor, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has been at the forefront of the 2008 presidential election. Progressive former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," and Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson supported Ferraro, asking "If you take a freshman senator from Illinois called Jerry Smith, and he says, 'I'm going to run for president,' would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" The fallout from such statements has been extreme but puzzling.
Editor, What makes every so-called loyal American think that other countries do not revere the flag to the same dying degree that we do in the U.S.? Other countries, Mexico in particular, fought hard, losing many heroic men and women for the right to fly their flag democratically and honorably.
Editor, In his letter in Tuesday's Daily Lobo, Philip Howell tries in vain to make the point that it would be a mistake to elect Sen. Barack Obama just because he's African-American. But he simply proves my point that racism is still an integral part of American society.
Editor, Being a student at UNM is not an easy thing. It is particularly difficult for students with disabilities. We face bone-grinding discrimination, discrimination that actually allows senior departmental administrators to enter classrooms while classes are going on and take away the accessible supports of disabled students with absolute impunity.
The Olympic torch has never had it so bad. From Paris to London and in our very own San Francisco, it has evoked a little love but mostly a lot of protests, so much so that the torch had to be extinguished at one point in Paris and put into a bus to keep away hordes of protesters who were trying to put it out.
Editor, I would like to comment on Peggy Spencer's column on secondhand smoke in Tuesday's Daily Lobo. I work on North Campus and take classes on the Main Campus. Last week, I had to pass a smoker to get to class at Dane Smith Hall. I had to walk behind a smoker when I walked back to work.
Solutions by The State News
