Editor, I am a Jewish member of the Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance. I recently returned from the West Bank after an eight-month stay where I lived and worked at a refugee camp and taught as a visiting professor at Al-Quds University. Representation in Dotan Kennedy's letter that appeared in the Daily Lobo on Friday appears to be an issue here.
Editor, I recently attended a presentation as part of the Jerusalem Women Speak tour in Albuquerque. Three women, each representing one of the three Abrahamic religions, demonstrated they can and do believe in peace with a single vision for co-existence among the peoples of Israel and Palestine.
Editor, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to an article that recently appeared in the Daily Lobo regarding UNM's report card on sustainability. Let me start by saying that UNM is well on its way to becoming a sustainable university. Last year, the provost formed a task force on sustainability to take a comprehensive look at this issue.
Editor, This is in response to Andres Saenz's letter published in Thursday's Daily Lobo. The letter's main argument was that the Bible is true as it includes narration of historical events. He claims that the Egyptian pyramids were built by Jewish slaves.
Editor, Andres Saenz thinks the Great Pyramids in Egypt were built by enslaved Israelites. I don't think so. The Great Pyramids of Giza and many others were built by the third and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom from 2686 B.C. to 2175 B.C. Indeed, the three Great Pyramids were built specifically between 2589 and 2496, some 700 to 600 years before the Israelites were even recognizable as a people, and they were erected by trained professionals and conscripted labor paying a type of tax.
Good morning. How did you sleep last night? Did you wake up without an alarm this morning, feeling well-rested for your first class? Do you ever? Many college students consider sleep to be a luxury they can't afford or a necessary nuisance that takes up valuable time. At the same time, many of you report sleeping difficulties. One way or another, sleep is an issue for most.
Editor, I am an Israeli student here at UNM. I was very excited when I heard about the talk on the Middle East. Sadly, it turned out to be no more than propaganda filled with the lambasting of Israel by two highly educated women. To me, Hagit Ra'anan was only there for show.
Editor, The Republican Party and church leaders abandoned the faithful for greed and power. I am a born-again Christian who followed my religious leaders into the Republican Party, because they said results were not only possible but probable. Abortion is a criminal act that kills hundreds of thousands of children every year, and our church and Republican leaders demanded devout Christians vote for the party that would end this practice.
Editor, I've finally had enough of the debate over the UNM North Golf Course. More directly, I'm fed up with arguments against the development: We need public green spaces. UNM needs to give to the community. The golf course is better for the environment.
Editor, A new law from Congress has inadvertently caused birth control prices to soar on college campuses nationwide. At UNM, the Student Health Center had to switch from using a discounted name-brand birth control pill to a more expensive generic pill. The price for students has doubled and now costs $35 each month.
Editor, As a former student of UNM and an employee at the North Golf Course, I have a special kinship to the school and the golf course. For two 1/2 years, I spent a few hours of my day at the course washing carts. It wasn't a hard job, but it was a way for me to acquire a little extra cash and still be able to do well in school.
Editor, I am grateful for the increasingly high tone of the current discussion on evolution and intelligent design in the Daily Lobo. Contrary to the first letter in the series, Charles Darwin did not invent evolution. His thought was preceded by the work of Charles Lyell, a high British church official, who concluded from the geologic record that the world was much older than biblical accounts.
Editor, It seems the most popular and financially successful movies are often about men who act like juvenile delinquents, who view women solely as sexual objects to be used and tossed away, or some guy having superpowers. In the movies, many people do not work; they trivialize marriage and family; they glorify violence; or they have some ideology they want to clandestinely suggest to the audience.
Editor, Cyclists do and should continue to have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists. The problem is a vast majority of Albuquerque motorists fail to recognize this fact. Five years ago, I gave up my car, and since then, I have commuted exclusively by bicycle.
Editor, I was deeply insulted by Debbie Cox's letter published in the Daily Lobo on Wednesday in which she calls creationist theory an outdated fairy tale. If she is referring to the Bible, then she is completely wrong, because it is one of the most extensively documented books in history.
Editor, This is a problem all over Albuquerque, but on the UNM campus, it seems to be worse. According to the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division's driver license manual, bicycle riders have the same rights and responsibilities as motor vehicle drivers. They must stop at traffic lights, signal their intentions and obey other traffic laws.
Editor, It can be argued that President David Schmidly may have the most to lose if the North Golf Course is lost to development. Schmidly received his Ph.D. in zoology. He won the Joseph Grinnell Award in 2003 that recognizes excellence in education in mammalogy.
Editor, After reading all the letters debating intelligent design versus evolution for the past couple of weeks, I want to comment on what I feel is the most pointless argument in favor of intelligent design. It is, to paraphrase, "I can't possibly imagine how all this complexity I see in the world could have come about through random events, and therefore, God did it.
Editor, I am referring to the article titled "UNM gets C on sustainability exam" published in the Daily Lobo on Oct. 30. The surveys that were compiled, which ultimately gave UNM its C rating under "Administration" concerning sustainability, were never seen by myself or discussed in any of the Sustainability Task Force meetings.
Editor, Shay Talley's letter published in the Daily Lobo on Monday, while lucid, is also demented. While sporting logical fallacies - I smell three right off the bat - Talley's argument suffers mostly from its internal contradictions. Did you spot them? For instance, the question, "What do we do with the intelligent design we observe in nature?" can be answered simply: Appeal to the authority.
Solutions by The State News
