Editor, I want to reply to Austin Duus' letter published in the Daily Lobo on Thursday, specifically to the following quotation: "Remember Richard Berthold? He was the UNM professor who told a class of freshmen on Sept. 11, 2001: 'Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote.
Editor, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that New Orleans is a risky place to live. Another Katrina is not just possible -- it's likely. People who lived in New Orleans made a conscious decision to run the risk of losing everything to a hurricane. Iraq may be a wasteful war, but wasting money in Iraq does not justify wasting money in New Orleans.
Editor, Richard Berthold, in his column published in the Daily Lobo on Wednesday, is correct in pointing out the illegal actions of the three former administrators who are now state officials. They cannot be paid twice for state jobs. They cannot be on the UNM payroll and receive pay for another state job.
Editor, Now that the city of Albuquerque is buying bus passes for students who are too lazy to get a license to drive a car, I think it's about time the city also starts to pay for our parking passes. After all, anyone with a parking pass knows just how much of a hassle it is to rake up enough money every semester so that we might have a chance to find a place to park.
Editor, The Daily Lobo reported Aug. 28 that UNM is No. 1 in having inaccessible professors, according to the prestigious Princeton Review. I am very thankful that we finally became No. 1 in something. The Princeton Review study was a rigorous scientific examination based on a single question asked of a few students: Are your professors accessible? I was reading this article while munching a Little Debbie snack cake during my office hours.
Editor, Despite its status as a Carnegie Tier-One research institution, UNM occupies the third tier of this year's U.S. News rankings. The Princeton Review has dubbed its faculty the most inaccessible. Beyond the rankings, more evidence suggests that UNM is not competing with the nation's select schools as it continues to over-admit unqualified students and over-employ marginal faculty.
Two years after Hurricane Katrina rendered New Orleans a wasteland, the government's promises to allocate billions of dollars have helped little to rebuild the city. The federally funded Road Home program - the irony of the program's name has not been lost on the residents of New Orleans - is yet to make any difference to the wounded landscape, as more than half of the promised $8 billion has not been released.
Editor, New Orleans will never be the same. Two forces are halting the reconstruction of New Orleans: the free market economy and the natural risk. Nobody, not even the government, controls these forces. Katrina was the first hurricane; Rita was the second, and how many more are in the future? Scientists are projecting a rise in sea level and an increase in hurricanes and hurricane intensity.
With the passage of time, large organizations, whether public or private, inevitably become more bureaucratic and administratively top-heavy, and the University is certainly no exception. Further, and hardly surprising, compensation grows far more rapidly among those at the top, particularly in academics, where generally cowardly faculty are disinclined to seriously challenge the powers that be.
Editor, I appreciate my campus. I enjoy it as an oasis in our desert town - full of green canopies, colorful flowers, as well as appealing and interesting public art. This was, of course, before Friday. While walking to class, I was appalled to see that someone had assaulted my campus - our campus.
Editor, I applaud the Democratic National Committee's recent action toward Florida and the impact of its primary on both the traditional guidelines set forth on the Democratic primary calendar and on the effect it has on small states. The committee had worked out a schedule, greatly reducing the impact of Iowa and New Hampshire without knocking them out of the game.
In the late 1990s, Iran specialist Shahram Chubin predicted that the "all-purpose bogey" the Iranian government found in U.S. foreign policy was a device whose effectiveness at constraining domestic dissent was rapidly waning.
Editor, I thought the Grand Old Party had sunk to the bottom of the mucky, mucky barrel when it continued to support the administration's unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq. After all, this five-year occupation of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 poor U.
Editor, This letter is to congratulate President David Schmidly, the Board of Regents, ASUNM, GPSA, Vice President of Student Affairs Cheo Torres and the SUB for taking steps to make UNM a more sustainable campus. President Schmidly's energy-saving plan is a step in the right direction.
Editor, I read with interest "India's growth could be costly" by Santhosh Chandrashekar, published in the Daily Lobo on Aug. 20. The column primarily focused on the impact of India's growth on India itself. But the growth of India (and China) will impact all countries practicing free trade.
Editor, Completing a college degree can be a daunting challenge, especially for people of color and first-generation students who have few, if any, role models in their families and communities. This situation can be exacerbated by a university where 78 percent of the tenure-track faculty are white.
Editor, On a recent evening I went for a run around Johnson Field. After $720,000 was spent on buying and installing new lights, I expect them to be turned on. It was dark and raining fairly hard, but the lights were not turned on. I finished my laps anyway and began the return trip home.
Editor, In their letters published Thursday, Jay Nelson and Andres Saenz proved my point that personal bias is behind their opposition to the endowed chair in Roman Catholic studies at UNM. Nelson said he opposes the chair because he was abused. Saenz opposes it because he claims the church was to blame for the voices in his head and his depression.
Editor, Changes need to happen within fraternities, but they need to be more fundamental than having a live-in adviser or making sensitivity training mandatory for fraternity members. The root of the recent problems with fraternities is numbers. There is a small recruitment pool of students at UNM who are interested in joining fraternities.
Editor, After several years of writing to and being published in the Daily Lobo, I noticed that my postings are no longer being put up. I graduated from the University a year ago. I am a diehard advocate of free speech and will fight for the biggest pillar of our free society, which is rightfully found in college newspapers.
Solutions by The State News
