Opinion - The Daily Lobo

Opinion

Human impact destroys vital ecosystems annually

April 25

Editor, Humans are an impactful species - no one would deny that our history has produced awesome changes to the planet. Here in academia, we will argue incessantly about the reasons why we are like this, but no one has a definite answer. For all of human history, we have been laboring under incomplete perceptions of our actual impacts upon the earth, which persist but are incrementally being re-evaluated.

Opinion

Cultures not defined by stereotypes alone

Xochitl Campos | April 25

by Xochitl Campos Daily Lobo columnist Being an American student in Europe is hard. Every person you meet holds you personally responsible for the war. Without asking, they think they know your political opinions and worldview. It never comes as a surprise that what they know about you is a generalization.

Opinion

Coach's salary adds up to misplaced priorities

April 25

Editor, UNM hired Steve Alford as the new head coach of the men's basketball team for an annual salary of $975,000. Alford is no doubt a very good basketball player and coach, but I am appalled by what his salary says about UNM's educational priorities. Let's do some simple math.

Opinion

Schmidly to focus on academics

Jamie Koch | April 25

David Schmidly is the right man in the right place, and that place is as the incoming president of UNM. He takes over an institution that has made remarkable strides in recent years. The University is on an aggressive construction and renewal program, as well as planning for a future campus in Rio Rancho to handle growth and demand.

Opinion

Editorial: UNM should set example as a sustainable university

Joe Buffaloe | April 25

Is UNM a sustainable university? I'm not talking about its business policies. UNM will continue to operate into the future as well as any university in the U.S. But if our entire society collapses from beneath our feet, there may not be much left in the way of universities, an economy or people to educate.

Opinion

Industrial hemp provides many benefits to society

April 25

Editor, On March 5, the New Mexico House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing NMSU to undertake a study on the viability of a legal industrial hemp industry in this state. Although the hemp plant has always been well-known for its high fiber content and was used frequently by the U.

Opinion

Society out of whack with nature's design

Bruce T. Milne | April 25

by Bruce T. Milne Daily Lobo guest columnist Who are we and what roles do we play in the ongoing transformation to create a sustainable world? Sustainability has the goal of satisfying basic needs for health, food, shelter and transportation without compromising the satisfaction of future generations.

Opinion

Troops in Iraq contribute to unnecessary suffering

April 24

Editor, Gunmen shot and killed 23 members of an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq on Sunday after stopping their bus and separating out followers of other faiths, while at least 20 people were killed in car bombings in the capital. Just a typical day in Iraq, where the administration in Washington, D.

Opinion

Relaxed gun laws won't prevent violent crimes

April 24

Editor, Daniel Martinez must be very ignorant to believe that freedom to carry guns on campus will somehow protect students, rather than endanger their lives. If we are allowed to carry guns to campus, the mayhem that occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16 would have been far worse.

Opinion

Creative writing can help troubled students cope

April 24

Editor, Beyond Provost Reed Dasenbrock's warning in Thursday's Daily Lobo about a possible "chilling effect" on creative writing, I beg our mourning UNM community to consider that creative writing is often one of very few outlets available to Asian immigrants such as gunman Cho Seung-Hui.

Opinion

Stopping campus violence begins with school policy

April 24

Editor, Like everyone else, I am thinking a lot about this nation's problem with school shootings and how we should answer this problem. It seems like every semester we hear about another mentally unstable person taking the lives of innocent students and thinking he or she can get away with it by taking his or her own life.

Opinion

Service-learning classes offer valuable experience

April 23

Editor, I would like to respond to Doug Rocks-Macqueen's letter in the April 12 issue of the Daily Lobo. While I am of the same mind as Rocks-Macqueen on the issue that service-learning programs should be an option that the University provides students, it should be known that these programs do exist and are available with many courses.

Opinion

Banning violence in fiction not the proper step to take

April 23

Editor, I'm writing in response to Thursday's article about how creative writing programs may be affected by the tragedy at Virginia Tech. As a creative writer, I am appalled at even the thought of implementing any sort of policy regarding what we write. Violence in a work of fiction is simply something writers use to create an interesting story.

Opinion

Bullied students should seek counseling for anger

April 23

Editor, In a sense, I can relate to Cho Seung-Hui, the gunman who killed 33 people including himself at Virginia Tech. Throughout grade school, I was the perfect bully target - an awkward, chubby and timid kid with thick glasses. Like him, I also had feelings of vengeance and bitterness against everyone.

Opinion

Health privacy law poses a threat to public safety

April 23

Editor, With all the confusion over the cause of the massacre at Virginia Tech, one factor - probably the most important one - is the Health Insurance Privacy and Accountability Act. If law enforcement agencies were aware of the mental health condition of the shooter, this whole tragedy could probably have been avoided.

Opinion

Iran's actions contribute to terrorist organizations

April 23

Editor, In response to UNM student Ahmad Musleh's letter in Thursday's Daily Lobo, Musleh claims columnist Scott Darnell's entire April 12 column is "libelous and defamatory" based on no other reason than his disagreement with the author's views. Regarding the need for "factual accuracy," Musleh should have checked his own writing before submission.

Opinion

Banning guns on campus is first line of self-defense

April 20

Editor, While I'm sure Daniel Martinez had good intentions in his letter in Wednesday's Daily Lobo, the one-sided perspective he used rendered practically all of his points void. The main focus of his letter seemed to be that universities deny people the right to defend themselves by banning firearms on campus.

Opinion

Lives lost abroad just as tragic as ones in Virginia

April 20

Editor, We've been reminded in the past days of the failure of American society to control its own weapons of destruction. The loss of 33 lives is certainly tragic, but do the same Americans who cry and pray for those 33 respond likewise to other, greater losses of life? This one act of violence will be in the news for two weeks or more, yet there is barely a passing mention of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed in the civil war we have facilitated.

Opinion

UNM provides a plethora of programs for minorities

April 20

Editor, I read the story in Wednesday's Daily Lobo about UNM's high ranking for Hispanic graduate students with great interest. While this is extremely good news, I was surprised that the article took a decidedly pessimistic view of UNM efforts to identify and correct problem areas for Hispanics.

Opinion

Columnist needs to get facts straight about Iran

April 19

Editor, I agree with Rachel Fredman's letter on April 6 about factual accuracy. In columnist Scott Darnell's case, his entire April 12 column was libelous and defamatory. The title of the column, "Iran advances global terrorism," is beyond misleading. If Iran allegedly has ties to Hezbollah, that is not global - that just means it could be involved in the Israel-Lebanon conflict.