Letters to the Editor
Posted on April 27, 2006

Animal Rights Barbecue cooks up trouble

I am writing in response to Jared Prunty’s Letter to the Editor about the Animal Rights Barbecue. The event was held April 23 by the College Republicans, of which I am a member. Prunty charges CRs with a sarcastic parallel, “What’s next — a human rights lynching?” This is a ridiculous aside from the president of the Animal Rights Coalition. However, it mirrors some of the recent protests held by PETA. At UC Berkeley, for instance, The Daily Californian reported that PETA had a “Display that compared racial violence to violence against animals.” 

CRs believe Prunty has missed the joke. Part of the reasoning behind an Animal Rights Barbecue was to make fun of the extremes PETA and animal rights activists go to by holding our own excessively titled event. Punty’s further claim of “trivialization” of animal rights is a misnomer for creative advertising on our behalf. CRs welcome intelligent dialogue, but we also recognize the need to appeal to more than a scholarly stimulus when discussing political views on campus.

With that in mind, the Animal Rights Barbecue was meant to humorously publicize CR’s belief in speciesism or placing human’s needs above animals. We admit that joking about animal rights could be offensive to some. Tearing down posters around JMU that advertised our barbecue is even more offensive because it’s censorship of controversial ideas that any club may hold. In the future I hope the ad hoc FCC tactics of some members of the JMU community will be reconsidered.

Jarrett Ray, sophomore political science and philosophy major

Bombing Iran not a joking matter

I had thought that The Breeze attempted to portray itself as a serious publication, one worthy of recognition and filled with honest and valued news reporting. It is disappointing not only as an international affairs major but also as an avid reader of The Breeze to see its writers given free immature reign like the latest piece by Anthony Riedel.

Riedel’s latest piece about Iran seems more appropriate for the likeness of MySpace or a personal blog, not a college newspaper. While I am a full advocate of free speech, publishing a comical approach to bombing a country is not within the bounds of appropriateness. Would a columnist of The Washington Post or The New York Times be able to publish something as degrading? If The Breeze wants to be a serious publication, it should not allow its writers to stoop to such a pathetic level of integrity.

Morally, it’s repulsive to read, joking or not, how casually Riedel writes about annihilating another country. Would it be okay to publish a similar piece about bombing the United States and killing our president? Not to defend the Iranian regime, but think how students of Iranian background feel when they come to JMU and have to read outlandish pieces that make a mockery out of destroying their country.

The opinion section of The Breeze should be a forum for writers to voice serious opinions that concern the general readership, not a place for unprofessional hacks to convey their moronic ideologies on issues they cannot comprehend.

Craig Finkelstein, junior international affairs major

Will the San Fran earthquake happen again?

The great San Francisco earthquake occurred 100 years ago on April 16. The San Andreas strike-slip fault, a major plate boundary, goes right through the city of San Francisco. Movement along this fault in 1906 caused an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 that destroyed much of this city, the campus of Stanford University and the community of Santa Rosa to the north. The loss of life at the time was underestimated at about 400 people, but recent estimates suggest that over 3,000 may have perished by the collapse of buildings and later by burns caused by fire.

Is another earthquake of this magnitude likely in the San Francisco area? As a professor in the JMU department of geology and environmental science, I say it is more than likely, it is almost certain that a major shakeup is due anytime within the next decade or two. The San Andreas and Hayward faults are locked and have not moved in recent times, and that elastic strain is building up in the rocks adjacent to the faults. The rocks are like rubber bands that are being stretched and are approaching the breaking point. Suddenly the faults will unlock with a jolt — that’s an earthquake. Some estimates for the predicted loss of life range from a few thousand to as many as 100,000 or more if the earthquake occurs during peak commuter time. The loss of water supply and spreading fires are still dangers as in 1906. You would think that all this would have downward  effect on real estate prices in the city, but San Francisco has the most expensive real estate prices in the United States. I wouldn’t particularly want to live there, but if I did, it would be vital to chose a well-constructed modern house on a bedrock foundation. I definitely would not live in the expensive Marina district, because liquefaction of soil during shaking of the ground  causes a quicksand-like condition. Virginia is more stable than California, but low magnitude, deep-focus earthquakes do occur here.

Dr. Roddy Amenta, department of geology and environmental science 

Faculty work as hard as students at end of year

I’m sorry you have so much work. However, in answer to your question, “these professors” think we’re the people who want to help you learn, be successful, and who have nothing to gain from selling you anything. We are not trying to exploit you for our own success or gratification, nor are we seeking to manipulate you into buying a service or product. In short, other than your family, we might be the last people you encounter who are going to be totally on your side for quite some time.

Which brings me to my question: Other than possibly venting your own frustration, what were you trying to accomplish with your second-to-last House Editorial for the year?  Blanket whining about faculty (e.g., you called us all liars) is not likely to bring about any constructive change. I can’t speak for others, but in my classes, syllabi were distributed on Jan. 10 listing assignments for the whole semester. I imagine it is the same in most classes. So, if we are apportioning blame about the end-of-the-semester rush, it would seem there is plenty to go around between faculty’s choice of due dates and students choosing to procrastinate until them.

Please also keep in mind that after you are done with classes, we are still working. Faculty have only a few days to pour through the papers and exams and turn in grades. Also, JMU demands we show up for the graduation ceremony. So rather than labeling us as deceitful, self-absorbed infants, my guess is that if you have any constructive ideas for making the end of the semester any more pleasant, I’m sure you’d find a welcome audience in the faculty.

Scott Gallagher, management department

Youthful engagement unjustly criticized

I find freshman Sarah Delia’s piece on early engagements to be just as short-sighted as the portrayed relationships she so critically judges. In fact, I think the entire JMU community in a “flaky” relationship deserves an apology.

The last time I checked, Jane Austen and the 1800s have long passed. Maybe I just watch a little too much “Sex and the City,” but it is my mindset that a single woman in the 21st century has no more pressure to stick with the same man than to stick with the same piece of gum. There is no line of fathers and uncles and mothers and sisters urging a woman out the door to earn her dowry. There is no societal shun if you are single at 40. So from where does this pressure to get married come? Perhaps rather than blaming today’s American society, a lot of which entices people to stay single with divorce statistics and “Will and Grace” reruns (or any recent sitcom for that matter), a girl should look to her own self-deadlines. Perhaps freshman year did not turn out the way you had pictured; let’s pooh-pooh the next three years, eh?

And what if we do happen to meet “the one” here at JMU? Should the pessimists of the world and of the newspaper business sway our better judgment to believe that we are delusional? Stranger things have happened. People meet their husbands and wives at bars or clubs all the time. Someone will always find something wrong with your happiness, and rather than being concerned with the well-being of others’ futures, the column comes across as bitter.

Of course, I am myself engaged at the moment and have been with “Mr. Wrong,” I guess, since the beginning of college. It has certainly not been a pleasure cruise, and my excitement, rather than flaky, is every bit as earned as anything you have ever worked for. The temptations of college rival that of 40 days and nights in the desert. Delia makes it sound like a walk in the park, as though a chosen few have had a diamond fall from the sky. Although the thought of marrying someone at the fresh age of 21 or 22 may be frightening to many, those who have taken the plunge should be congratulated rather than scolded. What ever happened to being happy for others?

Meghan Maloney, senior TSC major

Back-loaded courses are student responsibilities

Pretty interesting, although not terribly surprising or original for The Breeze House Editorial from April 24 to leave out one of the essential ingredients associated with education, which is called personal responsibility. The time spent in the last two weeks of the semesters is inversely proportional to the amount of time and dedication students have put in prior to that time. For example, if you started the semester-length assignments early, say 14 or 15 weeks prior, it’s amazing how little you would have to do now. Or maybe reviewing your notes during the semester, spending roughly as much time on them as you spend in class (meaning that the end of the term is truly review rather than try to learn and review simultaneously). Perhaps the presentation could have been done before, but the demons of avoidance, sloth and procrastination, all our own children, might have delayed it somewhat. How unseemly of me to suggest that adults are actually responsible for their own time management, their own schedules and their own academic fates. In a society where we are taught to look for someone to blame for any of our circumstances rather than getting up off our behinds and actually doing what is necessary, this whole whining discourse is not, as I said, surprising or original.

Dr. Nikitah Imani, associate professor of sociology

Ignorance is bliss

Garrett Hooe’s opinion: “So I’m an Ugly American – So what?” exemplifies exactly why many people have distasteful views of some Americans today. Mr. Hooe’s apparent ignorance toward other nations and governments was astounding to me. I am always in support of national pride, but when an article like this is written at a university that is trying to increase international student numbers for many good reasons, someone has to correct the appalling lack of knowledge displayed in this article. Mr. Hooe’s claim that America has the only “effective” form of government is completely false and extremely offensive. If Mr. Hooe had taken the time to research the governments of the world, focusing especially on the European systems, he would have found that they have been in existence for thousands of years to great success. The most worrying part of this article is that a JMU student can graduate in a complex field such as political science with these kinds of warped views. It is very worrying for the future graduates of this excellent university. So I invite Mr. Hooe to visit us in Europe; hopefully after his stay he will realize that there are a number of ancient and beautiful countries that are not as backward as he seems to think.

Charles Keymer, junior economics major