Letters to the Editor
Posted on September 11, 2006

Poor sportsmanship costs JMU a fan

Thank you, Matthew Stoss, for your editorial about the lack of sportsmanship at the football game with Bloomsburg. It is doubtful that my husband and I will attend any more JMU games because of what happened. The Bloomsburg flag was pulled from a man’s hand and thrown on the ground as the team came out of the tunnel. Students who were in our seats were incredibly rude and had to be escorted from the seats by the usher, plastic water bottles were thrown at us, and as you mentioned, we were treated with the “F— you BU” cheer, which started with the young man looking right at me.  

Security guards at the tunnel, the ROTC usher at section 6 and the young man in the Cat-in-the-Hat hat tried to direct the crowd in more positive ways, but they were the few against the many.

My son graduated from Bloomsburg and my daughter from JMU, so we were looking forward to a little fun family rivalry.  By the end of the game, however, she was embarrassed. JMU might have won that game, but it certainly lost our respect.

Barbara M. Russel
Chesapeake, Va.

Sept. 11 programs should cut the negative politics out

Contrary to your breezy, upbeat review of “The Path to 9/11,” in which ABC presents a miniseries dramatizing the events detailed in The 9/11 Commission Report, this program comes up short on history and long on right-wing propaganda that smears Democrats, essentially blaming them for 9/11. This comes just in time for the fifth anniversary of that horrific event — and the midterm elections. That this “docu-drama” would invent damning conversations and events that did not take place while advertising that it’s faithful to the scrupulously exacting 9/11 Commission Report — on the anniversary of such a raw national wound — is just disgraceful. I trust ABC/Disney will either scrub out the gratuitous smears or drop the entire program.

Michael Reinemer
Annandale, Va.

Anti-Semitism is not the only hatred that needs to be addressed

Craig Finkelstein makes a case against anti-Semitism in Thursday’s issue that warrants some comments. He seems to think the world will be a much better place if there was no anti-Semitism. I think this needs to be expanded to all religious hatred. How many Jews in Israel speak highly of their Arab neighbors or Palestinian countrymen? Why is it still acceptable for people to make fun of Catholics with no repercussions? Evangelicals are constantly raked over the coals for their beliefs.

Jews are not alone in being persecuted; they just garner a lot more attention because their home country (for lack of a better term) is in the Middle East.

Let’s put an end to all religious hatred. Then the world will be a better place for everyone to practice his or her own beliefs.
 
Tim Cooke
Class of 1994