Letters to the editor

Student generosity appreciated

On behalf of the social work department of JMU, I would like to thank all of the students, faculty, staff and others who donated to our Tsunami Relief effort. We collected a total of $673.05. One hundred dollars will go to Mennonite Central Committee, and $573.05 will go to the American Red Cross. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

Marybeth McNamara
senior, social work

Murder reminds students of danger

The front page of the Jan. 31 issue of The Breeze features two very powerful photos. One shows a group of JMU students working on a banner to promote awareness of the very serious crime of violence against women. The second photo is a mugshot of a convicted murderer who committed the ultimate act of violence when he shot a female JMU student and her boyfriend to death, execution style, in 1996.
Perhaps if The Breeze had included file photos of those victims, Ann Olson and Keith O’Connell, it might have enhanced both stories by associating a human face with these heinous crimes. JMU students are no different than most people when it comes to believing "it can’t happen to me." A photo of Ann Olson could remind all JMU students, male and female, that bad things really do happen to good people.

Mark Purington
sophomore, individualized study major

Iraqi election historical triumph

The last few days, I have found myself becoming engrossed in the coverage of Iraq’s first truly democratic election. These are historic times that we live in and, 50 years from now, we’ll be looking back and telling our grandchildren about what it was like to watch the world change. However, as excited as I was to see Iraqis singing and dancing in the streets on their first Election Day, I was incredibly disturbed by the reactions to this historic event here in the United States.

The "United States rushes elections" article published Jan. 31 is a perfect example of the disgusting politicization that anti-Bush Americans are endorsing, even after this great event in Middle Eastern history. People unhappy with the current administration vent their anger by undermining the efforts of the United States to help people across the world. They disregard the facts and distribute misleading propaganda in an effort to reduce the legitimacy of something that millions of people, both in Iraq and elsewhere, could not be more thrilled about.

If, after witnessing such a monumental event, you still feel like reading or writing articles claiming that "Iraq will not subside" or "radical leaders will take to the streets and gain supporters," then you are cannot possibly call yourself an American.

Tyler Dugal
sophomore, pre-international affairs major

House editorial ‘emotional ranting’

The Jan. 27 House Editorial was damaging to real facts. We were so overloaded with emotional ranting, we never found out what the bill was.

The editorial claimed that Del. Glenn Weatherholtz thinks a Gay-Straight Alliance Club at Rockingham High "just plain should not exist." Weatherholtz, who’s signed a non-discrimination pledge that opposes homosexual discrimination, hasn’t even alluded to this. The bill seeks to prohibit public school clubs that "advocate support, assistance or justification for any sexual behavior." The editorial is in favor of finding ways to decrease teen pregnancy and STDs. Any club that advocates sexual activity among teens works to the exact reverse. I’m also not sure why, as you claim any health class is only successful by advocating, supporting, and justifying sexual activity. Statistically, the best way to create the ideal standards we’d like to see in teens is through empowering and rewarding the abstinent teens who are using their heads and who ought to have just as many rights to make their own choices as what you call the "empowered homosexuals," and those who choose otherwise. Let’s also empower parents, whose rights should include being allowed to raise their children to family standards. You’ve spun a well-intended bill into a stereotype standard: a cold-hearted, religious-based, old-man agenda. It is not. It’s a more successful way of achieving the healthy goals you support for teens. Please don’t turn this into an anti-gay issue.

Matt Wilson
junior, communications

Women should put down razor

In response to Jane Yu’s article "Barenaked Society" in the Jan. 31 edition, here is a question for all of you women who shave. Do you remember exactly why you started? It was something you started without questioning, right? You thought it was like menstruation – something all women did because it’s just part of being a woman.

Let me tell you a story about how it became a trend for American women to obsessively shave their legs and armpits. In 1915, the Wilkinson Sword Company, who made razor blades for men, entered into a marketing ploy to boost sales. With the power of advertising, they convinced American women that body hair was unhygienic and unfeminine. I find this appalling and ridiculous, considering I know of no man or woman who has ever become ill from their own body hair, and I don’t see how a woman could possibly be unfeminine just by keeping her body as it was made.

While someone’s making billions of dollars by oppressing generations of women and making them feel bad about their bodies, I must applaud those of you who have thrown away your razors — or have at least questioned this ritual. Also, to those of you who think body hair is unattractive, I can’t argue with you because you like what you like, but I think few things are more attractive than someone who keeps their body as is and is confident about it. There is no reason to fear your own body.

Laura von Dohlen
sophomore, Spanish major

Women should be able to make reproductive choices

Jon Anderson ("Truth of Abortion Tragic") will never face the personal crisis of an unwanted pregnancy. He should hesitate to judge women who have, or to dictate the choice for those who will in the future. Instead, he needs sensitivity to the mental and physical health of the individuals, to their family and economic situations, or to emotional difficulties of all of the choices. Women do not choose abortion as lightly as Mr. Anderson imagines.

Unwanted pregnancy is the real tragedy, as it offers a woman only terrible choices — abandon the child to adoptive strangers, keep the child in a world that may not help or terminate the pregnancy. No woman thinks abortion is a "good thing." But it may be the "least bad" choice.

Most unmarried women who "choose life" also choose against adoption. The maternal bond is powerful. Sadly, welfare reform has punished these mothers by forcing them into the workforce and their children by failing to provide adequate and safe day care programs. Whatever one thinks about the responsibility of the mothers, the babies should not suffer.

The only way to stop both abortions and neglect of unplanned children is to promote sex education and birth control options. Unfortunately, some pro-life supporters are opposed to these steps, simply urging abstinence.

Women do not need male politicians to make decisions for them. We have an inalienable right to reproductive choices. Mr. Anderson, please keep your laws off my body!

Ariana Vodra
senior, philosophy/psychology major

Abortion should be made humane procedure

I have no doubt that Anderson did his research for his column in the Jan. 31 edition, but he failed to give the whole point of view. Women who undergo this procedure do not do it on a whim. It is a very heart-wrenching decision to make, but they, not us, have the right to decide what is best for the baby and for themselves. To depict women who have had abortions as "insane and the most ruthless murderers" is ignorant and hurtful to any woman who has ever had to make that decision.

He talks about the horrors of abortion and suggests a Web site that people should go to see graphic pictures of aborted babies. Anti-abortionists show these pictures to persuade you to think that abortion is a horrible idea. People have to face that abortion is going to happen whether or not we make it illegal. If we consider ourselves to be a "moral" and "just" country, then make procedures that are humane to both the mother and the baby. If the right to an abortion is taken away, then we are going to see an increase in the number of deaths of young women and in trying to save one life, two will be gone.
Anderson also states that adoption is a better answer. Tell that to the estimated 542,000 (as of Sept. 30, 2001) children who are now in foster care waiting for families. When every single child has a loving home and there are more people who want a child, then I’ll agree that adoption is a better answer.

Kenzie Douglass
sophomore, IDLS

Democracy will bring toleration to Iraq

According to Andrew Chudy’s column in the Jan. 27 edition, democracy is bad news for the Christian minority in the new Iraqi republic, and it asks how the President’s democratic ideals are helping ensure religious liberty in Iraq.

It was terrorists who are opposed to the new, secular, Iraqi government that were responsible for the kidnapping of Archbishop Basil George Carmoussa, whom Chudy holds as an example of the new Iraq’s religious bigotry.

Christianity never flourished under Saddam Hussein — oppression flourished under Saddam. Hussein killed Christians just as readily as he killed Muslims. Saddam’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, whom Chudy holds up as an example of Saddam’s "religious toleration," was a man who oversaw the butchery of 300,000 Christian and Muslim men, women and children — not a Christian.

Iraq is not a Christian country, but does that make them any less entitled to freedom? Freedom is given to us by God. When Christians support freedom and oppose tyranny, they are doing their Christian duty. There will be religious toleration in the new Iraqi Constitution because Iraq will be democratic. No free nation lacks religious toleration. Iraq may, indeed, end up with Islam as its national religion, yet, as a free nation, it will have religious toleration.

Democracy will come to Iraq, and with it freedom and religious toleration. It is ethnocentric to believe that an Islamic brand of democracy is somehow less authentic than our own.

Mark Ehlers
senior, history

Protestors pick fight at inauguration

I would like to comment on Beth Schermerhorn’s article in the Jan. 31 edition regarding her perspective on the second term of President Bush and, more specifically, the inauguration. I don’t suppose her opinion piece mentioned that inside of the snowballs being thrown were rocks. I also don’t recall reading that some protestors showed up wearing goggles. Now why do you suppose people would do that? I wear goggles to ski because I fully expect that my activities on the slopes that day will somehow affect my eyesight, so I wear them for protection. Peaceful protestors wear goggles because they fully expect that their actions over the course of the day will merit them being maced by the police. And so they were.

I drive into Washington, D.C., every day. I see protestors about once a week. The people who attended the protests during the Inauguration were not merely expressing a dissenting opinion. They were, and are, typical of the modern and violent Marxist philosophy that is so prevalent within young people across the country. Stripped to their core, they are ultimately filled with contempt for the United States and the way of life that Jefferson, Washington and James Madison envisioned for us all. Their hatred frequently reaches the boiling point, and Bush’s inauguration provided a suitable outlet for their aggression toward everything different from them and their socialistic world view.

Brad Gates
alumnus, 1998