Letters to the editor
True fans stick by team through thick and thin
To the editor: Ã
Bronco fans would be happier if the men's basketball team were 18-2 and nationally ranked; that goes without saying. But the role of fans is to stick with their teams -- their classmates, bona fide student-athletes -- through thick and thin, not to whine and point fingers in selfish petulance because the entertainment isn't up to expectations.
Dick Davey, like Carroll Williams before him, runs his program with scrupulous integrity. His guys always play hard and improve under his tutelage; his teams get better as the season progresses; the players graduate and go on to do the university proud. If we all did our jobs on this campus as well as Coach Davey and his assistants do theirs, we'd be a lot closer to academic utopia than we presently are.
Meanwhile, unable to discern anything more vital in the world to offer commentary on than a disappointing season (so far) in men's basketball, you stuck with your team and its excellent coaches through thick.
Jeff Zorn
English Department
Cartoon article: inaccurate word choice
To the editor:
Despite a deep respect for the sincerity of his intentions, I must confess that there were a few factual inaccuracies in Mike Pellicio's article "Declaring war on cartoons." First, he misuses the word Semite in claiming that "a simple visit to RadioIslam.com reveals over a hundred anti-Semitic cartoons." A quick visit to dictionary.com shows that the word Semitic refers to "a sub group of the Afro-Asiatic language group that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic." Hence, Arabic being a language rooted in Islam, it would be absurd to say that a Muslim Web site is anti-Semitic and therefore anti-Arabic. This does not mean that this web site does not have anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish cartoons, but that the word Semite refers to a different group of people.
Semantics aside, saying that "some Muslims believe that Islamic law forbids caricaturing the prophet" is a gross understatement. It would be closer to the truth to say that "the vast majority of," or at the very least "most" Muslims believe this.
Finally, and most importantly, although something may be legally permissible, that does not mean it is not wrong. No matter what legal right a person might have to publish such a cartoon, they shouldn't do it. Even if one argues that this sends a message to radical Muslims that the press will not be intimidated by violence, the foulness of the act of repeatedly republishing this caricature in itself does not justify the intended end. Rather than help the affected parties to resolve the situation, it instead stokes the fires of hatred.
Kareem Raad
Biology and philosophy '06
Nabeel Subainati
Accounting '06