Readers’ Forum May 9, 2006

    106

    Standing in the hall

    After reading the opinions of Tyler Greene and Christopher Johnson in Thursday’s Readers’ Forum I have decided to change! I hope they can forgive me for my terrible sins. Next time I see a dear and long lost friend on campus, I will cry, “Dear friend! I love you, but I will not allow this unforeseen circumstance to interrupt my schedule. I must not be a minute late for class!” Never again will I dare stop or sit in any hallway. I, too, commit myself to wearing my tie too tight and allowing others’ heinous acts of lollygagging to interfere with my personal happiness. I am a philosopher for goodness sake! I demand to take myself too seriously! I’m also pre-med! And I don’t have any qualms with using extraneous anatomical analogies to prove my opinion! I hope all are as inspired by their example as me.

    Philip Dimick

    Austin, Texas

    A better reason for war

    I keep hearing that Saddam Hussein was a horribly evil man, and so that alone justifies the Iraq war, even though it wasn?t one of our main justifications at the war?s outset. But if you really think about it, that is a weak reason for starting a war. Let?s face it, many countries undergo internal conflict. Look at Sudan and other parts of Africa, Sri Lanka, North Korea, Cuba, drug cartels in South America, just to name a few. Our government isn?t launching an all-out war in these places and attempting to establish Western governments. (We did attempt it in Vietnam a few years back, but we failed miserably). Even if we were to go on a rampage and attempt to overthrow every harsh dictator out there we would find it strategically and financially impossible. We need a better reason?like evidence of a direct threat?before starting a war. Our troops found Saddam hiding in a hole in the ground, yet Osama bin Laden is still at large three-and-a-half years after 9/11. Our troops in Iraq outnumber those in Afghanistan by about three to one. Perhaps there?s a correlation?

    Janet Smith

    Claremont, California

    Lost, found and donated

    I had the strange fortune of finding on two separate occasions last weekend a stray dollar bill just laying there unwanted and alone (one was in the JKB parking lot and one was on the stairs in the JFSB). Rather than trying to find their owners or buying myself some Bookstore fudge, I decided that whoever lost those two bills–faculty, staff, or student–wouldn’t mind if I donated them to the fundraising efforts going on right now for The Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center. Whether or not these lost bills were the hard-earned mite of a poor student or staff member, or one of many dollars that filled out an overstuffed wallet of, say, an associate dean in the College of Humanities, I figured that anyone on our campus would agree that such a move to honor President Hinckley was one of the best places to which all of us could give at least a few dollars. By the way, I have a confession to make: I donated the $2 as coming

    from a student in order to get the 5-1 match. If I erred, I hope the Lord will forgive me for costing the President’s Leadership Council an additional $6 (faculty and staff get 1-1 matches).

    Joseph Parry

    Provo, Utah

    The sound of munching

    How many times have you been sitting in class when someone whips out a bag of doritos and starts munching on them in the middle of a lecture? It seems to happen in everyday. The smell of food fills the classroom and everyone wants class to end so they can eat too. You hear the crinkling of the wrapper and the crunching of the food and soon realize that you have missed much of the lecture. I am tired of dealing with this in so many of my classes. Class time is not snack time. You’d think that college students have enough self control and maturity to sit through a lecture without eating or having snack time like kindergartners. What bugs me even more is that many times people are eating in rooms that are clearly marked ‘no food or drink.’ I’m guessing that these

    students must either be too busy to eat any other time or they have some health issue that requires constant nourishment. In one class I got to enjoy a student chowing down on a Six Dollar Burger meal with large

    fries and a drink from Carl’s Jr. For some reason that is all I remember about that class that day. To those who eat in class, please have enough consideration for others to wait and eat outside of class. Thank you.

    Scott Lindstrom

    Boise, ID

    Illegitimate criticisms

    The ?Hate Bush? people become ?the boy who cried wolf? when they attack him on everything. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made about Bush. Examples: the soaring deficit and an inability to explain to the world our policies. But by attacking him on everything, people stop taking you seriously. How many times do we read a well thought out article about the errors in Bush policy when suddenly the author mentions the Cheney shooting accident? Does this really make Bush a bad president? Then there?s the Dubai port deal (supported by Bill Clinton, by the way). As the L.A. Times reports ?13 of the 14 container terminals at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach, the biggest port complex in the U.S., are run by foreign-owned companies,? It?s nothing new! And it doesn?t mean that the U.S. can?t regulate the security. Sure, let?s reject our ally in the war on terror just because they are Arabs! There are valid criticisms of Bush, but by becoming a Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh, the legitimate points you have become ignored because the rest of your arguments are so easily debunked.

    David Holland

    Henderson, Nevada

    More than I wanted to hear

    I’m no eavesdropper, but everyday I overhear too many private conversations. I know all about person X’s horrible roommates, how Y’s mother is doing, Z’s wedding plans, etc. I hear one person tell a friend a secret to be kept just between them?and anyone else within 20 feet of their conversation. Are half of BYU students really so vain as to think their lives are so reality-show-exciting that everyone else wants to hear about them via cell-phone conversations? Have those chats outside or (here’s a novel concept) in the privacy of your home. And tell me: if someone is rude enough to have a two-hour conversation about her ex-boyfriend in the hall outside my office or where I’m studying, would it be rude to approach her and ask her to take it somewhere private because I’m not interested? I’d like to see more people respect others’ right not to know.

    Hannah Trujillo

    Tualatin, OR

    Reformations

    Every time you put on sandals or flip flops this summer to go to class, remember that you can do so thanks to honor code reformations. Ladies, every time you wear pants to campus remember that 40 years ago you would have been kicked out of the testing center for such a gross violation of the honor code. The honor code is not some timeless document written on stone tablets, sent from above. When society decided, ?Hey, it?s not so bad if women wear pants,? BYU conformed and changed the honor code. When people realized that wearing ?open toed? shoes didn?t automatically make you a drugged out hippie freak, changes were again made to accommodate the students. Our society, our church, and our university needs people who will question and challenge otherwise blindly accepted norms. If it weren?t for such people, we?d still be looking down on pant-wearing women.

    Stephen Robbins

    Albany, OR

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