No Pearl Harbor coverage
Last year, I was disappointed. This year, I am disgusted. Next year, I will likely be enraged. How can 'Favorite Holiday Flicks' (Dec. 7) be more newsworthy in the minds of The Daily Universe than one of the three most important days in the history of this nation? Dec. 7 is a day that will forever 'live in infamy.' What's more important? Jimmy Stewart and 'Elf,' or the fact that we aren't wearing swastikas of the Third Reich and speaking Japanese while saluting the flag of the rising sun?
It speaks poorly of The Daily Universe, its staff and its faculty advisers, when the day that defined The Greatest Generation - our grandparents - goes unmentioned. If The Daily Universe is on a mission to appear illegitimate and be a newspaper comparable to 'The Colbert Report' or 'Entertainment Tonight,' you have succeeded. I certainly respect what you do and what you are trying to do, but you have not succeeded in living up to your charge as journalists. You have failed to adequately exercise the freedom bought by the blood of those who died on the historic day you failed to even mention.
Tyler Johansen
Redding, Calif.
Find Another Place to Sleep
I recently entered the LRC to complete an assignment and a paper for my classes. It was very full with only three or four computers available. I sat down at one and was frustrated to see a girl next to me asleep at her computer. With the high demand for computer use, why waste a space by sleeping on it? I understand that we are all exhausted from finals, papers and projects that overwhelm us at the end of the semester, but let's not be selfish and reserve a space that we are not using. If you're tired, go sleep on a bench, in a hallway, or at a table, but don't occupy a valuable computer station.
Whitney Horito
Las Vegas
Leave MWC Now
BYU needs to get out of the sinking ship that is the MWC. The amount of financial support and the large national fan base of BYU football keep the other schools in the MWC afloat. BYU averaged roughly 58,000 fans in attendance at every football game in 2005. The next highest average of fans in attendance was at Utah, which averaged roughly 41,000. Last year, at the Vegas Bowl, BYU sold so many tickets that the Vegas Bowl increased the payout this year by a $250,000. Why do we settle for a small pittance of a bowl payout, $1 million, when some schools with the same-sized fan base or smaller are receiving up to $12 million?
A few years ago, at the Liberty Bowl, BYU didn't even make enough money to cover travel costs. This is a huge financial blunder on the part of BYU football. Schools with much smaller fan bases and even less marketability (like Baylor and South Florida) than BYU are making more money and are able to compete at a higher level. While it is unlikely BYU will be invited to a BCS conference, BYU probably could renegotiate a TV contract where people can actually see the games, get a better bowl payout and not have to keep the MWC out of the red in football if we were to go independent. BYU's fan base can and will support this and more money can be made. BYU football deserves better than the MWC.
William Marsh
Houston, Texas
Finals Conflict With Vegas Bowl
'Don't forget to follow the 6-2 Cougars on the road this weekend as they play Colorado State!' 'This week is all out white out.' 'Everyone wear blue to this weeks game.' This is what is advertised all over campus and through e-mails all season. Honor, spirit, tradition - right? Come support BYU football - right? Wrong. Only when it's convenient. The Cougars are going to Vegas, baby; but not the students, unless you are lucky enough to not have a final. I love BYU Football; I am a die-hard fan. I have driven 15 hours in one day to watch a game on the road. I have camped out on the asphalt in a church parking lot due to the lack of funds for a hotel.
I more than just bleed blue, but due to two finals that I have on Dec. 21 I won't even be watching the game on TV. My teachers can't let me take the finals early because they have been advised not to by the administration.
Why don't we give the authority to the teachers? Let them decide if their students can take the final early or even with another section. This is more than torture to me. The whole situation is an absolute joke.
Charlie Jewkes
Sandy
Recycle Ads
Every newspaper stand I pass is completely full of papers, well full of inserts and ads. I don't understand, with a recycle bin inches from each stand students can't manage to put the ads in the receptacles. Personally, I find the Smith ads annoying, and would rather they were not included with the paper, but I can still manage to put the ads in the recycle bin. Just today I saw students pile the inserts on top of a trashcan right next to the recycle bin, or just leaving them on top of other papers so the next person has to dig through the ads to find a paper.
So be considerate and save a tree by recycling the inserts.
Kelsey Foster
Brunswick, Ga.