Letters

Another Nazi-cop tirade?

Editor:

I’m personally boycotting this year’s baseball season for
idealistic reasons, if not for the purpose of having any real
economic impact. But as the season commences (if only due to court
order and not negotiation) I feel safe in making a baseball
analogy.

David Aguilar’s April 11 viewpoint, "Prop. 187 backers: Remember
Monday" is like making a left of center throw for the plate in
hopes of getting a triple play. His use of antiquated slang
terminology to malign the police didn’t lend any authority to his
petulant rant, either. ("Pig" in the pejorative appears at least
four times. Maybe he could have achieved a little variety with the
use of "Johnny Law," "the man" or the trite yet ubiquitous
"donut-eaters." Or maybe, let’s just get with the ’90s, Timmy,
because vilifying the police with childish name-calling is outmoded
by about 20 years now.

The Los Angeles Police Department is overworked and inadequately
compensated, mustering less officers per capita than any other
metropolis in the nation, but I won’t venture into the topic of how
it’s hardly their calling to care for the product of someone else’s
poor parenting. But by somehow conjecturing to blame the police for
an immigration policy referendum currently tied up in the courts
and for a racial issue concerning hiring and admission practices,
Aguilar is guilty of one of the most convoluted abuses of logic
I’ve seen while at this university (although if Monday is any
indication, I’m sure there are more Aguilars waiting in the wings
to grab those honors). I’m as embarrassed to share any association
with David Aguilar as I am to call the rowdy, idiotic baboons of
recent Westwood infamy my fellow Bruins.

Allow me to revise my previous sports analogy. Aguilar’s
viewpoint is the rhetorical equivalent of trying to make that
warning track throw for a triple play at home with only one man on
and substituting the baseball with a shot put.

James Lebakken

Junior

English