Letters

Letters to the editor

Fresh perspective

Editor:I’m writing to praise the first two columns by Thomas
Willman that have

appeared in the Bruin Arts & Entertainment section. Midway
through both the

Oct. 31 and Nov. 14 articles, I found myself double-checking the
newspaper

banner to make sure someone hadn’t slipped a section of the NY
Village

Voice into my copies of your college paper.

This guy not only has a unique perspective on American society –
partly

understandable, since he’s straight off the boat from Germany –
but he also

packs a remarkable amount of wit and wisdom into his various
takes on

Hollywood filmmaking, the prestidigitations going on with
CD-ROM

technologies, and their impact on our late 20th century notions
of history

and public memory.

You’d have to wake up pretty early in the morning and fan
through a lot

of journals and publications to gather up what this writer
casually spins

out in his commentaries.

I look forward to Willman’s future writings on his new life here
in Los

Angeles. And, I hope he continues to explore American culture’s
influence

on his imagination – as well as on those of other visiting
students – as

engagingly as he’s already done. I recommend his conversational
style –

kind of makes you feel like you’ve just landed at his table in
some

bohemian Munich cafe to enjoy rich food for thought.Eric L.
Vollmer

Los Angeles RepertorySurvival of the kindest

Editor:You know, love is a uniquely human concept. I don’t think
any other

species on the planet really uses the idea of love. I mean, look
at why

they have sex: They have it to propagate the species. How do
they choose

who they’re going to have sex with? They do it by ramming heads
and finding

out who is the most physically powerful so that the strong
survive. Does

love equate with this? Well, maybe, but I don’t really see much
more than a

physical attraction working here.

Seriously, you look at some species, and they have the strongest
male

basically running a harem. Humans don’t usually do that. Love is
a truly

human quality because it makes absolutely no sense.

No sense, you’re saying. What the hell do I mean by that?
Really, think

about it: If we analyze it, do humans really make sense? Should
we really

be the dominant species? I mean, look at how frail we are in
comparison to

other animals. Look at how we can’t do anything really
spectacular. If we

were to listen to Darwin’s theories, as all of the other animals
do, we’d

only have a few humans around, and they’d all be pro athletes
in

physique.

If we were really practical creatures, we would’ve eliminated
all of the

weaker members of the species years ago. People with
disabilities, or who

are short or just not very well-endowed: GONE!! I know it sounds
crass, but

it’s the truth. I’m willing to admit that I wouldn’t fit in a
world based

on survival of the fittest because really, I don’t have the
physical

abilities to survive.

But you know what? Humans are the dominant species on this
planet. We

can tame almost any animal. Our species overruns the earth. How
is this?

Because we don’t make any sense. People have the capacity to
love each

other, and that gives the ability to see beyond our physical
attributes, to

see what’s inside.

People love each other, and they help each other, and while that
doesn’t

help the stronger individual become dominant, it helps the
entire group

become stronger. When people love each other, they open
themselves up to

becoming vulnerable, but the stronger being that they become
more than

compensates for this. Imagine if we could get all the people in
the world

to love each other.

Colin Chan

Second year

English

Plucking the pole

Editor:A note of appreciation for the reasonably fair article,
"God only

knows," Nov. 13, about Jews for Jesus, written by Sarah Krupp. A
word of

response is in order to Chaim Seidler-Feller.

Elsewhere in the same Daily Bruin issue ("Rabin deserves respect
for

transformation toward peace," Nov. 13), he charged "teachers of
tradition,"

implicating rabbis like himself with culpability of crimes
committed by

individuals whose passion for hatred is stirred up by their
teachers’

inflammatory language.

To paraphrase a great teacher, I suggest Seidler-Feller pull
the

telephone pole from out of his own eye before he attempt to
pluck the

splinter from that of another. I hold Seidler-Feller responsible
for what I

see as his own incendiary and bigoted statements about the good
people in

the office of Jews for Jesus.Tuvya Zaretsky

Chief of Station

Jews for Jesus