Letters

Wednesday, November 18, 1998

Letters

Nothing in life is free, not even lunch

As a student spending her second year living in on-campus
housing, I rely on the cafeteria for most of my meals. While I
agree that the dining services have attempted to institute marked
improvements in terms of the availability and variety of food they
offer to residents, these changes have not been significant enough
to warrant the claim in Neal Narahara’s article (News Nov. 13),
"Improved dining hall services curb meal coupon use."

This article implied that the services in the residential dining
halls are so overwhelmingly wonderful that students would rather
run back to the dorms in the middle of the day to eat lunch rather
than stay on campus and eat in one of the many ASUCLA
restaurants.

I would instead attribute this stampede to the cafeterias to the
fact that, as the article stated, a student lunch coupon is only
worth $1.85. Other than Taco Bell, there is nowhere, especially on
the UCLA campus, where $1.85 can buy a person a satisfying
lunch.

The meal coupons are simply a rip-off. Students have realized
this and have chosen to make the trek back to the dorms for lunch,
where they at least have a better chance of getting their money’s
worth. The trek may be long and inconvenient, but at least, unlike
lunch, it’s free.

Jessica Langenhan

Second-year

Biology

Patients should have right to die

Eric Achytes’ article, "Terminally ill should live life to
fullest," (Viewpoint, Nov. 13) totally avoids addressing the main
issues that drive the right-to-die movement: pain, loss of control,
pain, loss of dignity, pain.

One suspects that he has never witnessed the slow death of a
person with cancer, either as a close relative or a health care
professional.

Those of us who have experienced such deaths cannot understand
why anyone, in his ivory tower, would advocate an extra month or
two of agony for a vague philosophy of "living life to the
fullest."

Though the right-to-die movement recently suffered another
"defeat" in Michigan, we have achieved a partial victory in getting
the medical establishment to pay more attention to end-of-life
care. Unfortunately, it is apparent from such things as the
depressing statistics of the recent "support" study, that their
feet must be held to the fire a while longer.

Meanwhile, the statistics in Oregon ­ that there are 10
assisted suicides for every 2,000 people dying ­ indicate that
the issue is more psychological than practical. For those 10, there
probably were 100 people who were reassured in their dying days
that they had the right to some control of their end, which
coincides with the percent of deaths estimated to be painful: about
5 percent.

And this year, in California, we achieved the victory of
abolition of the triplicate forms, so that physicians can prescribe
the pain alleviators that are needed by their patients for a
comfortable death without the fear of a bureaucrat in Sacramento
tapping their shoulder.

W.M. Kaula

Professor

Earth and Space Sciences

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