Letters

Cartoon captures unjust reality

I was truly gratified to see Scott Comulada’s depiction of
UCLA’s medical insurance plan in the recent installment of
his “Press
Pound“ comic strip (Daily Bruin, Viewpoint, Oct. 23). His
very funny satire of the plan’s unreasonable coverage
limitations targets one of the most unpleasant daily realities in
my own life.

I am a graduate teaching assistant. The university highly
discourages me from taking any other employment. Thus, by this very
straightforward criterion, I am a full-time UCLA employee. Yet, as
such, the university refuses to provide adequate, affordable health
care to my dependents.

Much like the poor university worker in the comic strip who
hears that injuries sustained in a fall from a university office
building window are not covered because he was then “leaving
work,” unreasonably limited coverage (i.e. a $1,000 quarterly
deductible, a maximum pay-out of $50,000, and a more than $400
quarterly premium) leave my dependents unprotected from whatever
injuries that might befall them.

The university justifies this irresponsible treatment of its
employees by dishonestly manipulating the definition of teaching
assistant status in a sort a Orwellian doublespeak. When we TAs
complain about a lack of benefits and low pay, the university
justifies its meager offerings by portraying us as ungrateful
“students.” Yet clearly, we are university workers. The
big business of university education comes to a grinding halt
without us.

The TA strike in 1998 finished the fall quarter weeks early.
University administrators tell me that adequate coverage for TA
dependents would be too expensive. I say that the real cost remains
to be assessed the next time we “students” put down our
grade-books.

James Westfall Graduate student comparative
literature

Don’t embrace illegal immigrants

Yashar Ettekal’s article “Citizens should
embrace immigrants, not rhetoric, “ (Daily Bruin,
Viewpoint, Nov. 9) is a perfect diatribe by someone who has been
brainwashed in anti-American rhetoric; it’s politically
correct nowadays to be anti-white and anti-American. I suggest that
this author go out and interview the policy-makers and soldiers who
were sent to the countries he described so that he has a full
understanding of what transpired, not what some professor might
have deemed to be “his” truth.

After he’s done doing that, he needs to stand at the
border and tell illegal immigrants that committing crimes in
America doesn’t pay. If you want to enter our borders, do the
right thing and do it legally. Embracing immigrants is one thing;
embracing illegals is another. Blame whomever you want for those
who illegally cross our borders, but the truth of the matter is
that most come for money, not political freedom. Greed is the basis
for almost all crimes.

What we should do as Americans is support democracies and
capitalistic ventures in Mexico and Latin America so that their
citizens can remain in their countries and create a decent living
standard. The problem in Mexico and Latin America is that
corruption and lack of morals are so abundant among their leaders
and citizenry that their futures are bleak.

American people should not have to work 40 hours a week to
support illegals. That’s un-American and that’s a
crime.

Yuridia Gonzalez Second-year political
science