Daily Bruin neglects newsworthy events

By Thao Tran

On Wednesday, Nov. 14, the Daily Bruin included a piece from the
Associated Press on the flood in Algeria and how over 500 people
were killed. At approximately the same time, typhoon Lingling had
just swept through Philippines and Vietnam, killing hundreds in the
Philippines and leaving thousands of Vietnamese homeless.

Why was Algeria picked over the Philippines and Vietnam? Both
were stories regarding floods that killed approximately the same
amount of people, so why did one make the second page while the
other did not? Your guess is as good as mine. The Daily Bruin needs
to expand its coverage to include news that is directly relevant to
the student population on campus, specifically those of Southeast
Asian descent.

Admittedly, the Daily Bruin cannot cover all the news that is
happening everywhere in the world, and I don’t ask them to.
What I do ask is they do a little more digging instead of just
resorting to the Associated Press all the time. Being a
Vietnamese-American, I think it’s quite disappointing that
such atrocities are happening in Vietnam without the student
population knowing about it.

In the wake of Sept. 11, the focus of the media has shifted to
the war on terrorism, anthrax, supposed violations of civil rights,
etc. Consequently, other would-be news is pushed into the shadows,
news that needs to be publicized for the sake of improving humanity
as a whole. What news is this, you ask?

On Oct. 19, the Vietnamese government sentenced Reverend Nguyen
Van Ly, a political dissident who has time and again denounced the
government for religious oppression and violating basic human
rights, to 15 years in prison in a two-hour trial without the
presence of a defense lawyer or independent witnesses.

In September, Ho Tan An, the 61-year-old leader of the Buddhist
Youth Movement in central Vietnam burned himself to death to
protest the religious persecution of the Unified Buddhist Church of
Vietnam.

Pastor Nguyen Hong Quan was beaten and arrested for, get this,
trying to run projects that help the poor.

Christians from a Hmong tribe were beaten and stabbed with
electric cattle prodders because they would not renounce their
faith.

Vo Thanh Liem, the head of a Buddhist pagoda, was jailed 21
times in the last 20 years for being, well, a Hoa Hao Buddhist. The
government ransacked his pagodas countless times, even stealing the
hammocks of the monks living in the pagoda, and beating its
inhabitants. Twice he had to climb a tree to meditate up there and
avoid being captured. Once, the soldiers who came beat him
senseless while he was meditating. Twice, he had to self-mutilate
(from the flesh of his thigh) to get the soldiers to leave. At the
beginning of this week, he sent out a letter to the international
community describing the injustices he had suffered, and stated his
fear of not being healthy enough anymore to carry on the fight. He
expressed his readiness to sacrifice himself for the cause of
protesting the inhumane treatment of the Vietnamese government
towards religious practitioners and political dissidents.

Instead of reading about these news events, I get to read about
why the doggystyle position is the best way to have sex. I
don’t know about you, but the violation of basic human rights
are far more important to me than the best way of having sex.

I urge the Daily Bruin’s staff to devote their paper to
worthier, broader and more significant news. As members of a
society that encourages individualism, we sometimes tend to be
selfish and worry about the insignificant things in life, like
what’s the latest fashion, sports, the sexiest man alive, and
who won which Oscar. We forget that there’s a world of needy
people out there whose only chance of having better lives are
dependent on our knowledge and actions.

This is an appeal to not only the staff of the Daily Bruin, but
the student body as a whole. Please, empower yourself with
knowledge and take the necessary steps to aid the human evolution
process. How can we be a better society when the majority of the
population is suffering while the minority of the population is
ignorant of their plight? And to make matters worse, only a
minority of that minority actually tries to improve that
plight?

We have it good. So let’s make someone else’s life
just as good as ours.