Letters

Fight back against greed

Mike Hansen wisely brings to light the disturbing trend of
guerrilla marketing (“Got ways to stop commercialism
takeover?,” Nov. 7), but neglects to illustrate what makes it
so repugnant. Guerrilla marketing reveals the total, sickening
saturation of our society by egotistic capitalist greed.

When people see blatant exploitative opportunism, such as $15
T-shirts featuring the American flag mere days after the tragedies
of Sept. 11, 2001, they are rightly upset. But people are
inexplicably silent when corporations engage in the same profanity
on a daily basis.

All corporations exist to give you as little as possible in
exchange for as much of your blood, sweat and tears as you will
part with. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Do I have a solution? Yes! Stop tolerating it. If you see one of
Microsoft’s little butterflies somewhere, take out your
Sharpie and give it genitalia. Make it as offensive as capitalistic
greed is. Show your offense and put corporate guerrillas on the
defense.

Kevin Elliott
Second-year, undeclared

Whining won’t solve problems

Apparently the editorial board has a problem with our democratic
system (“Thin majority a threat to democracy,” Nov. 7).
To begin with, the word democratic is continuously placed in
quotes, implying that the word is not descriptive of what is
actually going on.

I voted Tuesday and while some of my candidates won, not all
did. That’s the essence of our representative democracy. The
editorial board seems to believe that since most of its candidates
lost, something is wrong with the system.

Furthermore, the continual complaints about the 2000
presidential election are tired and misplaced. George W. Bush won
because he got the majority of the electoral college votes. Bush is
the third president to have been elected in such a manner. If you
don’t like the system, try and change it, but stop
whining.

Marc Levy
Fourth-year, mechanical engineering

Abusers are at fault, not drugs

Sarah Jansen’s Nov. 6 column, “Popping mind-altering
drugs not always an answer to problem,” had a number of
it’s own problems.

Yes, it matters that speed-dealers abuse psychiatric medication.
However, drug abuse will occur with or without such medication.
Most patients do not take medication without guidance; those who do
are irresponsible. Psychotropic or psychiatric medication cannot be
distributed to patients, even in a trial study, before receiving
Food and Drug Administration approval. The FDA does not approve
drugs until researchers and scientists have inspected their
effects.

If Jansen legitimately inspected the history of mental illness,
she would realize how grateful we should be to have drugs with
minimal side-effects that can treat depression, anxiety and
schizophrenia.

I believe in a system that works for the majority of its
patients rather than not providing suitable care because of the few
who abuse it.

Lindsay Stricke
Fourth-year, psychology

Non-smokers have rights too

In Charlotte Hsu’s article, “Smoke-free zone policy
may change,” (News, Nov. 5) I feel there was a failure to
address the positive issues of the potential smoking policy change,
like student support for the policy.

As a student, I highly favor this change. I feel that 20
feet is a reasonable distance from buildings to ask people to
smoke. I don’t know how many times I have been forced to walk
through a cloud of smoke as I made my way into buildings. 

The article also addressed the inconvenience posed toward
implementers or smokers. I feel that this change will
undoubtedly require some initial inconvenience. In the same
respect, it will bring about benefits that will more than
compensate for this extra effort.

What I don’t understand is why there aren’t more
efforts forwarding the rights of non-smoking students to have clean
air. Changing the policy from 5 to 20 feet would be a minimal
gesture.

Doris Chen
Fourth-year, communications