Letters to the Editor
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 30, 2006 9:00 p.m.
Time-honored rivalry takes a back seat
The Bruin Bear is hibernating. Why else would a 2-ton piece of
aluminum foil be hiding underneath a specially tailored tarp?
Is it the same reason that Tommy Trojan is wrapped up in duct
tape?
The excitement of the USC-UCLA rivalry has been apparently
getting so intense that we had to slow it down or we would implode
from excitement. They did it for our health.
What was once a rivalry worth discussing has diminished into an
annual exchanging of tides ““ USC wins at football, UCLA wins
at basketball.
Losing the football game this weekend would be sad, but it would
just be one more tick on the bedpost of L.A. bedfellows.
But desecrating Tommy? That is an honor worthy of remembering.
And it won’t ever happen again.
What we have now is a situation in which both schools are so
proud of the legacy of the rivalry that they are intent to kill
it.
Instead of being offensive, we have become defensive, and in
doing so we are becoming apathetic to the UCLA-USC rivalry
altogether.
Wake up the bear, undress the Trojan and let’s find out
who’s devious.
Daniel Hage Third-year, History
Draft will only intensify our loss
Columnist Katie Strickland justifies her support of the military
draft (“If it takes a draft to make us care, so be it,”
Nov. 30) by citing Rep. Charles Rangel’s assertion that we
wouldn’t have gone to Iraq if there were a draft in
effect.
I can only stand in awe of this stellar idea: In order to stop
the use of force of dictators, we’ll use force on our own
civilians.
Our current soldiers chose to serve and knew the risks going in.
Compulsory armies, on the other hand, are armies without the will
to fight.
We’re losing the war in Iraq. Whether the American people
choose to evade this fact or face it will determine our ability to
defend ourselves in cases of an actual threat.
But the last thing we should do is defend the land and people of
America at the expense of freedom ““ the foundation of our
country.
Nader Badri Fourth-year, International development
studies
