The Rice Thresher

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September 9, 2005 > Opinion > Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Columnist mistaken on oil supply, demand

To the editor:

I laud Amber Obermeyer’s effort to integrate learning into opinion (“Oil’s macro-problems do not have easy micro-solutions,” Sept. 2). Two mistakes, however, cannot go unnoticed.

The oil stashes of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia are only estimates; it is not a hard fact that they will be depleted in 40 years. Moreover, there are untapped reservoirs in places like Alaska, Russia and Nigeria, whose development is hampered by political complications. Exhaustion in 40 years is the most conservative in a range of estimates with a legion of variables.

The more egregious mistake in the article was the assertion that “recent price increases have been driven by diminishing supply, not an increase in demand.” This is in fact entirely false. There is an increase in demand, coming from growing nations with burgeoning appetites for oil, namely China and India. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ production levels are at an all-time high. If they should dip, it is not due to a shortage in oil resources, as was suggested in the article. It will be a consequence of OPEC’s oligopoly pricing scheme, which aims to cooperatively maximize industry profits.

Ashok Ayyar Sid senior

Rice’s hurricane

response inadequate#

To the editor:

President Leebron should be ashamed of himself. I received an e-mail about how Rice will give relief for victims of the floods in New Orleans: Rice is offering free tickets to a football game and free classes (on a space available basis) to Houston-area students from Tulane University.

We are one of the richest schools in the nation, in the closest major city to New Orleans. Georgia Tech in Atlanta is doing more with less, actually offering places to stay for refugees. Rice should do the same. In the short term, Rice should clear out the gym, put in cots, open up the central kitchen and host several hundred refugees — actual refugees, people with nothing left, whose lives are under water.

The Tulane kids are not the ones who need help. They will be fine. Their families have homes and money and the worst that will happen to them is they will miss a semester of school. Everyone in New Orleans should be so lucky.

I am now living in New York City with my wife Kiyomi Troemner (Hanszen ‘00). Leebron was once here as dean of the Columbia University School of Law. Columbia, thousands of miles away, is doing more than Rice. It is offering free classes to anyone from Tulane, not just “New York-area” students. People are volunteering their couches for refugees on Craigslist.com and MoveOn.org. Student groups are trying to get their gym and all temporary dorms dedicated to refugees. The students at Rice are just as compassionate and would mobilize at a moment’s notice to help.

I have never been less proud to be a Rice alumnus than when I got that e-mail. I mean, football tickets? How offensive! Leebron has got to do more.

Work fast — time is not on anyone’s side.

Thank you in advance, Leebron, for doing the right thing.

Thomas Blaylock Brown ‘02

Free football tickets deserve the boot

To the editor:

With all due respect, Rice’s offer of free football tickets to New Orleans refugees is pretty laughable. Even if Rice doesn’t see fit to admit more than just Tulane University students to campus for the semester, the least the university could do is to open up Autry Court for people to live in for a few months.

Rice has billions of dollars in its endowment, and the best we can offer is free football tickets? And only to the Navy game? It’s not as if tickets are scarce for the rest of the schedule. Rice looks almost as out of touch as the Bush administration.

Ben Gran Brown ‘01

Accusations of apathy unfair, unwarranted

To the editor:

Ashamed? Absolutely not. Astonished? Certainly — at the arrogance of someone sitting over 1,000 miles away, ignorant of most circumstances, reacting with such accusing hostility to an institution trying, like so many, to make a contribution toward the alleviation of this great disaster. I do understand, however, that as a former resident of New Orleans you must have felt especially keenly the losses there, and perhaps have even been in touch with friends who are in distress. It is laudable that your desire to help the victims leads you to challenge all of us to do the best we can, but in this case, your attack was unwarranted and ill-considered.

As you point out, when you were a student at Rice, I was Dean of Columbia Law School, and in that capacity experienced a great city suffering through another terrible catastrophe — the attack on September 11, 2001. We learned many things at that time. One is that institutions best respond when they do the things they are specifically best suited to do, and when they support the more general efforts of other institutions through contributions and volunteer service.

Of course, the @Rice announcement you recieved contained only a portion of our efforts. Yes, we are seeking to help Tulane and its displaced students. We were one of the very first universities to offer any assistance at all, and our assistance in absolute terms, and especially in relation to our size, is among the largest offered. Other universities have praised our leadership, and a number have indicated that they have taken us as their example. Most universities have capped their assistance at 25 or 50 students. We opened our doors to all Tulane students from Houston, and we could have up to 400 additional students. Your conclusion about Columbia’s response comparing so favorably to Rice’s is simply false and unsupported by any announcement on their Web site. They opened applications to their school of continuing studies — and not for “free.” Our staff is working very hard to accommodate what could turn out to be one of the largest efforts, measured in terms of a percentage of our own student body, to accommodate displaced students.

We have received many reactions to this effort, virtually all praising our contribution and the strong leadership we have exercised. Many were from alumni, who expressed their appreciation in effusive terms. We have in fact received only one communication with the tone of your [Blaylock’s] e-mail — yours. Your assumption about the economic circumstances of Tulane students is of course fundamentally wrong. Like Rice students, they come from a great variety of economic backgrounds, which is why we offered immediately to honor whatever need based scholarships Tulane has awarded them.

As to other efforts, our students, staff and faculty have been volunteering, especially at the Astrodome located just a few miles away. Our staff organization has led a food drive which has produced a great quantity of donations. Our kitchen servery has cooked meat for the refugees in the Astrodome. Our student EMS volunteers have gone to the Astrodome and other relief locations to help give medical assistance. We shall continue, both as an institution and individuals here at Rice and in Houston, to help in whatever way we can.

You suggest we should “clear out the gym” and set up cots to host refugees. Do you really have any knowledge of what is needed here in Houston? Yesterday, my wife and I volunteered at the Houston Convention Center, where several thousand people are staying. It was not yet filled to capacity and is being wonderfully managed so far as we could tell. Cots, clothing, food, medical care and personal services as well as shelter are available. The last thing I think we need in Houston is organizations without expertise or infrastructure setting up uncoordinated centers for evacuees when there is housing available at the centers managed by the city and other organizations with requisite experience.

The football ticket information was probably a mistake to include in any announcement, and so far as I can tell is not true in any case. Certainly, it would hardly be a priority in our efforts. Still, as anyone who has ever assisted in such circumstances would tell you, finding things to alleviate the boredom and tediousness of the circumstances of such people is in fact an aid in assisting their recovery. In some ways, such an effort would complement the offers made by some of Houston’s cultural institutions to open their doors to Katrina victims without charge.

So, as we try to do what we can here in Houston, a thousand miles closer than you to this disaster, and within a few miles of the temporary locations of some 20,000 refugees, we would welcome your suggestions, given from the comfort of New York, as to how we can do a better job. If your strong desire to make a difference should lead you to come to the region to help, please don’t hesitate to contact Mac Griswold, who is coordinating the volunteer efforts here. If you wish to publicize your views about the inadequacy of our efforts more broadly, I hope at least you will inform yourself more carefully.

To repeat as I close, I am not ashamed. I am proud of the effort, as an institution and through the many members of our community, that we have made both to assist the specific population we are best situated to help and to aid the larger group of refugees so in need of food, clothing, medical care, and other support.

David Leebron President

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