The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/opinion/2007/02/09/letter_to_editor

February 9, 2007 > Opinion > Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

By | Thresher Editorial Staff

Recycling program progresses at Rice#

To the editor:

Thanks so much for your coverage of Rice’s participation in the intercollegiate recycling competition RecycleMania (“Reduce, Reuse, then RecycleMania” Feb. 2).

You are absolutely correct in noting that reducing our consumption of materials and then reusing what we consume precede recycling. To this end, I am pleased to announce that we have embraced your suggestion and enlisted Rice in the “Waste Minimization” category of the RecycleMania contest. This means that we will not only be encouraging members of the Rice community to recycle, but also to look for opportunities to minimize or prevent waste altogether. In the spirit of RecycleMania, perhaps the Thresher could consider running a special waste-free digital-only edition, like the online Slate Magazine.

We are making gradual but steady improvement in our recycling program at Rice. Two years ago, we were diverting around 20 percent of our total solid waste from the landfill through either recycling or composting. Last fall, we recorded a diversion rate for the quarter of 27 percent, which is almost identical to that of the City of Austin. Meanwhile, the City of Houston’s recycling rate is a paltry five percent.

Despite this progress, much work remains. Students can help minimize waste by remembering to return ceramic plates and plastic cups to the serveries, which will make the kitchens less reliant upon disposables. Students can also use the blue bins in their rooms to recycle paper and can carry their empty bottles and cans to centralized collection points in the colleges. If for some reason a dorm room does not have a blue bin for paper recycling, students can request a bin from their custodian.

I would also encourage any student interested in recycling to consider joining the Student Recycling Council and working to improve recycling on campus. Thank you again to the Thresher for taking the time to inform the Rice student body about RecycleMania. For more information about recycling at Rice, please visit recycle.rice.edu .

Richard Johnson Sustainability Planner

Feminists for Life do not empower women

To the editor:

Kathleen Hanson’s editorial about Feminists for Life (“Feminists-for-life fight for women, defy stereotypes,” Feb. 2) strikes me as being sadly disingenuous. I absolutely agree with her that the pro-life stance has nothing to do with bombing abortion clinics, telling women they’re going to hell or displaying grotesque pictures in public. However, I dispute that their practices have anything to do with feminism.

Feminism is about empowering women, about giving them the means and the confidence to have as much control over their lives as men have over theirs. Feminists for Life does not want women to have abortions, and they advance in particular the argument that abortions do not just harm unborn children, but also women themselves.

This is a defensible stance. However, what the organization does not do is give women any means at all to avoid the problem of abortion entirely. Some research on their web site reveals that they have no publication to inform women about birth control options, no resources in place to help women obtain condoms or hormonal birth control, and no programs to empower women to be assertive enough to insist that they and their partners use contraception.

In short, Feminists for Life says that abortions hurt women, but their only suggestion for avoiding the hurt is to not have one. This simply does not provide any woman any alternate paths to avoid such an evil or the knowledge and power to make such choices responsibly. They may have a feminist-sounding goal, but they go about achieving it in a distinctly anti-feminist manner.

Matthew Patterson

Jones senior

Columnist cannot speak for Democrats

To the editor:

I would like to thank Kirti Datla for her column (“We Democrats must succeed where Bush fails,” Feb. 2). She made some good points and presented issues that are significant to human life today.

I would like to ask one question: When did “we Democrats” become a people motivated against those who hold other opinions? Not only is it impossible to assume all Democrats hold the same opinions, but it is also simply incorrect to assume all other political categories hold radically opposite or hostile viewpoints. There are pro-life Democrats, Republicans working to increase taxes and almost any combination of stereotypes one can imagine — because people value different political issues in individual ways.

The solutions to the problems in the world do not lie with the American Democrats. These problems are the responsibility of all people in our country, and further, on our earth. The solutions require a certain amount of peace and unity if they are to be executed. Proclaiming “us Democrats” to be a separate sphere of understanding and interaction is hardly a step forward.

Katina Mitchell

Martel senior

Bookstore blunders continue; buy online

To the editor:

For the fourth semester in a row, the bookstore has not ordered the books I ordered and need, and neither has it informed me that these books are missing or unavailable. This is a miracle of both incompetence and consistency: The bookstore has been really stinko forever.

I am going to tell my students from now on to go straight to Amazon.com. We should all do this and avoid the only bookstore at a major university I have ever heard of that doesn’t give its students some kind of discount.

The money we all save at Amazon can then be put to better use when we are in the Campus Store to browse the T-shirts.

Terrence Doody

English professor

End of article

Back to top