The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/opinion/2007/11/16/letters_to_the_editor

November 16, 2007 > Opinion > Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

Mintz’s columns thought-provoking

To the editor:

In response to Scott Berger’s letter: Please do not fire Evan Mintz (“Evan Mintz should be fired immediately,” Nov. 9).

Mintz is not afraid of dealing with hot potatoes. I am not surprised that the views he has put forth in his articles have angered a large number of readers. On occasion, I have been irked by what he has written. At the same time, though, Mintz often deals with controversial issues that are commonly avoided. I am convinced that this style has also garnered him a group of supporters who look forward to reading his articles every week.

Mintz has written about on-campus affairs, NOD and nudity, politics, religion and abortion. I have not always agreed with his views, but I have accepted them as valid, well-researched positions. Firing Mintz would rob Thresher readers of daring, well-written and often entertaining articles that can broaden horizons.

Reading an opinion article about a controversial issue is an opportunity to evaluate one’s own position, and perhaps to find mistakes in one’s reasoning. If opinion articles were not controversial and just pleasing to the crowd, they would not be worth reading.

Cutting out articles that are not loved by some of the readers is a poor choice, the equivalent of trying to lose weight by eating nothing. If you want to improve the Thresher’s opinion articles, increase the paper’s metabolism by hiring an opinion editor with a radically different point of view.

Mathias Ricken

Sid Richardson ‘04

Removal of editor detrimental to paper

To the editor:

Scott Berger’s call for the firing of Thresher Executive Editor Evan Mintz is patently absurd for a few reasons.

The first is that Berger seems to have forgotten how a newspaper works.

As executive editor, Mintz deals with the staffing, business and editorial aspects of the paper. Firing an editor should only happen if they have mishandled these duties and Berger fails to warrant as to why this might be the case.

Second, firing Mintz for any perceived lack of writing ability would be a journalistic version of the Sedition Acts and as a Thresher alumna myself, I find that impermissible. A more nuanced solution might have been to ask the opinions editor who edits Mintz’s columns to encourage him to moderate his tone.

Third, the letter itself demonstrates more of the pejorative language Berger claims to dislike than Mintz’s column itself. In fact, the point of Mintz’s column was that in-person communication is more constructive than blanket slogans.

The fact that the Thresher published this letter proves that Mintz is doing his job as executive editor, no matter how much some people might disagree with his opinions. The last time I checked, newspapers were supposed to guarantee and engender the exercise of free speech.

Kirti Datla

Sid Richardson senior

Critique should not cause disagreement

To the editor:

The irony of the attack on Evan Mintz was that it was “childish” and “insecure.” Berger’s opinions were changed in reaction to infantile logic and expression? Damn. I like infants and middle-schoolers but I am secure enough in my beliefs to resist their sophistry.

To the point, though, I opened up the Backpage last Friday to find that it was a send-up of philosophy majors (“Backpage,” Nov. 9). I am a philosophy major. I thought it was hilarious.

Suppose that I was offended, though — how dare he suggest that philosophy butters no bread! I wouldn’t reconsider my opinions unrelated to the Backpage, “those which I held, frequently in agreement with him,” because I was suddenly the subject of his satire.

I thought I wanted a longer winter break until I read his quote about philosophy and masturbation of the ego on the Backpage (“Longer winter break, that’s all we need,” Nov. 9). Well, fuck you Evan Mintz, an academic calendar is all we do not need!

Jacob Nelson

Baker freshman

Columnist tarnishes

Satanism and its style#

To the editor:

You know, I have always kind of looked up to Evan Mintz, the guy who continues to churn out Backpage articles, even though he knows only a handful of students on campus will ever think they are funny.

So imagine my surprise when I open the Thresher to find an article publicly blasting my religion (“Students: You know you are a Satanist if…,” Nov. 2). Evan’s shoddy article suggesting that a good majority of the public is Satanist is a mockery of my life’s work.

Little does Evan know, Rice Satanists have been planning a large Satan campaign to give the religion a more legitimate public face. Just like the homosexuals adopted the word “gay” and atheists adopted the word “bright” to make their causes more socially acceptable, we are planning to adopt the phrase “people who agree to disagree with God.”

On top of that, we have finally robbed enough people that we can afford to make “WWSD” bracelets, print “Not without my Satan” T-shirts, and stamp “You just made baby Satan laugh” buttons.

All in all, we are a simple people: We just want to kill a few minorities on the weekend and drink their blood while we sing Satanic hymns by fires burning aborted babies.

Let me apologize if I seem haughty, because I’m not perfect. Sometimes I say kind words inadvertently, without thinking about their impact. However, I try to live my life to fulfill Satan’s purpose as best I can. I have spent many a night torturing and killing people aimlessly, so that I might secure myself a good place in Hell.

Satanists also contribute greatly to life at Rice. Though we keep it quiet, we are actually responsible for many social aspects of this community. We started Wiess College’s Night of Decadence, we suggested the distribution credit system, we hired Todd Graham (and David Leebron) and we also created the syllabus for CAAM 210. What thanks do we get? A nasty little column in our school’s newspaper suggesting that it is easy to be a Satanist.

Thanks to this Evan Mintz character, our movement is set back another hundred years or so, another century that we will have to keep our hobbies private, unable to truly be ourselves.

Mintz, I hope you cannot sleep at night thinking of all the innocent people you have saved from certain pain and brutality. I hope you are haunted by every gentle embrace you see that could have been a knife wound if we had our way. In short, go to heaven.

Bonner Reed

Jones sophomore

May fails to support

argument with facts#

To the editor:

Caroline May’s column on smoking was factually inaccurate and makes her come off sounding like a nut (“Smoking bans nothing but political hot air,” Nov. 9). She obviously buys into right-wing framing, “nanny-state” and all. Ann Coulter would be proud.

Who, precisely, are these “liberal politicians” who stand to gain profit from smoking bans? Last I heard, the tobacco lobby had far more money than any anti-smoking group could ever put up. There is no liberal conspiracy to ban smoking because society ‘vilifies’ smokers. Obviously, we’re too busy waging the War on Christmas.

Also, she claims that the World Health Organization has issued a statement saying that secondhand smoke causes no ill effects. I’m sorry, is this the same WHO that said that “involuntary smoking involves exposure to the same numerous carcinogens and toxic substances that are present in tobacco smoke”?

And that “more than 50 studies of involuntary smoking and lung cancer risk in never-smokers, especially spouses of smokers, have been published during the last 25 years. These studies have been carried out in many countries. Most showed an increased risk, especially for persons with higher exposures”?

And that the existence of the ill effects of secondhand smoke are accepted by the Center for Disease Control, the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Cancer Institute, the American Medical Association, the American Lung Association, and just about every other medical organization of note?

Perhaps Caroline, like her apparent model Ann Coulter, ought to check her facts before making baseless assertions. Banning smoking in places where other people are forced to inhale it makes sense and protects the public.

Travis O’Rear

Brown freshman

Nonsmokers reserve right to comfort

To the editor:

Caroline May’s column has some good points. May points out that there are a number of scientific studies that support the notion that secondhand smoking is not as bad as most people are lead to believe. Not being able to find these reports, or having done any myself, I cannot really comment on them.

I, for one, support smoking bans because of the discomfort it causes me. I have faint memories of going into restaurants as a kid and getting major headaches from secondhand smoke across the room. Even to this day, my allergies flair up when someone who was smoking half an hour before is in my general vicinity. I do not say anything: It is their right to smoke, and it is my prerogative to leave the room. But it is also my right to, say, attend smoke-free classes. Or, perhaps, work in a smoke-free office.

I am not advocating a complete ban on smoking. If I go into a bar, I know quite well that it will reek of cigar and cigarette smoke. That is cool. It is a bar. You smoke, I drink — everyone is happy.

Perhaps the solution is not so cut and dry as “smoking is banned, period” or “smoke everywhere, whenever you feel like it.” Maybe the next step would be to improve upon the “smoking section” concept with high volume ventilators or something. That way, smokers can smoke inside, and others do not have to sneeze.

Michael Foree

Will Rice junior

Free-market concept

not akin smoking#

To the editor:

Anytime I hear someone advocating a free-market approach to a public issue, particularly a public health issue, I check to see if they are looking to pick up a check as a lobbyist. In Caroline May’s case, it is more likely part of her ongoing audition to replace Ann Coulter.

But to the larger issue: Free-market approaches to governing simply do not work. All one has to do is look at how deregulation has negatively affected the public to know that. Deregulating the savings and loan industry in the 1980s was a multi-million dollar disaster. Anyone paying a light bill or boarding an airliner can tell you how well deregulating those industries has gone.

The free market is predisposed only to look at the bottom line as rationale for any decision. If five or ten waitpersons at a restaurant contract lung cancer or emphysema because of secondhand smoke inhalation, well heck, there is always someone else willing to take the chance, huh Caroline?

R.T. Castleberry

Rice University Purchasing Agent

Column’s reasoning

ignores others’ rights#

To the editor:

How does condoning smoking under the guise of individual rights not violate my right of not having to gag on smoke-filled air when I am simply trying to study outside the Rice Memorial Center or run on the Outer Loop? By citing a scientific article that claims secondhand smoke is only marginally detrimental to health, Caroline May seems to imply that there is no gray area between killing me and simply pissing me off.

I guess she would not mind if we relocated the Sid tower speakers to outside her bedroom window while we are at it? After all, we apparently have a right to do whatever we want as long as the “free market” allows it — whatever that means. Having to put up with a little extra noise when you are trying to study is not going to kill you, now is it?

How about my right not to have to pay higher insurance premiums to support a health care system that spends $73 billion annually to treat the single most preventable cause of death in the United States?

Or my right not to pull more than my fair share at a workplace where smoking coworkers on average spend twice as long on breaks during the day and take twice as many sick days, and then stink up the entire office when they return?

Or my right not to live in a room that smells like an ash tray because the former tenant “exercised his individual rights” so frequently?

What about everyone’s right to live on a campus as beautiful as Rice’s that’s not spoiled by cigarette butts, the single largest source of litter in the United States and one of the largest sources of water pollution?

If smoking actually did something good for anyone, besides feeding a chemical addiction, I would fight just as hard as the next person to allow it; but no one has the right to breathe carcinogens into the faces of people around them, dump heavy metals into our water supply, and recklessly endanger themselves and those around them at the sole benefit of the tobacco companies.

Dane Powell

Jones senior

SAC clarifies article

on Owl Days panel#

To the editor:

As Student Admission Council Directors, we appreciate last week’s coverage of our Owl Days panel discussion; however, we would like to offer clarification of several points (“SAC to replace Owl Weekend with Owl Days for prospectives,” Nov. 9).

The decisive factor in replacing Owl Weekend with Owl Days was the difficulty of accommodating 500-plus prospective students on campus, especially with plans for increased growth. Contrary to popular belief, the reason that the program will take place early in the week is because previous prospective students wanted greater focus on attending classes, not because we want to discourage partying during the program. Owl Days, we hope, will have much of the same feel and focus on personal interactions as did its multi-day predecessor, while allowing admitted students more flexibility in choosing which date to come visit campus. The overnight component is not lost, just shortened to one night. We expect positive returns from this new setup.

We would also like to respond to your suggestion of two Owl Weekends, one for the “party Owls” and one for the “more academic Owls,” which simply cannot be taken seriously (“Changes to Owl Weekend,” Nov. 9). Please do not make the mistake of assuming that some Owls are only interested in academics and some are only interested in the Rice social scene; undoubtedly, are interested in both.

The article also mentions asking prospective students to stay in a hotel Sunday night prior to the Monday-Tuesday Owl Days program. This was an idea discussed at the meeting on Wednesday and is currently under intense scrutiny by SAC based on the criticism of the students who attended. Programming and logistics for this year’s Owl Days are still being formulated, and we remain open to suggestions from Rice students, who may contact us by emailing the SAC account at ricesac@rice.edu or even joining our On Campus Programs Committee, which is in charge of planning Owl Days. We hope that with the enthusiasm of the Rice students, our Owl Days program will be even more successful this year than programming in the past.

Claire Shorall

Sid Richardson junior

Student Admission Council Co-Director

Casey Langwith

Sid Richardson junior

Student Admission Council Co-Director

Students not above

doing patriotic acts#

To the editor:

This past Friday, I hoisted our country’s flag up the RMC flagpole and rendered a salute as our national anthem played. The Veteran’s Day ceremony was going great.

But halfway through the anthem, a solitary Rice student walked right by the ceremony, refusing to merely stop and stand until the anthem finished — in front of over 100 veterans. He was just in too much of a hurry, I guess, or perhaps he was ignorant of the proper protocol.

Neither is an excuse for such a poor display of citizenship. What is worse is that I am not surprised. At Rice, we seem to think that patriotism means merely voting and perhaps engaging in some sort of pseudo-intellectual activism. Standing with one’s hand over one’s heart when our national anthem plays, standing and removing one’s hat as the flag passes in parades, knowing how to display and fold the flag — somehow these are too cheesy or unsophisticated for us educated elite.

But that is an entirely incorrect attitude. What otherwise well-intentioned Rice students need to remember is that it is never wrong to enforce these standards. Patriotism is not something to be trivialized — its true demonstration speaks to the character of the individual.

Every one of us has profited from the freedom and opportunity the United States affords its people. While we live safe and cushioned lives, others are sacrificing theirs for us. It is not too much to ask, at least for their sakes, to show a bit of the same devotion to our country that they show?

“For your country … and for that flag … never dream a dream but of serving her … though the service carry you through a thousand hells.” — E.E. Hale

Josh Kirlin

Hanszen sophomore

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