The Rice Thresher

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January 25, 2008 > Opinion > Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

’Light’ piece ignores environmental issues#

To the editor:

Caroline May is right (“Light bulb law dictates consumer choices,” Jan. 18). An ignorant and apathetic citizenry is one of the greatest threats that America faces. Unfortunately, I believe it is naive to think that banning inefficient lights signals the end of consumer freedom and even capitalism. Unless you can argue that you have trouble pursuing happiness or living a healthy, productive life under fluorescent lights, I am hesitant to say that any of your rights are actually being taken away.

Sadly, May completely ignores the real issue behind the light bulb law — global warming. Energy efficiency needs to be the topmost priority, which I hope people agree is more important than getting to choose which light bulbs to buy. Fluorescent lights save energy significantly and if individual actions and the market are not making them widely enough, the government needs to step in.

If we really want to study individual freedoms, let us consider the effect of global warming on people’s choices. People living in coastal cities and island nations will be forcibly displaced from their homes. Greater droughts and changing weather patterns will threaten food supplies. Climate change presents a greater threat to people’s rights — the right to food, water and a place to live — than banning inefficient light bulbs ever will.

We need to put aside petty arguments and work towards the greater goal of stopping climate change. Americans and our freedoms will escape unscathed by this law. I have enough hope that the “beauty-conscious girls” will too.

Karen Leu

Wiess senior

CFLs cute, efficient and full of variety

To the editor:

In her column last week, Caroline May expressed concern and frustration about the upcoming switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Fortunately, as a satisfied customer of these wonderful new lights, I can attest that none of her fears are valid. Most of her alarm is based on simple misunderstanding.

The main problem is that May has mistaken the old fluorescent bulbs, those long pole things with the annoying buzzing sound and yellow light, with the new lights. The new ones are cute little squiggly things in the shape of a normal Edison light bulb, except that they are cute and squiggly. These new fluorescent lights are brighter, whiter and better than any other light bulb I have ever seen. By the way, they are produced in different shades of white so that picky buyers will neither be blinded nor left in the dark.

I come from a home that has been using all-new fluorescent lights for over a year and honestly miss them. It is obvious that May has never used the light bulbs that she so cheerlessly insults. So I have a proposition to make: Caroline May, go out and buy some bright, white, unbelievably efficient new fluorescent lights. Install them wherever you live and give them a trial run of a week or two. Then tell us what you think.

Or as the old TV cereal commercials said, “Try it! You’ll like it!”

Brian Reinhart

Wiess freshman

May focuses on less pressing rights abuse

To the editor:

If Caroline May wants to criticize a government that abuses the freedoms of its citizens, perhaps she should be talking about the Bush Administration’s assertion that it has the right to wiretap our phones and use extraordinary rendition to detain us in overseas prisons for indefinite intervals. Such a debate would certainly be more productive than lambasting a law that creates reasonable efficiency standards designed to prevent an impending energy crisis to which so many Americans are still completely oblivious.

Patrick McAnaney

Brown sophomore

Backpage distorts Ron Paul, supporters

To the editor:

I was surprised when I found an entire page in the latest Thresher devoted to attacking my favorite presidential candidate (“Backpage,” Jan. 18). Published were some grainy photos intended to attack the character of Dr. Ron Paul, a ten-term congressman.

If the author spent more than two minutes researching the subject, he would know that someone else had written the texts in question, yet Paul still took moral responsibility for not keeping tabs over the content. This issue was discussed and buried as irrelevant over a decade ago, but is now being dug up as the only way to attack a man who has gained the grass-roots support of millions across the country.

I suppose I should be proud to support a candidate whose biggest flaw is what someone else wrote decades ago, who has the largest number of contributions from blacks among all the Republicans, who consistently has spoken against all forms of institutionalized discrimination.

The larger problem is the journalistic dishonesty on the part of the editors. Yellow journalism labeled as satire still serves to exploit and sensationalize. Knowingly publishing false statements using the name of Rice University is a violation of the trust placed in the editors by the student body. In addition, attacking the many students who support Paul, implicitly accusing them of “racism by proxy,” should not be allowed to stand.

If our newspaper editors want to print personal attacks, let them do it under their own names, not under the banner of the university.

Mhair Dekmezian

Brown senior

Shuttles unnecessary, promote laziness, fat

To the editor:

Who knew walking from Wiess to Brown burns 80 calories?

Located within a city consistently ranking amongst the fattest in the nation, it comes as no surprise that Rice University spends thousands of dollars cultivating what I like to call a “tolerance of indolence.” One can walk the entire perimeter of our campus and not cover three miles, yet we support a fleet of buses?

Ignore the irony of our environmentally savvy campus supporting 80-hour work weeks for diesel engines, and overlook the costs of fuel, maintenance, insurance and drivers’ salaries as our tuition increases. Disregard that our campus has one-third the bus routes of our peer institute, Stanford, yet 1/28 the acreage. The greatest problem these buses pose is seen in a student body that takes elevators to classes on the second floor and tolerates a bus that does nothing but circle a football stadium 10 hours a day.

This quiet tolerance ripples through our country — a country that spent more last year on cosmetic surgeries than the GDP of 40 percent of the world’s countries. We carelessly put on the pounds and choose the laziest routes to remove them. Last year alone, Americans spent twice Rice’s operating budget on liposuction, removing over 1.5 million pounds of fat.

Owls, it is time to recognize that our 300-acre campus does not need a bus system. Get off the bus and regain pride in your beautiful campus — and yes, Honey, that bus does make you look fat.

Mike Matson

Chemistry graduate student

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