Monday, December 2, 1996
Rush the field!
After the USC quarterback tossed the game-ending interception,
with blue and gold face paint all over my face and T-shirt I
tackled my friends as we rejoiced in the most incredible victory
that we have ever witnessed. Immediately my brain flashed the
strong signal, "Storm the field, storm the field," to my body. As I
began to run and practically trample the four people in front of
me, I looked around and realized that nobody else shared my idea.
In a panic, I had come to grips with the fact that my dream to ride
above a sea of screaming Bruin fans and touch the mighty yellow
goal post would not be realized on this day.
All right, let’s do the math, people! I have been a law-abiding
citizen all my life, but how are 10 police officers going to arrest
a mob of 30,000 crazy college students? Where is the spirit at this
school? In probably the most exciting and amazing game that we will
ever see as Bruins, especially because of the ‘SC rivalry, how
could I be the only one in the
stadium with these inclinations to rush the field? I guarantee
you that even at the most conservative schools we would have seen
pandemonium and students swarming their team with joyous screams
after a game of this magnitude.
Bob, Cade, Abdul, Skip and company, on behalf of what I hope is
a newly enlightened UCLA campus, I apologize for our lack of spirit
and I congratulate you all on a tremendous victory. I thank you
because your heart and determination to win have shown this
second-year student what being a Bruin is all about.
Josh Kaplan
Second-year
Business economics/history
Yes on Village Center project
With "friends" like Laura Lake and her team ("Westwood finds
friends in many places," Nov. 20), who needs enemies? Lake
disseminated more misrepresentations and outright untruth at her
staged "community meeting" than I can remember previously at any
such meeting. Just to set the record straight, Councilman Mike
Feuer has established a working group to get the real truth out
about the proposed Village Center Westwood project. The group has
22 members, all well-established leaders of this community who are
deeply concerned about the future of the village. They have met
many times to review the project, offer suggestions, express any
concerns, and find constructive approaches to review the project,
offer suggestions, express any concerns, and find constructive
approaches to problems. There has been and continues to be a lot of
community input into this project. Lake declined an invitation to
join this group. Could it be that she supports an alternative
agenda at the village’s expense?
While the Village Center Westwood project is not perfect, it is
the most exciting and uplifting project on the boards in Southern
California today. It represents an opportunity to place in the
village an absolutely first-rate development with a football
field-sized open-air plaza with fountains and landscaping, upscale
stores, fine dining, a modern supermarket and yes, first-class
movie theaters with stadium seating and every modern convenience,
not to mention 2,500 new parking spaces.
I suggest we work together to come up with something we can be
proud of and which serves residents and their families, students,
faculty and staff, and everyone else in our community. Let’s not
kill the goose that is trying to lay the golden egg.
John Postley
UCLA alumnus, 1945
Bel Air
Sexton bares all
I found Jake Sexton’s most recent column to be a thoughtful,
lively, well-expressed piece.
Of course, detachment from groups can become as much a game as
attachment to them. Conformity is comfy. It offers joys of
community, the fantasy of suspending one’s disbelief, and the
luxury of not overworking one’s mind. On the other hand,
independence can also be fun as it vents one’s ego. It has rewards
in increased self-consciousness and a price in isolation or
loneliness.
Both introversion and extroversion have their rewards. Watch
out; you may be headed into a group. You are showing symptoms of an
"academic": an introvert whose instincts prompt such extrovertive
activities as writing  laying NAKED one’s sensibilities
 for the Daily Bruin. Normal persons might feel driven to
such a baring before St. Peter at the Golden Gate, but before the
DAILY BRUIN?
If you haven’t read the end of "Gulliver’s Travels" or
Melville’s "Bartleby the Scrivener," you’ve missed two kindred
spirits (hardly a group).
Charles Berst
Professor (group) of English (subgroup)