‘JFK’ junkie
Editor:
Last week, a student expressed concerns about his missing voter
registration card ("Voters beware," Feb. 28). This student implied
that because he did not sign an affirmative action petition, the
external vice president’s office discarded his voter registration
card.
Possibly, this student has watched "JFK" too many times to
believe that there is a conspiracy to trash all voter reg cards of
nonaffirmative action supporters.
Purposely discarding a voter registration card is not only a
felony but highly unethical. It is an insult that this student
would prematurely make unsubstantiated accusations without
entertaining dozens of other reasons why his card was not
registered.
Some of the most common mistakes that may invalidate a voter
registration card are:
1. Writing today’s date instead of your birth date.
2. Writing the city instead of the state of birth.
3. Checking more than one party affiliation.
4. Signing a partial name instead of in full.
Student council and other student groups have registered over
4,000 students to vote. Even though our staff is fully trained to
help students register, there are mistakes which we sometimes miss.
The volume of voter registration cards also poses a slight chance
of misplacing a few cards despite the care we exercise. In
addition, there are many other groups, both profit and nonprofit,
registering people to vote, which may be mistaken for student
council.
This office has been committed to empowering students to vote
regardless of their beliefs because it directly gives students the
right to self-determination. In California, there are 2 million
college students. Together, we can determine our futures and force
our elected officials to prioritize education.
We live in a political climate that attacks students from all
levels. Fee increases, financial aid cuts, denial of state and
federal aid to legal immigrants (about 5,000 UCLA students), the
prioritization of prisons above education, and the elimination of
affirmative action will dramatically hurt our education.
We encourage you to register to vote regardless of your
political affiliation and to call us out if you feel that we are
not fulfilling our responsibilities. Collectively, we will affect
change as we did in the past two years by defeating fee increases.
Whatever you do, you must VOTE!
Michelle Gosom
Voter registration director
External vice president’s office
Third-year
Political science
Courtney Warlan
Chief of staff
External vice president’s office
Second-year
Political science
Defining life
Editor:
T. Nicole Caldwell should indeed be disturbed and disgusted by
the material on abortion which appeared as a Bruin insert
("Abortion insert slanted," Feb. 29). However, it is not The
Bruin’s inclusion of the material which ought to horrify her, but
rather the legalized murder of children in America.
Perhaps the insert was not objective in its presentation, but
nowhere in Caldwell’s letter does she deny that the unborn are
human beings, which is precisely the issue at hand. She, in fact,
refers to unborn children as "male babies" and "female babies."
Caldwell then asks why adoption and birth are better than
abortion. Quite simply, birth is better than abortion in the same
way that life is better than death. Rather than cloud the issue
with labels such as "pro-choice" and "pro-life," let us focus upon
whether the object of prenatal care is simply "fetal matter" or an
unborn human being.
The choice which stands before us now is the eternal choice
proposed to humanity: "I have set before you life and death, the
blessing and the curse. Choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Anthony Garcias
Fourth-year
Latin and philosophy
Civil dissent
Editor:
How odd it is that Katie Litvak should waste so much column
space on cruel and juvenile "reflections" on the recent protests
against the removal of affirmative action ("Bunche protest all
washed up in alternate Bruin universe," Feb. 29).
There are much more civil ways of expressing dissent rather than
through the ranting rhetoric of Litvak’s piece, which echoes the
very "senseless noise" she so vehemently argues against.
Believe me, her "ethnic protesters" have more reason to be angry
than she.
Maria Cecilia Diaz
Graduate student
Comparative literatureComments to
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