Thursday, May 2, 1996Spring coverage
Editor:
Last Friday, UCLA’s last spring tradition, Spring Sing, brought
down the house. It is the only campus event that draws an
attendance as large as 3,000 people, and yet the Daily Bruin felt
that a photo essay did it justice.
Since USA Today, a national newspaper, decided that Spring Sing
is newsworthy enough to put an article in their Lifestyle column,
it is certainly worthy enough to put an article in UCLA’s own
newspaper. The Bruin apparently disagrees.
Spring Sing has been competing with front page articles
regarding the trash generated by the Book Festival, an event not
even sponsored by UCLA ("Litter-ature bugs," April 23). The
14-member executive committee and the 250 talented Bruins who spent
most of the past year preparing for this event, along with the
3,500 person audience, deserve more than a few pictures to
commemorate their time and work.
However, if The Bruin cannot create a bigger story than can fit
on a business card, at least it could include pictures of all of
the winners. Sigma Pi and Alpha Epsilon Phi’s three awards,
including the Sweepstakes award for best overall entry, definitely
deserved a mention over the random pictures of shadows and
unidentified audience members that did appear in the paper.
Amy Miller
Third-year
Political science
Spring Sing 1996
Talent Coordinator
Clueless campus
Editor:
Kudos to the Daily Bruin for its thorough coverage of campus
news. On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 24, as 100 black-clad
students marched in silence with signs and banners in memory of the
1.5 million Armenians slaughtered by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in
1915, a lone Daily Bruin photographer covered the march (in vain,
for none of his shots were published). And the Daily Bruin
editorial staff relied on its publication of a submitted viewpoint
by Nuritsa Ksachikyan ("Armenian Genocide deserves remembrance,"
April 24) to inform its readership.
So while the Armenian community at UCLA and throughout the world
commemorated the 81st anniversary of the 20th century’s first
genocide, the rest of UCLA watched and wondered Â
clueless.
Thanks to the Daily Bruin’s impeccable coverage, they remain
clueless.
No wonder when in 1939 as he murdered the Jews, Adolf Hitler
remarked, "After all, who today remembers the extermination of the
Armenians?"
How can people remember something they don’t know?
And how can the Daily Bruin contribute to such mass
ignorance?
UCLA Armenian Students Association
Executive Committee
Juicier "news"
Editor:
It saddens me to no end that the Daily Bruin missed the biggest
story of Wednesday, April 24. Instead of writing an article
covering the different events on campus, instead of sharing with
the campus community what it really means to be diverse or
multicultural, the Daily Bruin turned one of the most positive
events this year into a disaster.
Where else but UCLA could you find a celebration of Israel’s
Independence Day, a rally against Israeli involvement in Southern
Lebanon and a powerful march by the Armenian Students Association
calling for the Turkish recognition of the Armenian Genocide
coexisting without conflict?
You see, what The Bruin didn’t report was that although there
was potential for conflict, student leaders on all fronts worked
together to foster a new pragmatic understanding of each other’s
perspective. For example, I represented the Jewish Student Union at
the memorial service Tuesday evening commemorating the innocent
lives lost in Southern Lebanon. Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller,
director of UCLA Hillel, spoke in support of greater peace amongst
Arabs and Jews at the "anti-war" rally the following day.
Representatives from the Lebanese Culture Society stopped by the
Israeli celebration in Westwood Plaza to share in the eating of
falafel. And both groups joined together with the Armenians in
commemorating their tragic page of history.
Furthermore, it is not a coincidence that all of these events
took place the same day the Palestine Liberation Organization
lifted its charter removing its call for the destruction of the
state of Israel. It’s unfortunate that these important exchanges
were overlooked by the Daily Bruin in order to produce a juicier
story.
Therefore, I join the members of the Jewish Student Union and
the campus community in asking the Daily Bruin to reevaluate its
role in reporting campus events. I challenge The Bruin to work
professionally, close the gap of misunderstanding. Be a part of the
solution, not the problem.
Joseph J. Levin
President
Jewish Student Union
Porno braces
Editor:
I want to applaud Susan Evans for her treatment of the tough
conceptual and legal issue facing feminists who oppose pornography.
Her presentation of the conflict between group and individual
rights covered the issues concisely yet in a recognizable context.
I’d add that the same conflict plays itself out in many of the most
important social issues today, including racial and gender
discrimination and harassment in employment and education.
The many groups seeking to advance their positions in our
society  feminists, every distinguishable minority, short
people (my favorite), the disabled  seem to have two things
in common; an objection to group-based discrimination, which I
share, and resentment of those perceived as not suffering
group-based discrimination (read: white males), which I find both
misplaced and counterproductive.
Evans’ column goes a long way to illuminate a subtle but central
concept underlying all debates involving group rights  the
tension between those and individual rights.
If a man has a bad attitude toward women  resulting from
too much exposure to pornography or not  women should have
enough self-respect not to hang around him (and of course serious
hostile acts are illegal). Educating people (especially the
historically oppressed) on their power to refuse abuse on an
individual level in everyday decisions about who to associate with
can ultimately achieve the goal of eradicating prejudice-based
treatment without sacrificing other equally important rights.
It won’t happen now, or nearly soon enough, but check with your
orthodontist: Steady pressure makes even bone yield. Evans’ column
should remind us that trying to correct a problem by legislative
fiat may have unintended consequences.
Bill Boling
UCLA Law Student
Deep questions
Editor:
In an April 23 counterpoint ("Chancellor’s home proper site for
union demonstration"), G. Lynn Svennson raised several interesting
questions worth close consideration by all members of the
university community.
Do the ends justify any means, even when personal intimidation
is directed toward public officials carrying out their duties in an
appropriate and responsible manner?
Do politics and public opinions outweigh the law, even when all
legal precedents state clearly that graduate student apprentice
appointees were not eligible for collective bargaining in the
public universities of California?
Do representative and co-operative faculty and student
governments not constitute democracy, even when a wide variety of
student opinions are actively sought and incorporated into
university policies that impact their welfare?
Do student support contracts have no legal status, even when
they are issued regularly and honored legally as the first
principle of institutional integrity?
Do democratically-determined and publicly-available regulations
of academic apprentice work conditions, grievance procedures and
eligibility requirements have no merit, even when they are enforced
as first principles of institutional credibility and
accountability?
Do polemics with no foundation of evidence have more value than
the hard-won truths of thought, experience and simple common sense
at any educational institution that claims to be a vital part of
the proud traditions and responsibilities of the modern American
research university?
Robin Fisher
Associate Dean, Graduate Division
Professor of psychiatry and neurobiology