The right is the most resistant to change
This is in response to the article written by Alex Pherson titled “Democrats must govern from center or risk exile” (May 7).
I first want to point out that I don’t agree with his politics and I have been inclined to write to the paper several times, but never actually went through with it.
However, a fallacy in argument presented at the end of his article is so bad that I had to say something.
In response to the newly filibuster-proof Congress, Pherson writes, “In this case, law-making would become equivalent to an all-white panel determining the fate of a black man during segregation.”
First off, am I missing something? Didn’t that actually happen? OK, maybe that was his point, in which case I don’t believe it helps further his argument.
Segregation laws were based on hate ““ hating other people based on the color of their skin that they were born with. People are not born Republican or Democrat. Everyone gets the chance to decide on their own ideologies in life.
James Carville believes that the Democrats will control government for the next 40 years because the Republican Party has shown itself to be the party of hate and intolerance.
The recent revelations about detainees being tortured to death under orders of the past administration confirm this.
Don’t get me wrong: I truly hope that members of Congress are able to reach over the aisle, but unlike Pherson, I believe it is the Republicans that are more resistant to this notion and that need to make a stronger effort ““ or get left behind in the dust.
Charlie Calderon
Fourth-year, mechanical engineering
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Bike security at UCLA is inadequate
I am a bicycle life-stylist. I ride a rare and unique track bike that provides me with my transportation, my exercise, my social life and my freedom from slow and inefficient cars, so naturally, security is a top priority.
Unfortunately, UCLA does not provide adequately secure bike parking options on campus. My friends and I have had everything from lights to wheels to entire bikes stolen while locked up at UCLA. I am always wary to park outside, if at all. At night, there is absolutely no way I am willing to leave my bike vulnerable to the active bicycle thieves.
This is especially problematic at places that do not allow me to bring my bike inside at night, such as Powell Library and Wooden Center. I’d rather leave my bike at home and walk than risk having my ride stolen. In columnist Scott Pearring’s article about bike racks (“Bike racks blemish spotless campus,” May 8), David Karwaski, the planning and policy manager for UCLA Transportation, mentions that bikes parked where they shouldn’t be are a problem.
However, I know from experience that we lock up in these places precisely because bike racks are in dark, out-of-the-way places that make theft a breeze. Better security would solve Karwaski’s problem. Wooden, Powell and other prominent campus night spots need to provide more secure bike parking options, such as a bike valet or guarded racks outside.
This may seem silly or excessive to people who ride Walmart bikes to and from the dorms, but to serious riders like my friends in Steel Horse, our bikes are like people to us. You wouldn’t leave your child locked up outside while you work out at 12 a.m., would you?
Jarret Leong
Third-year, English
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Child soldiers need our attention
The longest war in history is not even in most textbooks. The people of northern Uganda have been displaced, killed and neglected with little to no recognition from the major world powers.
For the past 23 years, the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, a force of rebels led by the radical Joseph Kony, have waged war at the expense of innocent civilians. Kony violently abducts children from their families and forces them to murder their own people.
These child soldiers have seen, experienced and suffered through more than any Western adult could even imagine. While most other children are in elementary school, these children are instead carrying machine guns and unwillingly destroying their people.
We share a common humanity with our fellow Bruins and Ugandan children alike. On April 25, 2009, people from all corners of the globe acknowledged this humanity when they chose to simulate abducting themselves.
The nonprofit organization Invisible Children, held an event titled The Rescue. People in more than 100 cities ““ many of them students, from Los Angeles to Sydney ““ protested the war in Uganda and waited for the media and moguls who run our society to rescue them.
More than 5,000 people showed up to Santa Monica Beach Park No. 1 to show their passion for the child soldiers in Uganda. However, the crisis in Uganda is still raging. Injustice to any human being is injustice to all of us. We have the power and the responsibility to end the abduction of these innocent children. It simply takes a little dedication.
Joelle Gamble
First-year, global studies