Letters to the Editor

To the Daily:

I have no doubt that the recent change of graduation location to Eastern Michigan University is upsetting many students. While I am normally a complacent individual, I am also angry. There is no doubt that there will continue to be a myriad of articles and letters to the editor, as there already have been, arguing the indignity and injustice that the University has perpetrated.

I certainly agree to some extent. I agree that it is a slap in the face for the University to spend $226 million on luxury boxes and somehow not pull together a little extra money for portable restrooms and generators to keep alive the tradition of holding commencement at Michigan Stadium. The University has no problem sending out countless letters to alumni and the rest of the University community for donations to keep other Michigan traditions alive.

However, I refuse to sign petitions, go to mass meetings or write letters to the administration. I refuse because of one reason: I haven’t done the same for other critical issues. I haven’t signed petitions against the unjust war in Iraq, the destruction of the environment, world hunger or poverty. Yet, I was so much closer to writing an e-mail to University President Mary Sue Coleman about graduation than I ever was to writing U.S. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) about Iraq.

I wonder for how many others this is true. What does that say about me? What does that say about us? Why are we willing to fight so strongly against this small insult, yet not against so many larger injustices? Is the human condition really this prone to apathy about things that aren’t right in front of us?

Jeffrey Harding
LSA senior

In Democratic primary, voters have three choices

To the Daily:

Here is what today’s Michigan primary comes down to: Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich or uncommitted. None of the three are great choices. But consider this: If you are not a Clinton supporter and you vote uncommitted, you don’t choose which candidate the uncommitted delegates will support- they are chosen by the delegate candidates. This means that Clinton could easily get many of the uncommitted votes.

If you want your voice to count, vote for Kucinich. He is the only viable alternative to Clinton in Michigan. Kucinich supports not-for-profit universal health care, ending the war in Iraq within three months, ending all government subsidies to coal, oil and nuclear power and creating a Works Green Administration to put all Americans to work making our country carbon-neutral. He is also for universal education, which means the government pays all of your college tuition.

If you absolutely disagree with Kucinich and need to vote uncommitted, then do so. But if you want your voice to count, vote Kucinich.

Yousef Rabhi
LSA sophomore
The letter writer is the chair of the University’s chapter of Students for Kucinich.