Letters to the Editor

Power in your hands

To the Editor:

Jonathan Shazar's description of student government as a "fact of life" that students are "stuck with" ("The 'new' student government, 30 years on," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 3/21/02) may have given readers a misleading sense of inevitability. Students not only have the power to replace elected representatives and seek seats on University committees, but also have the power to reorganize the entire apparatus.

The amendment process built into the Undergraduate Assembly constitution provides a channel for restructuring, or even abolishing, the existing student government by referendum -- although I do not know why an undergraduate student would not want some type of organized voice in University politics. As Shazar's brief history of student government at Penn suggests, the current structure with multiple centers of power was the product of frustration within an earlier structure, pressure from without and a determination to learn from past experience.

Likewise, centralizing or otherwise reorganizing the present structure would (rightly) require time, energy and broad support, but such an initiative is neither impossible, nor inconceivable.

Jed Gross

College '02

The writer is vice chairman of the Undergraduate Assembly. Selling space

To the Editor:

In spite of Jonathan Margulies' claims ("From space camp to space station -- a Lance Bass odyssey," DP, 3/25/02), the Russian space program is doing what NASA should have done a long time ago -- allow private space travel.

The most important reason this should be so is that supply is simply meeting demand, that is, if people wish to spend their money going to space they should be able to do so. Margulies' contention that Lance Bass should not be allowed into space because his "most notable [qualification] for space-flight [is] his one-week jaunt to Space Camp" is specious -- Neil Armstrong never went to space camp, he was trained as Bass will be.

Another reason private space travel should be allowed is that private funds can do what increasing levels of indiscriminate taxation cannot -- target those willing to support an expensive program. I am uncertain why Margulies insists that taxpayers foot the bill, particularly since the general public currently sees few direct benefits of space exploration.

Margulies' quasi-mystical "justification" for government-controlled space travel -- "peace, harmony and... dignity of outer space," the "wonders [our achievements in space do] for the psyche and spirit of this nation" -- and non sequitur lionization of the "nation's greatest" means little to someone struggling to make ends meet.

Finally, the "careless and indiscriminate intersection of free enterprise and government science" demonized by Margulies is responsible for some of the most important advancements in the world's history, including the Internet. We would do well to encourage more of it.

Jarrod Julius

Bioengineering master's student

The writer is president of Penn Libertarians.

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