Letters to the Editor

Don't mess with Texas

To the editor:

In Eliot Sherman's column this week ("Next in line for the Democratic throne," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 11/26/02) he wrote, "I think Texans in Texas are great people. It's just when you take them out of Texas that I start to get nervous."

I'm sorry, Mr. Sherman, for making you nervous. I guess it's too much for some to accept those from different backgrounds than their own. Might I remind you of some simple facts about Texas? Texas has produced four presidents, while your great state of Pennsylvania has produced one. There are 156 public corporate headquarters in Dallas, as opposed to Philadelphia's 32. The economy of our backward state is increasing at a much faster rate than Pennsylvania's. Texans run this country in more ways than perhaps you would like to believe.

Nervous yet?

Texans, as a group, are fiercely proud of their diverse cultural background. If you had ever been to Texas, you would know that, although the cowboy culture is not as strong now as in the past, there are still signs of it everywhere and it is still very much a part of who we are.

When you resort to making fun of President Bush's heritage as a way to indicate that you disagree with his agenda, you insult everyone that shares that heritage. If the president were Hispanic or black or female, would you take to insulting entire racial and gender groups simply because you didn't agree with his or her policies? I don't believe you would.

When you make hypocritical statements about the cultural legacy of a single group, you do indeed "mess with Texas."

"American by birth. Texan by the grace of God."

John Backes College '06

Phillip Mantecon Wharton '06

Work for scale

To the Editor:

On Friday, the DP ran an article above the fold on the National Labor Relations Board decision allowing graduate students who work as teaching and research assistants to vote on union recognition ("Grad students win right to unionize," DP, 11/22/02); the DP ran a piece below the fold on University President Judith Rodin's $800,000 compensation package ("Rodin's salary tops the charts of peers," DP, 11/22/02) which essentially said that she deserves every dollar of it.

I think the DP missed an opportunity to reveal an important contrast: graduate students eligible to vote for a union make as little as $14,000 a year, or less than 2 percent of what the president makes. They teach classes, they read and grade papers, they run discussion sections and they perform research -- which together form the University's putative raison d'etre. Are they getting what they deserve?

Rodin's compensation package is set by a group that draws upon the advice of corporate consultants, under the premise that "the University ought to pay what it takes to get the best talent, and the market is saying that it takes more to get the best." If I were a grad student, I'd be pretty insulted that my talent wasn't worth a living wage.

Charlotte Allen Nursing '05

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