Letters to the Editor

An ill-informed column

To the Editor:

Dan Gomez's recent column ("A government that greedily gorges itself on our money," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 11/24/03) has compelled me to personally respond.

I submit that you cannot wholly defend the statement that "pork barrel spending is absolutely unnecessary." Absolutely? What if a vote for a "pork project" results in a legislative favor such as an omnibus bill to reduce spending being placed onto the floor for a vote? Again, an extreme assertion such as this cannot withstand even a modicum of scrutiny, as here.

Also, contrary to your comments, spending more on education or welfare is not a liberal thing. Polls support the former, and as to the latter, I would like to point out that "welfare" is more complicated than what I presume you to stereotypically imagine. Much of "welfare" assists elderly senior citizens (mostly women), provides for health care (e.g. Medicare or Medicaid) and brings food to the tables of needy families who have typically been struck down due to an unfortunate life event such as unemployment or deindustrialization.

As kindly as I can say it through this medium, be more factual and accurate in your comments, practice better logic and open yourself up to various environments (beyond the Ivy campus or Wayne, Pa. for instance) before you set pen to paper. You can then become a better history major as opposed to being a student columnist who strikes me as being as ill-informed and shrill as Ann Coulter.

Brian Villa

Rutgers University

Questionable media coverage

To the Editor:

Recently, there has been a lot of coverage about the disappearance of a University of North Dakota student. The amount of coverage given to this disappearance is a perfect example of how the media disproportionally covers stories about white middle America.

The reason this is getting coverage is because the disappearance was in North Dakota and the girl was white. The idea that this could occur in "America's Heartland" makes this story more sensational.

But that thinking makes the value of a disappearance in North Dakota more than that of a disappearance in a non-middle America area. Had this happened at an urban university with a minority student, no media outlets would have paid attention.

Biases like these should not go unnoticed.

David Krulewitch

College '05

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