Letters to the Editor

Damn yankees

To the Editor:

It amazes me how a Connecticut native like Justin Raphael ("Dems' duty: Make the South dream," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 02/03/04) and many other Americans from other regions think that Southern history ends around 1970, and that the region has stayed exactly the same ever since George Wallace ran for president.

Anyone who has spent two days of their life in the South knows that the region is nothing like what Justin and many other Northerners -- like Howard Dean -- think. They think that we are all just a bunch of morons who miss slavery and Jim Crow and drive around with Confederate flags on the back of our pick-up trucks. I don't own a pick-up truck, I think the Confederate flag is a horribly offensive relic of the past and 90 percent of the people in my state and in the rest of the South are exactly the same way. We are not the same region that elected Lester Maddox and George Wallace.

As far as the Republican "domination" of the South, consider this. Clinton won several Southern states during his runs for president. Democrats held every statewide office in Georgia as recently as two years ago. Democrats still control the state legislatures of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee. There are Democratic senators in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina. There are Democratic governors in Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia. And there are Democratic congressmen in every single Southern state.

So please check your facts before you talk ... you fast-talking, flannel-wearing, tree-hugging Yankees.

Matthew Smith

SAS '06

An unethical speaker

To the Editor:

In the January 2004 edition of the journal Violence Against Women, a paper examined the increased likelihood of sexual abuse for domestic violence victims whose partners use pornography. In fact, their odds are increased by a factor of two if their partner uses porn and by a factor of three if the partner uses porn and alcohol.

Given that, it was troubling to see that Wharton deemed it appropriate to invite the pornographer Adam Glasser (aka Seymore Butts) to speak on campus. Describing him as an owner of a family business who could teach lessons did not clean up the damage to society that he and others like him do. Wharton should be encouraged to take ethics considerations into their decision-making. From my point of view, there is no justification for supporting those who make money by hurting women.

Mary Layden, Ph.D.

The writer is the co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program in the Center for Cognitive Therapy.

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