Letters to the Editor

Don't speak for me

To the Editor:

While the College House system (and facilities) needs repair, and while it's admirable that the Undergraduate Assembly is taking a strong stand on what they believe to be undergraduates' wishes ("Overflowing dorms leave students out," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 3/2/06), putting all the first-year students in the Quadrangle and in Hill College House assumes that there is where they all want to live.

If student-government representatives like the ones quoted actually do "want to give freshmen the ability to freely choose a place where they would like to live," they should keep in mind that many incoming students want to live in the other college houses.

Like some other incoming students, I came to Penn wanting to take a shower without flip-flops and to cook a meal in my own kitchen. The high rises have their flaws, but they also have their appeal. I got my own kitchen and bath, plus three great roommates and a stunning view from 20 stories up.

Most incoming students may want to live in the Quad, and Penn should make serious efforts to accommodate them. But that's no reason to force the rest into a house they never wanted to live in.

Niva Kramek

College senior

Crossing the line

To the Editor:

I realize that by virtue of being in college, many campus comedy groups lean toward obscene, juvenile humor; however, the latest salvo against good taste has gone too far. Simply Chaos, Penn's stand-up comedy group, has named its latest show "Non-Prophet Comics," with advertisements that feature an image of a gun-toting, censored Snoopy burning a Simply Chaos flag, accompanied by two women in burkha. This is a clear reference to the cartoons of Mohammed that have recently caused so much grief, and I find their would-be satire wholly inappropriate.

Any group who wants to test the comedic merits of sexual or scatological humor has my First Amendment blessings. However, making light of cartoons that violate Islamic tradition as well as widen the gap between two groups who so desperately need to understand each other simply puts obscenity before common sense.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of all this is that Simply Chaos is a Student Activities Council-funded group. While I do not expect students to display such sensitivity, I would hope to hold the SAC to a higher standard. To me, lighting a fire under a powder keg is simply non-sensical.

Farah Saeed Engineering junior

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