Letters to the Editor

LTE response

No one on your staff or in any letters comes close to matching the nice balance of eloquence and economy found in Brian Turner’s Letter to the Editor of the last December issue of the S&B. As always, Mr. Turner offers profound information and insights in prose that manages modesty, passion, and clear readability. Although he has already graduated, it would be foolish for the S&B not to offer him a spot to sound off a couple times a month. I would certainly at least read his articles online, whereas most of the rest of the newspaper is just like it always has been: bland and whiney. I think you do a good job, but I think that students probably put their best writing into their studies, which leaves the campus newspaper with some scrappy leftovers that actually can be annoying to read. The bottom line: you have a great resource right in front of your nose. Mr. Turner could well be employed by far finer media that reach readers on the scale of hundreds of times the S&B readership. If you don’t publish him, I can only encourage undergraduates to seek out Brian and talk to him. Just let him talk to you.

—Stephen Poland ‘02

Poor conduct

On Nov. 22, 2000, Rick Reilly, award-winning columnist for Sports Illustrated, wrote an article about a remarkable young man who was dealing with a difficult disease. “His extra efforts are never enough, which is why, on the pier, the suicide note is finished. Eight pages, perfectly neat, block letters. He tucks it into his coat pocket and heads for Walgreen’s, where he will buy a bottle of poison, chug it, and at long last will come sleep.” That’s how Reilly captured the desperation that this man was feeling. Reilly later goes on to tell how this man was forced to quit the University of Wisconsin basketball team because of this desperation; instead he devoted the next year to helping not only himself, but others who suffered from his disease, as well as those in prison who were in need of guidance. He planned on going back to play basketball at Wisconsin, but his friends worried that “all it [would] take is one small incident” and he may be back where he started. Reilly finishes his column by saying, “He wants so badly to get better. Let’s pray he doesn’t spin back.”

On Jan. 24, 2003, this man—Julian Swartz—visited Grinnell College as a member of the Carroll College basketball team. He has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and it turns out the stresses and rigor of Division I basketball proved to be too much for him. Our fans have a long tradition of heckling the visiting opponents, their fans, their cheerleaders and their coaches. This is almost always in good fun, and is no doubt an integral part of the game wherever you go. Since I came to Grinnell College, I have always been more than proud of the school I attend. It’s okay to make fun of Julian Swartz for playing Division III basketball after being in the Final Four just three years ago, it’s okay to make fun of him when he misses a shot, it’s even okay to make fun of him because he’s balding. On Saturday night, however, our fans crossed the line. When I heard the fans start chanting in unison, “O-C-D” or “make sure you’re not stepping on a crack” during the game, it was my most embarrassing moment as a member of Grinnell College—and I know I wasn’t the only one.

Maybe some of us had too much to drink, maybe we didn’t know much of his past (although we had to know something to know he had OCD), and maybe it was just one of those situations where we thought what we were saying really didn’t make a difference. Imagine if there were a player for Carroll who was mentally retarded—would we have chanted, “REE-TARD, REE-TARD”? I’m not looking to place blame on anyone; in fact many of my friends participated in this. I don’t hold any grudges; I just hope we might learn something from this. Grinnell is supposed to be a place of enlightenment. That doesn’t preclude us from heckling our opponents when they come and visit—we deserve to have fun as well. What happened on Saturday, however, was just plain ignorant, and I never thought I’d be concerned about that happening here at Grinnell.

—Brian Stoffel ‘04

To view the article mentioned above, click here

Tuition increase unacceptable

Increasingly I have heard sympathy expressed within the student body for the unprecedented tuition increases here at Grinnell. While all schools must look to the future, a simple examination of Grinnell’s finances proves to be an exercise in frustration that will make even the most hardened students outraged over Grinnell’s absurd contradictions in finance and tuition rates.

As endowments fall across the country, students and parents have had to pick up the shortfall, but Grinnell’s endowments is not falling—instead it has risen at a prodigious rate. In 2002, according to a Feb. 22 article in the The New York Times, endowments fell 3.6 percent in 2002. Grinnell’s endowment, as featured in the Jan. 25 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education went up 18.8 percent, a number that ranked Grinnell seventh overall in endowment increase and number one in increase among endowments that have over 500 million-dollars—a category that includes almost all of our peer institutions. While schools like Emory and Dartmouth compensated for their huge losses by raising tuition less than five percent, Grinnell raised tuition by seven percent—one of the highest increases in the country.

The average University according to the same Times article, spends five percent of their endowment every year, although this year under extreme fiscal pressure, that number shrank to 4.8 percent. Grinnell’s operating costs run around 50 million dollars meaning that Grinnell could not charge any tuition and still fall with an endowment spending goal of most colleges because of the one billion plus endowment.

Although there is something to be said for trying to save money for the future, 2002 represents the first year that college endowments have lost money in ten years says The Chronicle. Therefore, it is unlikely that a school with such a large endowment, and such a large endowment per student, will have serious financial problems in the future.

There are lots of good reasons why tuition should be kept to minimum in a place like Grinnell—its location, diverse student body, the fact that it is able to do so and make itself appealing to middle class students with reasonable tuition. Many of these excellent arguments have been printed in this paper. However, simply looking at the statistics, a seven percent tuition increase looks not only unacceptable, but frankly, mind-boggling.

—Aron Szapiro ‘04

Showing support for peaceful protestors

Editor,

We would like to show our support for Lee Mickey of Mount Pleasant and Christine Gaunt of Grinnell who are being threatened with prison for peacefully protesting the training of foreign terrorists at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia.

We oppose the use of our tax dollars by the U.S. government to train foreign armies, mercenaries or terrorists. The U.S. government has provided aid, training and weapons to numerous foreign dictators and terrorists including Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and the results have been disastrous. We prefer that our tax dollars instead be used to support constructive purposes such as education, health care, environmental conservation, job training, agriculture, alternative energy sources, etc.

Based upon our faith in Jesus Christ, we believe that the support and training given to foreign armies and terrorists by the U.S. government is immoral. We believe that nonviolent peacemakers such as Lee and Christine are following in the path of Christ and we respect and support their ethical and true witness to the messiah’s gospel of peace.

Christine and Lee are kind, loving, nonviolent citizens who would never do anything to intentionally hurt or harm anyone. We oppose their imprisonment and any other threat or coercion taken by government authorities to prevent them from freely expressing their opposition to training terrorists or dictators with U.S. tax dollars.

Typed,

Amy Spencer, Neta Faye Yoder, Dale and Jane Yoder-Short, Roger Farmer, Marvin K. Yoder, Bert and Laura Miller, Kenneth Hochstedler, Kathryn Slaubaugh, Jim Beasly, Michael Beasley, Shauna McCormick, Lois Roth, Jean Clougherty

Alternate war opinions

Dear Sir or Madam,

Reporter Mike Andersen’s article on the Anti-War Movement in and around Grinnell College mentioned that those who supported a “war” with Iraq were a small minority on the campus and that, by and large, those harboring such beliefs preferred to keep them to themselves for fear of being exposed to criticism or worse. This situation is appalling, and we sincerely hope that it is not true. We, as well as several others, communicated our “pro-war” stance to Mr. Andersen while he was preparing the article, but very little information was published concerning our views in what was otherwise a well-written and lengthy report.

Perhaps then the time has come to share with the campus community that there are at least a few who are committed to the “pro-war” principle of regime change in Iraq, and perhaps other places as well. If we press forward without articulating a position, we risk drowning in the tyranny of the majority. This is, after all, a democratic society, and no one should fear to air their views.

Are there those among the “anti-war” movement (we refuse the terminology of war) who believe that the Iraqi government, led by Saddam Hussein, is a just government? Is it a government of the Iraqi people, by the Iraqi people, and for the Iraqi people? Oh yes, Mr. Hussein’s government published the unanimous results of their most recent election, where he and his party were the only choice on the ballot, but do we believe this? Yes, the benevolent Iraqi government freed all of the prisoners from its jails … except the political prisoners. But let’s not mind them. Are we to overlook the fact that the Iraqi people did take to the streets in opposition to his rule in 1991, while we stood by, and Mr. Hussein exterminated them with chemical weapons? We “westerners” were appalled by the Taliban in Afghanistan: their treatment of women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, their sponsorship of terrorism, and their archaic and brutal “justice” system. The Iraqi regime headed by Mr. Hussein is little different. He may not lop off hands in soccer fields, but he has employed chemical weapons, torture, and lethal force to repress political dissent in the past. He flaunts international treaties, he defied the weapons inspection teams, and he stands firm in his support of terrorism. We stood by, and continue to stand by, and let this happen. We perpetuate a system of sanctions that starves the Iraqi people while Mr. Hussein owns a dozen presidential palaces and rebuilds his military.

Yes, many of the problems in Iraq are of our own doing. We created Saddam, and we ignored the growing tide of hatred we are so poignantly aware of today. What should our response be? To let our mistakes persist, and grow, and build to such a fury that we experience a repeat of the Twin Towers attacks? Or should we go to work to repair our mistakes, reaffirming our belief that, as Thomas Friedman has said, “the future can bury the past”? We Americans may have a bad reputation in the developing world, but to change that we need to not only change this here, at home, but also to demonstrate (for actions speak tenfold over words) to these peoples who have lost (or never found) confidence in us that we can be trusted, relied upon to provide a positive force for change. It is in our best interests never to live in ignorance of the needs of the developing world ever again. Deposing a despot and ensuring that a stable and democratic ruler takes his place is surely a good idea.

We reiterate that we liberals need to do better. The center-left lost any control they had of our government yesterday and that scares us. The Bush administration is not to be trusted to carry out the sort of action that would be most desirable, but that does not mean that regime change is no longer a good idea or a valid concern.

So what do we think students and citizens should do about recent events and policies? Most importantly, we question centering the debate on a “pro-war” and “anti-war” grounding that is fallacious, as these positions imply only a conclusion and not an argument. The many voices raised in the “anti-war” movement are involved for a variety of reasons that need not directly lead to opposition to military intervention. These smaller reasons are failing to get attention because they are being amalgamated into a larger “anti-war” message that, while captivating and attractive, overshadows a multitude of potentially more controversial issues. One such overshadowed issue is that our most fundamental civil liberties are being eroded. Another is that the policy of preemption (not necessarily synonymous with military action in Iraq) is a dangerous precedent. A third is that the United States has failed to be a leader and global partner in pursuing its policy goals and thus looks like a hypocrite. It is indeed difficult not to say that the United States is in a tough spot to try and justify preventing countries from developing weapons of mass-destruction when it has not itself signed non-proliferation pacts. All of these issues are of fundamental importance. They are also issues about which there can be very strong arguments on either side—there are positions, all over the spectrum, that a large group can get behind. Why don’t issues such as these become the center of critique of the current situation? These arguments will also be far more complex, and far more compelling then a simple call to “stop the war,” which has no unified internal logic or group united behind a common conception of what that means. Furthermore, addressing these issues will have a lasting impact on the future of United States policy, foreign and domestic.

On the surface all that being “anti-war” means is that the United States allows countries like Iraq to develop weapons, support terrorism, and brutalize its own people, and deny civil liberties in order to spare American lives and avoid any risk of destabilizing a valuable oil producing region. We believe that this is wrong. It is time to start thinking, discussing, and agitating about how we can make the U.S. government behave in a way that proves that it can be trusted to try and proactively improve the world, and not simply give in to a cynical abandonment of the global responsibility that the great power of the U.S. implies (for abandonment of our responsibility to the world would surely be catastrophic). Ultimately, such critique will go farther to alter the political debate and climate in this country than the repeated chant of “stop the war!”

Regards,

Matt Wilson ‘03

Brandon Zicha ‘02

Honesty over intellectualism

To the Editor,

Hello, my name is Jim Dinnerville. I graduated in 2001, with perhaps the lowest GPA in Grinnell history, so don’t take what I’m about to say too seriously ... Anyway, I was just reading your recent news article on ‘Self Governance.’ According to your sources, it is in demise. Well, I remember that, about three years ago, I ran for the office of SGA Vice President under the slogan “Self-Governance is Conscience.” Everyone hated that slogan. I heard that a well-respected (i.e. feared) professor of political science at the school took a few moments to take the thing apart in class, pointing out, logically, that, since ‘conscience’ is a culturally imposed deal, no single ‘self’ could actually have an indivual one, or at least translate it into a political system. I also heard, over and over again, from veteran people in the administration, about how ‘Self-Governance,’ as it was designed in the 1970s, had everything to do with responsibility within, and towards, the community, and had nothing to do with, as a person quoted in your article said, “governing your self.”

Well, maybe I’m demonstrating why I earned that low GPA at Grinnell, but, isn’t someone’s attitude towards their community first based on their attitude towards themselves, or at least others on an individual basis? Isn’t that ‘little voice’, or, I should say, that culturally imposed inhibitor known as conscience the thing that keeps us honest when no one is looking, and no one is around? Anyway, and I’m sorry to be long-winded about this, but it seems to me that the usual Grinnellesque argument as to why ‘self-governance’ is failing should be avoided here—by stepping around personal responsibility and going into theories on recruitment, selection, etc., we are missing the main issue, that is, petty crime is on a rise on campus ... and a rise of petty crime on campus will, ultimately, result in ‘self-governance’ being discredited by the authorities that exist.

Why am I writing this? One month ago I was robbed at gunpoint, one block from where I live on Chicago’s South Side. When the pistol was pressed to my forehead, I really did think about what I had done in life ... no joke. I had spent the last year running a group that was opposed to placing a casino boat in my area, so I had dealt with ‘organization’ types before, but, I have to say, this was infinitely scarier ... and I was scared, but afterwards ... but, what I guess I’m trying to say here is this—don’t reduce moral and community issues to partisan or artifically intellectual levels. Deal with them honestly. Do not blame the ‘administration’s’ policy, or the phantom conservatives they’re supposedly recruiting. Do not reduce petty crime, which can grow to serious crime, or dangerously intoxicated students, which can lead to death, to some stupid intellectual equation that can be dismissed with a turn of rhetoric. Deal with them upfront. Insist on down-to-earth language and answers from yourself and SGA. BS doesn’t count when lives are at stake—ask people to behave ‘conscientiously.’

Jim Dinnerville ‘01

SGA 1997-2001

Value your voting rights

I was extremely disappointed to read that less than 50 percent of the 210 students interviewed by the S&B voted last week. Grinnell College students ought to have a greater sense of civic responsibility than this statistic indicates. Voting is the most fundamental step one can take towards becoming socially proactive. It may be true that a single vote is statistically insignificant, but there are two powerful reasons why one should vote.

First and foremost, we should vote to honor the struggle of those Americans who have fought and died to gain this right for disenfranchised members of American society. There are countless examples in American history of brave individuals and groups speaking out to secure free and fair elections for all. I will provide just two examples here.

Women led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony endured years of discrimination in paving the way for later suffragists to gain the right to vote for women. Stanton and Anthony’s pioneering work came to fruition when women, led by Iowa’s own Carrie Chapman Catt, secured the passage of the 19th amendment in 1919, finally gaining for women the right to vote.

During the civil rights movements of the 1960s, young Americans our age joined voter registration drives in the South to assure the right to vote for African Americans. Many African Americans risked their lives simply by entering the polling place. Michael Schwerner, Andy Goodman, and James Cheney were three members of the Congress of Racial Equality who were murdered for their attempts to assure the right to vote for African Americans in Mississippi.

These people gave their lives so that all United States citizens would have the right to vote, yet over half of our campus is either too lazy or apathetic to leave our privileged positions at an elite liberal arts college and vote? This is shameful.

Secondly, though you may not feel that any candidate represents your view, you should vote simply to express your faith in the process of democracy. America may have an imperfect form of democracy, but our political process allows us more freedom and opportunity than is available in most nations throughout the world. Voting is a privilege, and not one that should be taken for granted. We should vote simply because we can. By not voting, you send the message that you do not value that right. And anyone who does not value the right to vote ought to look around at the standard of living in nations where citizens do not have a voice in political decisions.

Wake up, Grinnellians. How can our college be proud of its social activism if we as students don’t even vote?

—Noah Lawrence ‘02