Think before you thump
All day Tuesday, I heard the thumping bass emanating from the EMU Amphitheater coupled with loud screaming about giving trucks away and how great Joe Romania is.
It is annoying for me at work, let alone in class, and I can’t imagine what people closer to the noise felt like. I hope no one was taking any tests. Once I found out that it was a Joe Romania “come try to win your gas guzzler” event, I found myself wondering why the University, which prides itself on being an environmentally friendly campus, would allow a private, for-profit company to come and peddle its not-so-environmentally friendly products.
These days there’s loud music blasting from the amphitheater, but hey, it’s spring and time to celebrate, right? Okay, that’s fine. However, when classrooms are being abandoned because of construction noise, perhaps we could give thought to the classrooms and offices close to the amphitheater and even more thought concerning which messages the University is sending.

Chris Holman

senior

international studies

Minority party members

deserve primary voice
Can we really choose our representatives and gubernatorial candidates? Not if we are members of a “minority” political party, according to elections rules. Those registered with a minority party, such as the Pacific Greens, are only allowed to vote for nonpartisan candidates in primary elections if no Greens are on the ballot. How absurd!
I am registered as a Green because I believe the party stands for environmental and political integrity. Not because I want to be excluded from doing my duty as a voter to pare down the field of candidates for the general election. And to those who would suggest minority party members would simply do their best to manipulate the outcome of a primary election, you’re right! May the best candidate always win, whether she or he is a Democrat, Republican or Constitutional Party candidate.

Eric Martin

junior

journalism

Bush family linked

to Nazis, terrorism
What’s all this talk likening the Green Party to the Nazi “green police” by conservative fanatics in the May 14 Emerald (“Welcome to the Stale Ideology Amateur Hour”)?
If one was interested in getting to the truth of the matter, one would have to look no further than the shady past of the Bush family. The Bush family fortune has been derived from many crooked schemes.
On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government under the “Trading with the Enemy Act,” seized the shares of a company called Union Banking Company, of which Bush was a shareholder and director. This company helped finance the German Steel Trust, which provided iron and explosives to the Nazis.
Another company, ran by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law, George Walker Herbert, was seized because it was a Nazi front. “This company was called the Silesian-American Corporation and was vital in supplying coal to the Nazi war machine,” according to the Draheim Report from the Dallas Libertarian Post. How much Bush coal was used to fire the incinerators at the Nazi death camps?
The Bush past is filled with unsavory partnerships with some of the world’s leading terrorists including Saddam Hussien, Manuel Noriega and also bin Laden. Let’s see — if the Nazis could be called terrorists, the Bush family has made a whole lot of money in dealing with terrorists. A simple Internet search query, “Bush Nazi,” will yield results.

Andrew Vern Reed

junior

sociology

Take Back the Night needs

both sexes to succeed
We, as women, were proud to attend the Take Back the Night rally. It was a wonderful opportunity to gather with others and speak out against sexual violence, sexism and hatred. It was, however, disheartening that not all supporters were given equal opportunities during both the march and the celebration that followed.
The crowd was instructed, in no uncertain terms, that the front of the march was reserved for women, and the middle area was to be reserved for “gender queers.” We attended the march together, as women, along with two of our friends, both male, one gay. Given the demographics of our group, we were forced to the back of the march, out of what the leaders designated the “safe space.”
It is counterproductive to place gender limits within a cause that strives for total equality. We, as women, need to embrace the men that are fighting by our side for equality, liberty and safety. By telling these men that they can not be on the front lines of the battle, we send them the message that we, as women, have been getting for centuries — “You are not strong enough. You are not good enough. We do not need your help.”
Until we can accept that every voice, regardless of gender, deserves to be heard, we will never be able to accomplish all that we, as humans, are capable of.

Andrea Lipstein

junior, family and human services

Rachael Osofsky

sophomore, psychology