President Coor clears up flag flying debate
At Arizona State University, we proudly fly the American flag at the gateway into our university and in numerous locations across our campuses. Any reports you may have heard to the contrary are just plain wrong.
Since the attacks on our country, ASU has shown its patriotism and concern in numerous ways, including flying our American flag at half staff, holding memorials, prayer vigils, panel discussions, fundraising events, blood drives and counseling sessions. This is a time of great stress for everyone and we will continue to do everything possible to ensure the physical and emotional safety of all members of our university community.
As the fallout continues to unfold, let me assure you that our love of this great country and our commitment to upholding the liberties we all hold so precious will be among our highest priorities.
For more information about what ASU has done and is doing in response to this American tragedy, please go to www.asu.edu/ia/asuresponds
Lattie F. Coor
President
Arizona State University
Ousting of Oubai not an attack on Muslims
This letter is in reference to the impeachment proceedings being brought against Oubai Shahbandar from his office as ASASU Senator for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The proceedings against Sen. Shahbandar are in no way related to recent events!
I applaud the American Muslim community for its patriotism and the Muslim community throughout the world for its dedication to peace. No civil liberties of any citizen or person living in this country should ever be violated, and no acts of racism should be tolerated! The charges against Sen. Shahbandar are based solely on his behavior as a representative of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences College Council.
DJ Harper
President
CLAS College Council
No cheers for China
when it comes to flag
Are you people crazy? You really want me to think of China when I salute the American flag? Are you forgetting a little incident about 12 years ago that happened in Tiananmen Square in Bejing?
A group of students were in Tiananmen Square protesting the Chinese government because they wanted more freedom, so the Chinese government fired machine guns into the crowd and ran over other people with tanks. And no, the Chinese government has not gotten better since, it is the exact same government in place now and run by the same people as it was back in 1989.
So why would I, or anyone in their right mind, ever think of China when saluting the American flag? The American flag represents freedom. China represents oppression and death.
Victor Banks
Grad student
Chemical Engineering
Columnists cowardly
for not showing pride
[It’s] easy to lob verbal cruise missiles at a country and ridicule its leaders while sleeping safely and peacefully some thousand miles away from disaster and chaos. It’s easy, but it’s cowardly. My only question to the [State Press] columnists is that if this country is so bad and evil and corrupt, then why not move somewhere else? Why not move to Cuba or to Russia or to China or to Japan? Why stay here?
These columnists are cowards. Plain and simple. These columnists do not represent ASU. They are a sad collection of cynical individuals who reside along the gutters of radical extremism trying to convince themselves that they are enlightened. But they’re not. They’re sad. Someday they will be forced to leave the safe haven of utopian notions and idealistic nonsense that a university obligingly provides for them and enter into the real world. I will almost feel sorry for them.
Be proud of our country, ASU. Everyone else is.
Don Aguirre
English-literature
Senior
Fladness falls short of
decency, rationale
As I read the Sept. 21 article by Sabrina Fladness, “One, two, three, four, I declare a dumb war,” I was appalled at the irony it contained and did anything but laugh, as it so proposed. Any article that relies on name-calling and stereotypes (i.e., “President ‘Dumb’ ya”) is not an argument of insight but one of spite.
I am disgusted and saddened that anyone would have the audacity and the lack of sensitivity to complain that their favorite TV show premiere has been pushed back because of these events. The loss of innocent lives will never be convenient. Try telling that to those still searching through the rubble of the WTC for the bodies of innocent lives lost and families broken. Suddenly, Ally McBeal and Friends have lost their importance.
Jeff Bloker
Sophomore
Business
Columnist cries out Commie propaganda
Two words: Sabrina Fladness. Two more words: Absolutely Pink. She has Communist written all over your free, democratically protected and promulgated paper.
She explains that terrorism is “The systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments.” Her argument, then, is that as we, the United States of America, go to war, we become just like the terrorists we seek because we are using “violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments.”
If terrorism is “the systematic use of violence as a means to intimidate or coerce societies or governments,” then the militia that fought off the British and protected our right to self-governance was a terrorist group.
This is obvious because the militia, in fact, employed “the systematic use of violence to intimidate or coerce” the Red Coats. If we continue using her definition as she has outlined it for us, then both the Union and Confederate armies of the Civil War, and their Commanders-in-Chief were all terrorists. According to Sabrina’s definition, Abraham Lincoln was a terrorist leader and a mastermind.
This piece was offensive to me and to those who will forever bear the wounds of Sept. 11. In both verbiage and design, this was an article systematically tinted with verbal violence, for it poked fun at the wounds others have experienced. Verbal assault and abuse is real. I think we all can see how it too is a tool of terrorists — on planes or in the State Press.
Mike Daniels
Communication
Junior
