Letters to the editor

Defending free speech

I have so many problems with Richard Garcia's guest column, "In Defense of ROTC," that I could fill an entire newspaper addressing them all. I doubt The Diamondback would allow this, so I'll focus on just one.

In Garcia's opening sentence, he claims "It is despicable that The Diamondback would run Malcolm Harris' column … on the seventh anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001." He goes on to call the article "fraught with anti-military, anti-American rhetoric." While Garcia's column makes further claims about the "righteous cause" in reference to bomb-making and the waging of war, and basically claims that the protestors at Kent State had it coming, his anger over the publishing of a column with views that challenge his own is alarming for its hypocrisy and ignorance.

If America is this great, ass-kicking nation (to paraphrase Garcia) that voluntarily spills its own soldiers' blood "to spread freedom and liberty to an area of the world devoid of them," isn't it anti-American of Garcia to criticize The Diamondback for allowing Harris to exercise his right to free speech?

No, Garcia, The Diamondback should not have withheld Harris' column on Sept. 11. To do so would be to eliminate the very thing which you feel it is necessary for hundreds of thousands of people to die for: our freedoms. The Diamondback's publishing of columns such as Harris' and yours isn't "despicable" at all. Rather, it is a celebration of our freedoms and liberties, which we must be vigilant to protect from suppression.

Matthew Parrilla Senior Physics Ex-PFC US Army

Lipstick on an elephant

"As we like to say in Wyoming, you can put all the lipstick you want on a pig, but at the end of the day, it's still a pig."

Anyone who has observed the presidential campaign trail for the past week has become very familiar with this barnyard metaphor, as it was used by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) at a rally in Virginia last Tuesday.

But the words above are not Obama's; rather, they belong to Vice President Dick Cheney in 2004, referring to Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) soon-to-be-fruitless presidential campaign.

The McCain camp has jumped at the opportunity to scrutinize the statement and label Obama as a sexist, claiming his lipstick comment was directed toward GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska).

It is easy to make this supposed connection. In the eyes of many campaign spectators, Palin has taken on the image of the "beauty" to complement Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) "brawn" and "brains." But let's not assume the Obama campaign has turned to Old MacDonald and swine name-calling.

The main problem is the metaphor includes the word "lipstick" - an item that Palin herself wants used more often in the White House.

But the context of the quote in no way refers specifically to Palin.

Obama said, "John McCain says he's about change too... And so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out, George Bush - except for economic policy, healthcare policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics - we're really gonna shake things up in Washington.'" So there's the pig.

Now for the lipstick, which could be on the lips of two things, neither being Palin. Either the lipstick is the general message of "change" that McCain is endorsing, or Palin herself is the stick of Maybelline. In no logical way can it be interpreted that Palin is the pig. She is either the lipstick (which is hardly an insult) or she is one of the jockeys on the pork of McCain's campaign.

My recommendation to Obama about the quote: say "lipstick on an elephant" - it's clearer, not to mention painfully corny.

Brian Hooks Junior Journalism