I was greatly dismayed to see that ASU would even consider selling land to the Latter-Day Saints Church [in Wednesday's "Church and the state university"]. By allowing religious groups on campus, ASU already goes too far in supporting ignorance, hatred and bigotry.
I thought ASU was supposed to be a center of learning, not a place to ensnare students with the unthinking darkness such people promote. This sale would make the LDS a virtual part of ASU; I would expect that soon after, other conservative Christian churches, such as the Southern Baptists and Catholics, would demand equal treatment.
Are we to become so embroiled in religious arguments that all discussion is outlawed, as it was in ancient Rome?
With the recent step-up by conservative Christian churches in their efforts to force their beliefs into public schools by means of constant lawsuits, they are continuing to pursue their goal of a theocratic Christian America. We would become the same sort of state as Iran and most Muslim countries: agree or die.
Not only do I oppose any such sale vehemently, but I strongly urge ASU to cease any such support as they currently allow.
-Gary Huyck
Spanish major
Drilling in Alaska not worth it
I would like to respond to Leigh Dukatt's letter to the editor [in Wednesday's State Press] about why we should allow drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. His first argument for ANWR drilling is that the refuge has more oil potential than all of Saudi Arabia. That might sway some opinions if it weren't for the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration's report last year that said even ANWR's peak oil potential would only comprise about 0.7 percent of the world's oil production.
Dukatt also claims that environmentalists are to blame for soaring gas prices, but he fails to mention two vital contradictions to that claim: 1) big oil executives continue to receive multimillion dollar bonuses each year and 2) the oil industry just posted a record-breaking 53 percent profit increase this quarter. And Dukatt is saying blame the environmentalists?
Finally, Dukatt says that technological advances have made oil drilling safer than ever before. He must have overlooked the reports about existing pipelines spilling more than 1.3 million barrels of oil between 1996 and 2000. I'm sure he didn't care about the oil tanker spill around the Aleutian Islands in 2004, either.
Regardless of your partisan loyalties, drilling in ANWR is bad for the environment and provides no relief to the economy, so we should just stay out.
-Juliette Paradise
Anthropology senior
Losing faith in Crow
While pre-registering for next semester's classes, I found a required class that fit my schedule perfectly. The only problem: It was in Phoenix!
When I first applied to ASU my senior year of high school and visited the campus, I loved the atmosphere. Little did I know that three years later I would be forced to drive to Phoenix in the middle of rush hour twice a week to take a class.
The whole situation really confuses me. Isn't President Crow trying to dissuade students from having cars on campus by almost doubling the cost of parking passes? Yet he is forcing many students just like me to go to a class where the only option is a half-hour commute to downtown Phoenix. I know this problem will be solved once the light rail is completed, but what about the students who applied to the Tempe campus under the assumption that they would take all of their classes in Tempe?
Situations such as these make me lose faith in President Crow's vision for the New American University.
-Drew Paterson
Interdisciplinary studies major
