Beer garden coverage was inaccurate
Dear Editor:
I write to correct inaccuracies in a May 2 article [“Sun God beer garden plan rejected”] and a May 5 editorial [“Watson’s beer garden denial sadly predictable”] regarding the recommendations of a committee and administrators as well as my stance regarding beer gardens at UCSD.
Contrary to the Guardian’s wording, the joint Associated Students and administration committee recommended against a beer garden at this year’s Sun God. I accepted the committee’s recommendation after speaking with a number of individuals who have responsibilities for campus programs and activities and student safety and well-being. With the exception of A.S. Presidents Jenn Pae and Christopher Sweeten, everyone with whom I spoke recommended against a beer garden at this year’s Sun God.
I and other administrators are not opposed to beer gardens at UCSD. We have approved them in the past at Price Center and on RIMAC Field, and we stand ready to do so again given proper supervision and safety conditions. In fact, the ASUCSD essentially has preapproval to have beer gardens on those sites, subject to reservation conflicts. Everyone, including the A.S. presidents, acknowledged that Sun God is a special circumstance with respect to risks associated with alcohol consumption.
The Guardian does a disservice to the campus community by mischaracterizing facts and positions and ignoring the critical safety issues associated with the Sun God festival — with or without a beer garden.
— Joseph W. Watson
Vice chancellor of student affairs
Bill on university riots justified
Dear Editor:
I just wanted to respond to two items in the May 5 edition of the Guardian: your editorial about the anti-riot bill [“Anti-riot bill infringes on rights of students”] and Ian S. Port’s column, “Attack on filibusters latest outrage from conservatives.”
The editorial’s whining — and it was blatant whining — about the infringement on First Amendment rights was without merit. The bill being proposed in Sacramento is to punish those students that violate the law with respect to protests.
Protesting is one “freedom” that is always being utilized — just take a look at the various groups that protest on Library Walk for any given reason — but when those protesters go beyond the scope of expressing their assorted “thoughts” and transgress into civil disobedience, well, that’s where the police and their nightsticks step in to handle the unruly children.
And if those protesters happen to be doing it on school property, then the university has every right and responsibility to contain, curtail and expel the students that actively participate in that civil disobedience or “riot.”
You cite former A.S. Vice President External Harish Nandagopal as an example of the impending “abuse” of this bill should it become law. When Nandagopal participated in the tuition-increase protest, he knew that proceeding down to La Jolla Village Drive and actively blocking traffic — sure sounds like civil disobedience to me — was going to draw the attention of the UCSD police.
He deserved to get arrested, if not for trying to disrupt the normal (and heavy) flow of traffic into and out of La Jolla, then for his safety lest he get pummeled severely by the hundreds of drivers stuck in the traffic jam on La Jolla Village Drive thanks to this dipstick and the other numbskulls protesting with him.
And please save your readers the insult to their intelligence by not saying that civil disobedience and/or “rioting” is a way of expressing an opinion. While I’m not qualified to be the editor of the GUARDIAN, I do know that you’ve got to have enough intelligence to distinguish between protesting for an ideal and stupid people acting out because they cannot convey their argument in an intelligent manner.
Bottom line: You break the law, you pay the price — be it in jail or flipping burgers at Wendy’s until your expulsion is over.
Now, as for Ian S. Port and his column — he’s still an idiot.
Why on earth do you print his whining? And yes, it’s whining — on a thermonuclear scale.
The man includes little to no factual argument in his ramblings, and when looked at for the essence of the column, it’s a 12-year old girl bitching about not having the latest glitter lip gloss from Limited Too. I dare Ian Port to write a column without using the latest screeds from the DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND or The DAILY KOS.
Please take my advice and perform the following: bitch-slap, scold, repeat.
— Michael May
Warren College Senior
Dear Editor:
In response to your article on the Pope saying we need a breather, I believe it is more important than ever to vigorously oppose the American NeoCons.
The last Pope, John Paul II, called G.W. Bush the anti-Christ. JP 2 said the Iraq War was a defeat for humanity. The American Conference of Bishops opposed the Iraq war. Catholic bishops in the United States forbade Catholics to participate in the Iraq war. 130 U.S. bishops opposed the withholding of communion from candidates for choice.
The Vatican supports candidates who are pro-choice in order to oppose the greater evil of war, torture, murder, death squads and capital punishment by the NeoCon fascists. Sister Mary Prejean calls the illegitimate (never-elected) Bush regime “military abortionists.”
Please, Catholics, take no breather — continue to support the Catholic Church in its fight against the lying, cheating, stealing, murdering Bush Neo-Con corporate totalitarian dictators. They are destroying our world.
— Valerie Sanfilippo
UCSD temporary employee
