It's kind of cute to restrict student exposure to credit cards for fear we'll drown in debt.

Pat Leung
Guardian

Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill Sept. 12 that affects the California State University system and community colleges, and may be adopted by the University of California as well.

Regulating the tactics credit card companies use to recruit new student customers on campus will help curb student debt, proponents of the bill argue.

But if the government is worried about my Visa bill, I hesitate to think how it might react to the $15,000 in student loans my parents and I took out this year. Now that's student debt.

The bill is not the most exciting thing in the world. Its impact will likely be minimal -- it is no big deal if credit card companies are forbidden to give us lollipops and highlighters for applying for their card.

The interesting thing about this bill is the rationale behind it: Legislators and university administrators must intervene on behalf of students who are unable to take responsibility for their own finances.

It appears that we are innocents who need protection from wily credit card companies.

This assumption is dangerous because it creates a relationship of dependence between the student and the university. When we are protected from marketing, we fail to develop money management skills that will be necessary in the working world -- skills, in fact, that are necessary now. But we are not asked to become more economic in our spending, nor are we asked to be more moderate in our consumption.

For the sake of argument, students accept the premise that student debt is a problem. In fact, this premise is widely accepted and easily proved.

Citibank studies during 1999 showed that about 65 percent of students have a personal credit card. National studies for the same year showed that undergraduate students, ages 18 to 24, had an average credit card debt of $1,843.

A news article in The Daily Texan, a student newspaper at the University of Texas, reported that 78 percent of undergraduate students have at least one credit card, and 95 percent of graduate students have a credit card.

An article from USA Weekend reported that average student credit card debt has risen this year to about $2,220 for undergraduate students and $5,800 for graduate students.

Maybe we need help, but the paternalistic nature of the bill irks me. It reminds me of SB 19, a bill that seeks to limit junk food in California elementary schools.

It seems that children were plunking quarters into too many vending machines on campus, buying too much pizza from their school cafeterias, and generally getting fat enough to worry the grown-ups. So legislators wrote a bill, which may go into effect January 2002, proposing new health standards for food dished up in elementary schools.

I wonder if the legislators, in the spirit of nutrition, cleaned out their own vending machines or forbade junk food in their own lunchrooms. This reminds me of a joke I heard in Spain: You can easily discern an American in a crowd -- look for the fat one, and you have your man.

I have the feeling that students are the new fat children of the State Senate. We cannot keep away from the sweets, so they are going to take them away from us.

In explaining the new rule that credit card companies cannot offer students gifts if they apply for a card, an official was quoted in the Guardian as saying, ""Many college students got credit cards just because they wanted free gifts.""

That's just silly. We are not that dumb. I do not believe that there are students who are duped into signing up for a Discover card for a free gift.

For one thing, even if you do sign up for a card, you can choose not to activate it. If you activate it, you can choose not to use it. And if you use it, you can choose to pay it off on time to avoid that 17.99 percent annual rate.

You and I know that. The advocates of that bill should know that, too, and they should remember that there are plenty of nonstudents who are not much better than we are at wise spending -- how much is that national debt again?

According to the 2001 Consumer Federation of America report, aggregate credit card debt doubled between 1990 and 1996, with an average household credit card debt of $7,000.

On its Web site, NEWAY, a nonprofit organization that works to reduce debt, reports that the average household has 10 credit cards. Students are not the only ones who need help.

We should hope that the main effect of the bill will be better debt education, which is meant to be part of the bill. I am skeptical of the claim that students who are ""inexperienced"" with using a credit card get themselves into financial trouble. More likely, impulsive shoppers and students with expensive taste get themselves into debt, no matter how ""experienced"" they are at using a credit card.

But if those in the know think that debt education is a good idea, let's give it a try and see what happens.

Certainly our student government seems to be for it. The A.S. Council plans to request that Chancellor Robert C. Dynes impose regulatory policies on credit card companies.

At any rate, it seems a harmless, if not ineffectual little bill. Because it means that we may have one less vendor to dodge as we make our way down Library Walk, I applaud it.

If they want to eliminate commercials in the name of our innocence, OK.

And hey, perhaps things are not as grim as they seem. A study posted on a Web site -- partially sponsored by none other than Visa -- shows that 53 percent of students with credit cards pay their bills, in full and on time, every month. Less than 50 percent of adults can make that same claim.

Because the study says that only 13 percent of college students who hold credit cards applied for them on a university campus, the bill, if incorporated at UCSD, may not be necessary anyway.

Editor:

""War Makes It Worse."" That's what one of the signs said behind the podium at the Pro-America rally on Oct. 23, which the Guardian reported on in a couple of articles. In fact, the most recent article concerning ""Fighting for War and Peace"" (Oct. 29) made a nice point of that.

However, I have yet to see anyone propose a reasonable alternative to war as a means for achieving peace. You portrayed the speakers at the rally as fighting for war, and furthermore, that the reasoning behind our beliefs was a sort of blind devotion to the president and the Republican Party. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Do you think anyone wants to see a war? Do you think that we got into World War II because we wanted to lose thousands of American lives? This situation is more analogous to that great war than it is to Vietnam, yet it seems that a minority of college students (yes, a minority) are seeking to appear intelligent and ""forward-thinking"" by opposing war, as many of our parents did during Vietnam.

But this is not Vietnam. We are not attempting to depose a democratically elected government. We are attempting to help Afghans depose their despots, the Taliban.

The reason we have finally awoken to the plight of Afghanistan is, sadly, not because we have finally begun to sympathize with the Afghanis and the horrible situation that they face under the Taliban. No, we are unfortunately not so altruistic. Instead, we act now because we realize that as long as there are regimes like the Taliban around, there will be a breeding ground for terrorists. We have risen from our purely economically driven slumber out of necessity, for the sake of our freedom.

Maybe a lot of people do not realize the gravity of our situation because we are isolated on the West Coast. Perhaps if the terrorists had flown a plane into Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley would be singing a different tune.

In any event, it seems that there is a lack of understanding of reality on the part of these peace protesters.

Following the rally, Roger Hedgecock broadcast his radio talk show live from the Price Center. The first peace protester to come on suggested an interesting ""alternative"" to war: Demilitarize the Middle East. That sounds like a great idea, but we are actually more likely to see Osama in Playboy than to see a peaceful demilitarization of the world's most volatile region.

Others have suggested simply changing U.S. foreign policy, and this view seems to have the most support. In particular, protesters suggest we should stop supporting Israel and stop sanctions on Iraq.

Well, other than the fact that Israel is the one democracy in the Middle East and that Saddam Hussein is selling millions of barrels of oil per year -- but the profits go to his military, as usual -- and that he is trying to build weapons of mass destruction, there is the fact that such actions would not help end terrorism.

Removing the Western presence in Islamic nations is not a solution. After all, cutting off ties between the wealthy and the poor is no way to improve the lot of the poor, and that is the situation we are dealing with. It is sad that so many Americans, including most peace protesters, make it abundantly clear that they are not willing to sacrifice anything for the betterment of the lives of people outside this country.

Until the people of the Middle East have enough education and economic stability not to see turning to Bin Laden's gross distortion of Islam as the only way to find meaning in life, we will have the threat of terrorism against the United States and all that it represents: education, women's rights, religious freedom, a free press and democracy.

To all you protesters against this battle for freedom: Remember all those Americans that fought during Vietnam to stop an unjust war, the ones that you so desperately want to be like? Well, in their old age they still believe Vietnam was unjust, but the overwhelming majority of them support this war.

Why? Because they actually had to be original back then to think of protesting an American war, which means they were the intelligent ones of the time.

All I ask is that before you blindly follow what in the wake of Vietnam seems like the correct path, use the resources available to you here in the United States and educate yourself.

War is not pretty, but in my own educated opinion, we have no other option to ensure our safety, our freedom and our America.

-- Brian Brook

UCSD student

Editor:

I wish to speak to the recent assertions and accusations made by The Koala Editor in Chief George Liddle in a recent letter to the Guardian and on several other occasions.

Liddle's criticism of Alpha Epsilon Pi circulates around the concerns brought by AEPi, the Union of Jewish Students and the Student Affirmative Action Committee regarding the latest publication of The Koala, in which several racist and anti-Semitic jokes were printed.

Contrary to the thoughts of The Koala, Alpha Epsilon Pi is not a racist or hateful organization. Furthermore, I resent Liddle's efforts to steer the focus away from The Koala by blaming those who would stand up against his hatred.

The Koala would have people believe that AEPi is a racist organization because it has only taken offense to printings offensive to Jews. The Koala has argued that AEPi is inherently racist because it attempts to reinforce the definitions between Jewish people and the rest of campus.

While I take to heart Liddle's suggestion that we should be more mindful of hate toward all communities, the question of whether AEPi is racist has little to do with our past political stances. Would Liddle condemn all organizations that become increasingly sensitive to words that were specifically hateful toward their own? Simply because AEPi should have stood up to hateful speech in the past doesn't make the speech in the latest issue of The Koala any less abominable.

Further, I am surprised that The Koala would name a Jewish fraternity as an inherently racist organization simply because it attempts to take pride in a common heritage and culture. While Liddle would like to preach about a large campus community disrupted by the divisions of selective groups such as AEPi, perhaps the reminder that anti-Semitism is still very much a reality reinforces these ""communal boundaries."" It is the hate found in The Koala that pushes people even further toward their respective communities.

I would also like to add that in the last year, AEPi donated over 100 hours of community service and over $3,000 toward philanthropic causes aimed at helping people throughout the world, regardless of heritage. What has the Koala done in the way of helping this ""larger community"" that Liddle is so fond of referring to?

The Koala is right in pointing to the issue as one of free speech. The question is not whether it has the right to print hateful content, because that is undoubtedly not in dispute. The real question is one of free speech for the students of UCSD, because it is we as students who are forced to put our support behind these printings in the form of our money.

As a student whose money is allocated by the A.S. Council, I am outraged that my money has funded such despicable content. Because The Koala is paid for by students, it is, in effect, an expression of our speech. Should the students of UCSD be compelled to find representation in a publication that plays upon racial injuries by the use of such words as ""Kike""? There is a distinct difference between funding a newspaper, the content of which students might not agree with and funding speech that serves no greater purpose than to injure its targets.

It is unfortunate that Liddle uses the fact that he is Jewish to excuse the content of his paper. It is disappointing that someone who apparently identifies himself as a Jew commands such little knowledge of his heritage that he would not find the word ""Kike"" offensive.

The idea that the creator of an anti-Semitic joke is a member of that targeted group is irrelevant. The responsibility of editors is not to compel others to wonder who wrote the content and what it means to them, but to anticipate what its impact will be on readers. It is sad that Liddle has yet to learn this lesson, and that he uses the fact that he is Jewish to excuse his actions.

I would also like to add that AEPi has never pretended to oppose the very existence or support of The Koala. I hope it is clear that while we have taken offense to some of its printings, we have made no efforts to remove funding for The Koala.

As the president of AEPi, I am proud that issues have been raised surrounding the latest publication of The Koala. If nothing else, UCSD has had a chance to take a second look at its own representation and the issues surrounding the publications that students fund.

I am almost thankful to Liddle for being so inflexible with our original concerns because he has made this a much bigger issue than I ever intended. Regardless of his efforts to personally attack my chapter, it remains important to focus on the issues, not the people discussing them.

-- Lance Miller

President, Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity

Everyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am no Mother Teresa. In fact, some would argue that I am the biggest brat on the planet. Yet, recently, I've been struck by the ""wave of kindness"" that has swept the nation following the Sept. 11 attacks and been inspired to become a better human being.

Some might argue this is shamless opportunitism at its best. They are correct. But I figure it's probably better to redeem myself now, just in case we're all obliterated by nuclear war in the future.

Becoming a saint, though, is not as easy as I thought. In fact, it requires dedication, discipline and an extremeley good heart (qualities I have very little of). I've tried to balance schoolwork with good works, but frankly, it's quite difficult to meditate on global peace when I have a 10-page paper due the next day.

I've even considered dropping out of school, ""borrowing"" thousands of dollars from my parents and escaping to an impoverished country where I can feed thousands of hungry people, personally install an irrigation system so everyone has acceess to clean water, and perform miracles in my free time.

However, with the very real possibility of my parents hunting me down and subjecting me to various forms of torture, I've decided against it. So, although my goals are big, I've had to limit myself to smaller deeds of kindness that will put me in a better position for canonization by the pope.

For one thing, I've resolved to never have ""road rage"" again. Now, if someone cuts me off, instead of flipping them off, I've simply mouthed, ""that's not very nice"" to the offending driver. I'm hoping that my example of ""grace under pressure"" will be used in the next DMV manual so that drivers everywhere can boost their karma by a couple hundred points.

In addition, instead of reading the National Enquirer front to back like I used to before Sept. 11, I only read the horoscope section so that my mind is not tainted by the negative attitudes of some spoiled celebrities and the size of J.Lo's butt. After all, a saint has to have a pure mind if she wants to end poverty, violence and all the other vices this world offers.

Furthermore, instead of calling my family and friends 10 times a day to air my worries about the fate of the world, my ample cellulite and a cavity on my left molar, I leave messages on their answering machines instead (that way they can easily delete them). If that's not angelic, I don't know what is.

I have to admit that becoming a better human being is a difficult task, especially if you're a UCSD student. It's easy to get sucked into the hellish world of academics and escape to the library when your services could be better used feeding empty meters and tutoring slackers in the art of time management.

Of course, all of you dear readers (yes, you too, Ben Boychuk) can emulate my style if you wish to be a better human being. But don't expect to become a saint. Leave that task to me.

There is no question that the bombing campaign against Afghanistan is effective.

It is effectively killing civilians, hampering humanitarian aid and recreating the desperate situation that provided the impetus for the rise of the Taliban.

As citizens of the United States, we must recognize this, for in this great democratic nation of ours, we are given a voice and can be held accountable for our nation's actions.

Are we ready to take responsibility for 3-year-old Rahmat Bibi, her legs broken and her head bandaged, crying aloud while asking to be taken to her dead mother, a victim of air strikes?

Are we ready to take responsibility for 1-year-old Jan Bibi and her 3-year-old brother Gul Khan, lying in the same hospital bed, unaware that they have been orphaned?

I am not ready to take this responsibility.

Bombing Afghanistan is killing innocent civilians and is taking us further from our stated objective of bringing down the Taliban.

When the Taliban first rose to power in Afghanistan, the people welcomed it as a unifying force, a government that would bring a small measure of peace to a country ruled by tyrannical local despots and engulfed in civil war. The bombing campaign has once again reduced Afghanistan to this base state.

Who will the people look to to take them out of their misery? To America, whose bombs have fallen on hospitals, mosques and villages, or to the Taliban?

Prior to the bombing, the Taliban was faced with mounting dissatisfaction with its application of religious law, but even this was better than a bombing campaign that disrupted humanitarian aid and rained death upon everyone.

It is this bombing that has lent a new legitimacy to the Taliban, cementing its authority as the protector of the Afghan people. Afghans see trails of wounded civilians left behind screaming jets juxtaposed against Taliban fighters manning anti-aircraft guns.

The people draw a simple conclusion: This is a war not against Islam or the Taliban, but against themselves, the ordinary people of Afghanistan.

""Why has America attacked us?,"" an elderly Afghan man asked. ""We are civilians. We thought America was our friend. Please tell them to stop bombing us.""

While civilian casualties are an unavoidable byproduct of any air campaign -- hence the military's anesthetic term ""collateral damage"" -- there have been inexcusable instances of it, such as the bombing of Red Cross warehouses.

On Oct. 26, U.S. Navy fighters and B-52 bombers mistakenly bombed six warehouses used by the International Committee of the Red Cross, destroying vital stocks of food. Not only is this the second time ICRC buildings have been hit since U.S. air strikes began on Oct. 7, but two of the warehouses hit this time were struck the last time as well. And this was after the Red Cross met with American military officials and pinpointed locations to ensure that it would not happen again.

These are ""smart"" bombs. These are the pilots and planes and systems we spend billions of dollars on to ensure this sort of thing will not occur. What happened?

Sept. 11 happened. The bombing campaign is the reflex of a people who have suffered though a great tragedy and are understandably frightened and angry.

But we must not let our anger occlude our judgment and preclude justice. Bombing Afghanistan is not a solution but a worsening of the fundamental problem -- and that is the generations of Afghans who have known nothing but war.

An Amnesty International report states, ""War violates every right of a child: the right to be with family and community, the right to health, the right to development of personality and the right to be nurtured and protected."" We must give these children peace and their rights.

The United States needs to halt its bombing campaign, help to formulate an acceptable multi-ethnic, broad-based Afghan government, resume humanitarian aid and seek a political solution to this problem.

In the words of Taliban ambassador Abdul Salaam Zaeef: ""The way of solving a problem is negotiation, understanding and dialogue.""

We must use this method because, as President George W. Bush said, ""In our anger, we must never forget that we are a compassionate people. While we firmly and strongly oppose the Taliban regime, we are friends with the Afghan people.""

In the November-December issue of its newsletter, the UCSD Women's Center ran an article titled, ""Controversy Over Sony Ads In The UCSD Guardian."" This headline refers to the Sept. 24 issue of the Guardian, in which Sony Screenblast purchased four advertisements.

Three of the Sony advertisements described by the Women's Center were photographs of young women, and one portrayed a young man. Overlaid onto each ad's photograph was one of Sony's slogans: ""Use me,"" ""Share me,"" Enter me"" and ""Manipulate me.""

In the weeks following the circulation of these advertisements, the Guardian received letters to the editor that criticized these ads' sexual overtones and the Guardian's publication of such material.

The Women's Center newsletter notes this and states that it has scheduled a presentation and discussion in response to readers' reactions. The forum is intended to address questions such as, ""How do media images affect our view [sic] of women?"" and ""What is the line between advertising and pornography, between criticism of the media and censorship?""

These questions, and their relative answers, are interesting, thought-provoking and certainly deserving of scrutiny. However, the Guardian should not be held responsible for the content or the implied messages that advertisers choose to rely on when marketing their products. Advertisers throughout many generations have perpetually relied on selling sex in order to sell products, and criticism of Sony's advertisements is best directed not at the Guardian but at Sony, the creator of the images and slogans that some have found offensive.

Admittedly, it is apparent that the Women's Center newsletter does not necessarily intend to hold the Guardian solely responsible for these ads' content.

Still, concerns regarding the overt sexuality of advertising should not have been prompted by these ads alone; any individual who regularly accesses the Internet, television, magazines, billboards or major newspapers is constantly exposed to sexually based advertising techniques. That such techniques happened to appear in the Guardian may have served as a wake-up call for groups concerned with these issues, but this instance is in no way a unique one and should hardly be the catalyst for an analysis of the power and nature of advertising. That power is expressed daily in much larger ways and on much grander scales -- even on this campus.

Furthermore, the Guardian believes that many of its readers, especially as students, possess a honed and powerful ability to critically analyze anything put before them. Although it may be argued that advertising can be powerful enough, in some cases, to ""contribute to violence against women,"" we presume that readers are capable of detecting the covert, money-driven purpose of advertisements such as those recently criticized, and that our audience can intelligently interpret such ads for what they are worth.

It seems from some students' responses to Sony's advertisements, however, that we can only be hopeful that in making this assumption, we have not engaged in a leap of faith.

The United States and the world should give attention to Palestine, not Afghanistan.

This troubled and decimated region in the Middle East is the key to our conflicts with terrorism. The importance of finding Osama bin Laden pales in comparison to building a stable Palestinian region.

The Israeli and Palestinian governments recently brokered a deal to remove Israeli troops from two important towns in the region: Bethlehem and Beit Jala.

The Israelis inserted one clause into the agreement: Violence in the two cities must end. But when fighting broke out again a week ago the Israeli government decided to leave its troops and tanks in these cities as ""peacekeepers.""

What seemed like a promising beginning to a truce resulted in more gunfire and violence.

The Palestinian and Israeli sides resorted to finger-pointing after the incident.

An Israeli security source informed Reuters, ""If Palestinians keep the calm and their commitments, Israel will re-examine its decision.""

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat responded by stating, ""Once again, we have had an agreement, and the Israeli side is violating it.""

Both sides have been playing this blame game for years.

A never-ending circle of violence is the result. Retaliations occur, such as the Oct. 17 assassination of Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi, which prompted Israel to send forces into Palestinian territories and attack positions there.

This cycle should be familiar to any western viewer of the enduring conflict.

The sides have signed peace settlements over and over, such as the famous Wye River agreement of October 1998.

It was intended to create a stable and calm Palestine, yet after months of delays in installing the agreement, Israeli officials withdrew from the plan. Violence resulted and has continued nearly unabated to this day.

The deal, brokered by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, highlights the problem with the way the U.S. government has handled its relations in the area.

The reason for this plan's failure is lack of enforcement.

The United States is not willing to send troops into the region as peacekeepers or to enforce any agreement. This is an understandable but unfortunate sentiment when one considers that peace in Palestine is vital to U.S. national security.

The recent terrorist attacks on the United States have been a direct result of U.S. support for Israel and its violence toward Muslims.

Some of the Israeli-enacted bloodshed has been justified, some has not. Either way, Arabs in the area see such acts of aggression toward Palestinians as sanctioned and supported by the United States.

Bin Laden said, ""Those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land and in Palestine.""

The terrorist activity in America and elsewhere is a direct result of instability in the region. Palestine must be made secure.

If the United States is not willing to step up to the plate to enforce the security in the region, who will?

The United Nations can. An internationally backed accord is necessary for the region to realize hopes for peace.

As cited repeatedly by the U.S. government, the reason our war against the Taliban will prove successful lies in the support the United States has received from the world. The same is true for Palestine.

The United States needs to begin building a U.N.-sanctioned peace plan, including U.N. military enforcement for such a plan.

The time is over for idle talk of ""needing to restore talks"" or ""getting both sides back to the bargaining table.""

Both sides need to be brought before the United Nations to settle the problem.

Only a world-backed plan will succeed where others have failed.

Average Americans can help by writing to their congressmen and demonstrating support for the idea.

Put your voice to work and convince the government of the necessity for action in Palestine. Americans must realize the importance of peace in the Middle East and how it directly affects national security.

Then we can make such a realization public -- loudly.

In the last few issues of the Guardian, I have noticed a debate on the display of flags following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. It started with a column by Bertrand Fan, in which he looked at the new trend as, essentially, a condemnable form of posing. It continued with a reply from Jessica Long on Oct. 15, in which she saw the habit as a manifestation of pride in this ""great country"" (a very stereotypical expression these days).

I believe that things are more complex than the two writers describe. Posturing, dumb conformity, cheap sentimentalism and similar motives may explain some of the flags out there, but not all of them. I have seen flags, at least, displayed by people whose aversion to the previous motives is proven beyond any doubt.

There is no doubt that many Americans believe they live in a great country, but to reduce the massive display of national flags to this sentiment would be an oversimplification.

French people, for instance, have a very strong national sense and believe they live in a great country. Yet this belief never resulted in a massive exhibition of French flags on cars or apartment windows, a practice that would provoke puzzlement and hilarity on the streets of Paris.

The different attitude toward these acts of what we might call ""symbolic patriotism"" -- in the sense of expressing patriotism through the use of symbols -- reveals a difference between the American national sentiment and that of other countries in the world. I believe this is due to the different circumstances in which people became citizens of these countries.

For a French person -- or English, or German and so on -- the fact of being born French does not entail choice, whether personal or ancestral. France, in a sense, just happened to the French people.

Americans are different. With the exception of Native Americans, who were already here, and African-Americans, who were brought here by force, the decision of being American was consciously and purposely made by some member of the family not too long ago (let us say, for most people, in the last 150 years).

The ancestral memory of this decision is still very much alive: Most Americans can tell you from which country their family came. In an oblique way, such a statement also highlights the decision the family made, at one time, to become Americans.

At the time, this choice was cast in symbols because people coming from various countries in the world, leaving behind in many cases extreme poverty, needed something to identify themselves with their new country. Symbols like the flag served a powerful function in this sense, and I do not think I am completely wrong if I see in this circumstance the origin of the curious American fascination with symbols.

Symbols are so important that when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, one does not promise to be faithful to the president, Congress or the government, but only to the flag of the United States. The pledge of allegiance is essentially saying: ""My family made a good choice by deciding to become American, and I am going to stick with it.""

The peculiar American national sentiment is also responsible for certain expressions, such as, ""I am proud to be an American.""

On one hand, this expression is typically American: I would assume that most Italians, Danes or Spaniards are just as happy to be Italians, Danes or Spaniards as Americans are to be Americans. But, by and large, those other groups do not feel any compelling need to let anybody know that they are.

On the other hand, the sentence itself is rather peculiar: Why should one be proud to be an American? Apart from the fact that pride is one of the seven deadly sins and, therefore, that a good person should not be proud of anything, anybody who was born in this country did not really do anything to be an American. So, what is there to be proud of?

The answer, I think, is again to be traced to this ""ancestral choice."" One can be proud to be an American if one chose to be one and wants to reiterate that he made the right choice. It is this choice, made in the past but very present in the American national consciousness, that forms the sentimental underpinning of the expression, ""proud to be an American.""

This should also imply that the basic requirement for being a good American is to want to be one -- a statement quite incompatible with the national feelings about immigration, but that is a subject for a different article.

The national flag, patriotic pride and the Pledge of Allegiance are part of the symbolic apparatus that has eased the choice of being an American in the past, and it is only natural that most Americans will feel the need to use this apparatus every time they want to reiterate this choice.

For all these reasons, I looked with a certain benevolence upon the flurry of flags that suddenly appeared after Sept. 11, at least for the first couple of weeks. Sure, most of these displays were naive, some of them were quite tacky, and some in outright bad taste -- when, for instance, flags were pasted over car windows, creating a traffic hazard (remember, kids: Don't flag and drive).

I read these gestures, however, as a further symbolic confirmation of the decision to become American. Although I would not use such a blunt symbolic instrument in order to express my condemnation of terrorism, I accepted it as a natural renovation of people's decision in the face of a difficult time for the United States.

Things changed completely once American planes started bombing Afghanistan. I see no justification whatsoever for displaying a flag as a celebration of the fact that one's country is killing people. And, in order to avoid confusion, I would like to make a distinction between believing that the attack was necessary and celebrating it.

Many people think the attack was necessary, and some people think the unavoidable civilian casualties are a tough but justified price to pay. Some believed that the attack could go on without civilian casualties: These people live on a different planet than you and I, and we do not need to worry about them.

By and large, I disagree with these opinions, but I can understand the reasons behind their support.

Displaying a flag in the last weeks, however, is different. It means celebrating the attack, and celebrating the fact that Afghani people are dying. No military attack, however necessary one thinks it may be, and however justified one may consider it, should be celebrated. Celebrating the death of people we do not know and understand is not different from the celebrations in some Arab countries after Sept. 11 that we all condemned -- and rightfully so.

We must not fall in the trap of celebrating the death of human beings. We should not transform a national flag from a symbol of one's choice and of national unity to a blindfold that will make us accept everything done in its name.

One doesn't actually have to go looking hard for that true Washington, D.C. experience.

Just living in the city makes it seep into your pores, and before you know it, it takes a hold of your very soul.

I know this is true because it happened to me. I arrived in the District of Columbia in late August, gung-ho to see everything, to do all the tourist things.

I was under the delusion that seeing everything there is to see would make it a perfect experience.

Yet I discovered that the true D.C. experience is not necessarily in visiting every single tourist attraction, but in experiencing the everyday wonders hidden behind the more glamorous points of interest.

Taking time to walk the city, ride the metro, go to cafes and bars, experience the tastes of every country through the multitude of culturally diverse restaurants -- these are just some of the things that must be undertaken just as vigorously by anyone visiting the famous tourist attractions.

But for me, nothing in the District of Columbia compares to walking through the Capitol building.

Every day, I feast my eyes on it twice during my commute. I get the daytime look and then the evening look for free.

Viewing the Capitol on a daily basis has had a strange effect on me. I've fallen head over heels in love with the utter beauty and magnificence it radiates.

I cannot stop myself from taking picture after picture of the Capitol, from every imaginable angle and at all times of the day, just to see the lighting change on the building.

There is really no way to excuse my photograph-taking sprees. I have so many duplicates that it far exceeds logical reasoning. You could call me a parent who can't stop cooing and taking endless pictures of her brand-new baby.

It's just that the newness and excitement derived from seeing the Capitol haven't worn away with time, as many might expect them to have.

Today, just one look at the Capitol still sends a shock of amazement and wonder through me.

Seeing it is a wake-up call: I am here in Washington, D.C. I am a part of and connected to something larger.

The things I'd only read or seen in the history books are now irreversibly a part of my life. The Capitol, Washington Monument, the Supreme Court and the White House are just some of the historical places that are now a part of my daily existence.

This is what I love about living in D.C.: Here, history is not dead and found only in dusty old books, but remains alive forever in the stone and marble buildings.

Here, one feels at the center of the universe. It is where everything seems possible, which is what I find so completely intoxicating about life in this city.

And as I sit here on the steps of the Capitol at 7 p.m., I remain enchanted with the awesome sight of the light shining through the building -- what I affectionately like to call the ""light of freedom,"" blazing brilliantly and endlessly through the night.

But then reality comes crashing down. The Secret Service's black Suburban idles to a stop in front of me to take a cursory look in my general direction, its police radio crackling loudly.

The reality of the terrorist attacks floods back to me, and I tense up, checking my surroundings furtively to see whether I'm safe.

Another noise overpowers that of the radio static -- a metallic, squeaky noise. Intrigued, I search with my eyes to find the source of that noise.

My heart catches as my eyes rest upon the American flag rippling in the harsh wind, flying high and strong over the Capitol building, echoing our nation's resolve.

The magic of the Capitol, of the District of Columbia, hits me again. I realize that as long as our American flag is still there, nothing else matters.

I love Washington, D.C. I wouldn't want to be in any other place now or in the future. I know when I return to San Diego in December, I will be leaving my heart in this city.

We live in a time when the individual has true power: The voice of even one person can be enough to change the world. It seems this power is intoxicating. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to see people campaigning for this or that cause.

One such group, environmentalists, has come to prominence in recent decades. These ""environmentalists"" work under the belief that humans are ruining the delicate balance of nature that allows life to flourish on Earth. We are consuming our resources too fast and polluting too much. It is their belief that only by cutting back on industry and technological development, only by returning to nature, will we be able to survive the damage that we have done. One of their favorite slogans is ""Save the Earth.""

This simply does not apply. We are no more capable of destroying our planet than an ant is capable of pulling down a mountain.

Life is not a fragile thing that needs protection. Even in the sunless ocean depths, the sulfurous ash of volcanoes, and the frigid ice of the poles, it survives, and indeed flourishes. We can nuke every inch of the Earth, and still, life will survive. One day, maybe a billion years from that point, life will once more walk the Earth.

But it will not be us. We may be unable to destroy the Earth, but we are now quite capable of destroying ourselves. The Earth is in no need of saving, but we are. Perhaps the environmentalists should change their war cry to ""Save the humans."" It is more accurate, and certainly more likely to grab attention.

I am sure few will disagree with me when I say that keeping the human species alive is a good thing. Unfortunately, most environmentalists are not merely intent on preserving human life when they speak of saving the planet. They have a specific means of accomplishing this, and there are few alternatives acceptable to them.

What they seek is to bring Earth closer to the time before human civilization spread across the globe, when forests covered the land and all varieties of species roamed the planet.

Quite often, actions toward that end do not promote human welfare. For example, despite the fact that nuclear power does not pump pollutants into the air, the environmentalist movement has opposed it at every turn. The oft-cited reason for opposing nuclear power is the questionable safety of the power plants, yet even without mounds of scientific evidence proving otherwise, statistical information alone shows nuclear plants are far safer than, say, driving. There are over 100 nuclear power plants in the United States, the youngest being over 20 years old. Yet in the 40 years since nuclear power became available, there has been one accident in the United States, and it was not even serious enough to cause loss of life.

Similarly, political opposition shut down the space program, which could have once moved heavy industry off Earth. Today, space shuttle technology is over 30 years old and hideously expensive, yet the government is unable to gain the support to develop more efficient means of propulsion.

Environmentalists even object to genetically engineered crops, despite their potential to feed millions of starving people and to put to rest worries of worldwide famine (another popular environmentalist bogeyman). The reason: fears that genetically modified plants might replace natural varieties.

Most environmentalists believe in species preservation, and in protecting any and all species from extinction. While I personally agree with this ideal, I do not agree with the motivation behind it. There seems to be an underlying assumption that humans are the sole cause of extinctions, whereas species have been dying out billions of years before humans ever came along. In fact, we were not even around for the massive extinctions that have occurred periodically in Earth's past.

I do not accept the concept of nature's balance. I do not accept the implicit belief that nature nourishes life, that if we could just demolish all the works of man, the world would become a garden paradise.

Perhaps this air of benevolence is not too surprising considering most of us only see nature through beachside vacations and idyllic camping trips, the sites of which have long been tamed by human hands. We have forgotten rotting teeth, verminous hair, the terror of being hunted by beasts and the taste of rancid meat. Nature plays no favorites.

From geologic records we know that there is no such thing as a natural equilibrium. Over the millennia, the average global temperature has gone up and down numerous times, long before we came along with our cars, factories and farting cows.

There is nothing to stop an asteroid from crashing into the earth and killing us as it possibly did to the dinosaurs. It does not even take a killer asteroid to extinguish us -- the fossil record shows a number of mass extinctions, and most of them were caused by nothing more spectacular than natural climate change. Species become extinct all the time, but we do not have any reason why we might be excluded from this rule.

We do not know of any such reason because there is none. If we are to avoid the fate of the dodo bird, then we must create that reason ourselves.

The only tool we have to work with is science. If we return to the trees, then we will be like other species, etching out a brief existence before becoming just another fossil memory.

But if we move forward, if we do not shackle ourselves with rootless doubts, if we do not blow ourselves up or eat up our entire food supply, we will become something more.

We aren't hungry and we're not homeless. As college students, we don't have money to contribute, and we are not compelling in our youth. As a group, we barely vote. In fact, regarding government, we are mostly silent.

Pat Leung
Guardian

It seems we matter very little politically in the United States. It seems we have few concerns that make our involvement crucial, and few attractions that draw the politicians near. We have isolated ourselves from active democracy.

I was struck in a small way on Oct. 29, when several UCSD professors gathered to give a seminar on the implications of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. After the presentation, a student roved the audience with a microphone for those wishing to direct questions to the professors.

This segment was monopolized by individuals who were clearly not students. In fact, most were white-haired, such as the gentleman next to me who napped through much of the seminar but awoke in time to pose a lengthy, convoluted question to the panel.

Another woman, so intent on not relinquishing the microphone once she secured it, did not bother to ask a question. Steadily ignoring the efforts of the student timekeeper to wrench the microphone from her grasp, she blabbed on about any old thing until someone, somehow, made her stop.

Where were we, the students? To be fair, perhaps two students managed to ask questions just before the session ended. But this was so unusual that, when one professor noticed the student raising his hand, he muttered a comment that was perhaps not accidentally picked up by the microphone: ""Finally, a student with a question,"" or something to that effect.

And to be fair, one student's question was so thoughtful and well-posed that the professors merely blinked for a few counts. Their initial and inadequate response was ""Good question.""

But it is no exaggeration to say that student participation at the seminar was mostly limited to the cheerful student timekeeper.

In fact, it's possible that nonstudents were able to monopolize the question-and-answer period because the student timekeeper gave them unfair preference with the microphone.

If that was the case, then students should remember that this university belongs to us and not to intellectually preening community members. Students should certainly have been given priority at the seminar. These are, after all, our professors. But perhaps this was not the case.

The second possibility for our lack of participation is that the students in attendance were simply too dumb to formulate questions.

This is ridiculous. For one thing, we are students. It is our job to look, listen, think and ask.

But at that, the atmosphere in the auditorium was a bit stuffy and pedantic for my taste. A seminar is an exchange of ideas and not a trampoline for showily executed verbal acrobatics. Must audience-generated questions at a fairly informal seminar be impressive in order to be asked and answered?

We are, after all, neither political commentators nor coifed news broadcasters -- only students. And I do not think the professors were crafty, polished politicians to be tripped and tricked and needled with elaborate, multiclaused questions.

The third possible cause of our collective muteness Monday night is the most frightening and the most complex: Perhaps we couldn't be bothered to ask questions, since others seemed to be doing it for us. And perhaps we didn't care.

Consider this: In ""Citizen Politics,"" author and UC Irvine professor Russell Dalton describes a discrepancy between the average voter turnout of people in their 50s (about 80 percent) and of people in their 20s (about 60 percent.) And that is of the people who bothered to vote.

Dalton offers evidence that describes voter turnout in the 1990s as 69 percent for France, 77 percent for Germany, 78 percent for Great Britain and 53 percent for the United States.

Some weeks ago, the New York Times printed a letter by a man who lives in the American Midwest. He said that his friends and family were unsure how to react to the Sept. 11 terrorist acts and the war that has followed it. Sure, they flew their flags and mourned with the rest of the country, but from a removed state. So far, he wrote, the war was something that was happening to someone else.

Perhaps, for college students, politics is something that happens to someone else.

Here, there will be some who toss this aside in disgust. What about our peace coalition, pro-America rally, affirmative action parade, student government?

These efforts represent only a minority of the student population at UCSD. Were we all represented, there would not be one peace coalition but one dozen, not one affirmative action parade but a daily parade for 100 different interests.

The massive dearth of significant student participation in politics means that either we are not interested in politics, we do not believe our participation will affect politics, or we do not believe that our personal political participation is important in a functioning democracy.

Well, perhaps we are not interested in politics. Perhaps neither party enchants us. Perhaps, at this age, we lack the social or financial responsibility that makes politics seem important to others. Or maybe ""the fact that some half-anonymous ass or another has been elected president of the United States"" is as meaningless to us as it was to Henry Louis Mencken, whose book ""A Blind Spot"" was published in 1920.

It could be that we don't relate to the bills and political posses, and to faraway problems like hunger, when there are fresh bagels at Sierra Summit when we want them. Maybe democracy is something we'll do when we grow up and have more time.

Maybe we don't believe our participation will affect politics. Perhaps we have never signed a referendum that made it to the ballot, and it could be that the real world seems miles away from our tidy enclave at UCSD.

Maybe we do not believe that political participation is important. It seems that democracy functions well enough without us.

And when we attend Monday night seminars, the questions seem to get asked without our having to raise a hand.

Last Monday's student silence is not to be dismissed as an incidental curiosity. If we are unable to participate in this most basic of democratic activities -- political discussion and exchanges of ideas -- then it follows that we will not participate in more demanding political activities.

Last Monday, I watched as students allowed their elders to steal their right to a political voice. I wonder what was not asked and what was not answered as a result of this theft; perhaps nothing important. Members of the community asked good, even excellent, questions. But they were asked at our expense.

Maybe we will, in fact, learn how to be democratic when we are all grown up and have time. Meanwhile, we are consumers of a cheap democracy we help to create with our silence.

Politics may feel like something that happens to someone else, but without our participation, it is something worse. It is something done to us.

I am a ... a ... co ... I am a comm ... OK, I'm a communications major. There, I said it. Laugh if you want. Poke fun if you feel the need. But I am a communications major and I am proud of it.

Last week, I was walking a few paces ahead of a giggly pair of girls. As they swapped the horrors of their science and computer majors and the stringent requirements placed on them, they vehemently agreed that at times like these, ""Don't you wish you were a comm major?""

I turned to these two absent-minded future geneticists and squinted, and in disgust, I said, ""I happen to love my comm major."" Both girls quickly shut up.

Much to my dismay, I have noticed that there is a level of disrespect assigned to the communications major. Our sociology or psychology counterparts fare no better.

The communications major may not be the most difficult major in terms of equations and calculations, and it may not be the major guaranteed to be lucrative after its graduates walk, but it does serve an invaluable purpose.

First, the communications department is preparing students for careers in cognitive research, media and advertising amongst a plethora of other professions. Even though the communications curriculum has its flaws, at UCSD, there is no other major that caters to this desire more efficiently. The communications major is preparing students like myself for our prospective careers in the same fashion that, say, computer engineering is training the future computer wizards of America. Two very different professions, but neither is any more or less of a societal necessity.

Furthermore, perhaps communications is a major that people steer toward when still in the deciding phase of their academic career. But these people should not be discounted as completely wishy-washy. They don't want to sit in front a computer or solve formulas for the rest of their lives. I can hardly knock someone for coming to that conclusion if math or science simply isn't their forte. Can you?

I recently asked my former roommate, Puneet, why she was suffering through her grueling electrical engineering major if she had such an aversion to its requirements. She looked at me as if I had asked her to run away with me to join the circus. ""Because I want to be rich,"" she replied as she shook her head in an annoyed manner.

Duh. I guess I forgot that money should be the definitive factor that shapes your current life and your future, even if it drives you toward majors that you can't stand and lands you in a career that saps you of your livelihood. But I'm just a comm major -- what do I know?

Puneet is in good company. She is among a myriad of students who do not enjoy their studies but cannot manage to see past the dollar signs when they are engaged in coursework that is unfulfilling and disheartening. My comm major is preparing me for a career in journalism and news media. Upon graduation,I am promised at least a ""hefty"" $25,000 without a signing bonus in sight. Am I considering switching my major to the more profit- garnishing bio-engineering? No. Am I going to be happy doing what I love? Yes.

The girls I encountered while walking to one of my many communications courses should be more pensive when they are making statements within earshot. A leap from whatever majors they are currently in to the communications department would not be advisable. Communications majors typically have to read an average-sized book each week -- per course. It is not unusual to have to write three-, four- and five-page comprehensive essays twice a quarter for each class as well. When midterms roll around, we don't need a scientific calculator but we do need a blue book. A blue book that we are required to fill from cover to cover, in class, demonstrating our mastery of the course material -- and, by the way, spelling counts.

When I hear people making degrading comments regarding my major, or psychology, sociology or visual arts programs, I like to respectfully remind them that it takes all professions to make this world go around. The communications major is both easier and more difficult than science-based disciplines, depending on what aspects of the major are being focused on. And perhaps communications majors are not the junior millionaires of America, but how can one quantify job satisfaction?

For the couple thousand communications majors like myself, the decision to study communications came after careful deliberation. On this account, we should be granted long-overdue respect. It may not promise its graduates lots of dollars right away, but in the long run, communications makes more sense.

The U.S.A. Patriot Act was signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 26 after the bill flew through Congress with little opposition. This antiterrorism legislation expands the federal government's power to wiretap and gather foreign intelligence, among other things.

Though the bill was obviously a direct reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks and its scope is somewhat limited, the Guardian supports its provisions, and we commend Congress and the president for making it law.

The law can be effective on organized efforts to commit terrorism on the United States because it goes after terrorists and their money, as opposed to simply beefing up nationwide security.

Just increasing security at airports and other strategic locations around the country does little to prevent terrorism. There is practically an infinite number of targets in this country, and there is no way we can make all of them secure. We are much better off going after the terrorists themselves, which is exactly what this legislation attempts to do.

Among the important points of the act are provisions that expand federal authorities' ability to wiretap those suspected of being involved in terrorism.

Before the bill was signed, federal agents obtained warrants to tap specific phones. This is ridiculous, because it is not the phone that they are interested in, but the suspect using the phone. This legislation attaches the warrant to the suspected individuals so that no matter how many cell phones they go through, or how many phone lines they have direct access to, authorities will still be able to access their telephone conversations in gathering intelligence.

The legislation also extends the same wiretapping rights to e-mail. This is necessary and fair; there is simply no reason that an electronically sent message should be more protected than a telephone conversation.

Another controversial provision allows the government to detain immigrants suspected of being involved in terrorism for up to seven days without filing charges.

This gives federal authorities more freedom to question suspected terrorists -- say, at an airport or border crossing -- without actually having probable cause. Currently, if suspected international terrorists are known to be in the country, they cannot be questioned unless they commit a crime, or unless authorities have enough evidence to actually charge them with a crime. This simply cannot be done sometimes, especially if the person is suspected of terrorist activity in other countries.

There is potential for these particular provisions to be abused. This cannot be denied. However, lawmakers realized this possibility and wisely included a sunset clause that causes the wiretapping and detention provisions to expire in four years unless they are explicitly passed into law again. If abuse is discovered, we are not stuck with this law.

The remaining provisions are aimed mostly at finding terrorists' money by requiring more disclosure by foreign banks, among other less significant details.

We must allow our government the tools to fight terrorism here in the United States. It is a sad fact that we will never be able to prevent terrorism. This bill helps the federal government pursue larger, more organized terrorist networks, and in that respect it could save many lives in the long run.