Spare the funds

I was glad to see the articles on recycling in last week's paper. Maybe it's "Heal the World", maybe it's Captain Planet, or maybe it's having stewardship over the earth, the fact is I just feel better about myself when I recycle. This is why, frankly, I was disgusted that the BYU Recycling Center "feels [we] won" because we got last place in recycling bottles and cans in the Recycle Mania competition last year, attributing the loss to our lack of beer drinking.

May I suggest that we came in dead last in this category because BYU does not recycle plastic. To suggest that students on other campuses are getting so drunk and bringing their aluminum beer cans to campus to win this recycling competition is absurd. In vending areas around campus, BYU sells 29 varieties of drinks in plastic bottles, while they only offer four varieties of drinks sold in aluminum cans. Most of what people are drinking on this campus (and most likely on other campuses, unless other universities are selling beer now) comes from plastic bottles, and currently BYU students have few options for recycling those.

Luckily, for those of us who can't make it to south Provo to drop off our plastic recycling, the BYU Democrats are providing plastic recycling at their booth on campus. I hope BYU will soon spare the extra funds to recycle what is probably its biggest selling recyclable item – plastic bottles. Until then let's do what we can to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Beauregard Bahnam
Las Vegas, Nev.

Lincoln’s greatness

I regularly read The Daily Universe and I always read the opinion section when it is printed. I find most of the comments thought provoking or just fun to read. However, on Feb. 20 I read one that irritated me extremely. In it, the writer claims that Abraham Lincoln was an awful president who shouldn’t be held in high regards.

Are you serious? I mean, yes, I understand some of things he did during the Civil War (suspending Habeas Corpus, quieting the media, etc.). However, do you realize that we were in the middle of a Civil War? Let's just call it what is was -- a rebellion against the United States government.

War is a serious thing; an outright rebellion is even more serious. In order to maintain order and reunite a country that has been torn apart from the inside requires drastic measures. He could have done a lot more and worse under the circumstances, but he didn't. On top of that, let's not forget what else he did: he freed millions of people.

He had the audacity to make the Emancipation Proclamation and sow the seeds for the eventual amending of the Constitution that finally put an end to America's worse sin. Yes, he might have restricted the rights of a few for a short time. But he gave all rights and freedoms to millions and their posterity forever.

Douglas Partridge
Papillion, Neb.

Incomplete Recycling

The Daily Universe has done its part in making BYU more aware of the little blue bins that spot the campus. The BYU recycling center sorts through white, colored and mixed paper, cardboard, newspaper and aluminum cans. Note the missing material — plastic. It doesn't take long for new students to figure out BYU's selective nature when it comes to recycling.

There is no official bin on campus to recycle plastic bottles of any kind, and if you ask management about this, you would be referred to the recycling center south of Provo. But let's face it, with our busy schedules, the thought of traveling down there lasts from the vending machine to the trash can.

Here's the thing, "a lot of the responsibility lies within the hands of students and faculty." Eco groups, liberals, environmentalist can sit around all day and complain about there not being any recycling on BYU campus, but until you start doing something, nothing is going to change. As of now, the administration has no intention of changing the BYU plastic recycling policy. There appears to be a lack of student interest on our campus.

When discussing the topic of recycling and environmental awareness, stigmatized terms like "hippie" and "fanatical tree-hugger" begin to surface. The liberal perspective may be the one known to care about the recycling environmental issues, but they are not the only ones. There is a bin available in the booths area of the WILK where you can drop off your plastics. The bin is student run by several of the clubs on campus (not just the crazy liberal ones) and it will be there for the duration of the semester. By participating you can show that the lack of interest is only a result of the lack of availability.

Crystal Kevan
La Grande, Ore.

Chill out

My name is Nathan. You have probably seen me standing outside wearing my cloak. Until recently it was my habit to stand around and sing in between classes to amuse myself. It struck me as a fairly harmless activity that, while a bit unusual, was nevertheless rather mundane. Furthermore, I had gotten only pleasant comments from the passers by.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I was stopped by a policeman who had gotten a call from someone about me. He told me it was well within my rights as a BYU student to stand outside in the cold and sing in between classes. I found the incident amusing and, though I thought the whole matter a little strange, continued my singing. What I found less amusing was the police officer stopping by approximately a week later to tell me that I had to stop, that I was disturbing the peace, and that I would be issued a citation if I continued. Needless to say, I no longer sing outside at BYU.

Why am I going to the trouble of writing this? Because I find the whole incident greatly troubling. First, it seems wrong for a student at BYU to be stopped from doing something D&C 25:12 calls a prayer. More than that, however, I am disturbed by the way in which my singing was handled. I am bothered by the fact that whoever had something against my singing called the police instead of heeding the advice in D&C 42:88 to talk to me by myself.

I am also bothered by the fact that BYU police seem to value the appeasement of a small but vocal minority over any actual laws or rules (which, I remind the reader, I was specifically told I was not breaking). And I'm also somewhat bothered by the fact that this whole incident has worked to support the valuing of conformity over tolerance. In short, I think that some BYU students need to chill and I think that the BYU police need to grow a spine.

Nathan Langford
River Falls, Wisc.

Inappropriate remarks

I am surprised that The Daily Universe editorial board would defend the clearly inappropriate remarks made recently by Sen. Chris Buttars by claiming that the NAACP’s response is “hypersensitive” and labeling the response of their members as just another example of “political correctness.”

Recognizing the clearly racial overtones of Buttars’ remark doesn’t require “a revision of the English language.” Perhaps Buttars’ usage is “a traditional metaphorical use of the word,” as the editors claim, but it is a usage that is fraught with negative connotations.

Buttars doesn’t just refer to the legislation as “black” or “dark” in some generic way; he refers to it in specifically human terms. To express his revulsion for the legislation, he uses a reference that invokes the traditional racist image of the “tar baby,” an image that derives from the Uncle Remus stories but that is now considered by most to be a racial slur. Last July, Gov. Mitt Romney used the tar baby image to refer to the troubled Big Dig tunnel in his own state and received a similar critical response—not from the “speech police,” but from members of his own party. Buttars was likewise immediately censured by members of the Republican majority in the legislature.

Whether Buttars intended the comment to be racist or not is immaterial. He certainly should have known that this analogy would have been offensive. What the result should be of these remarks is perhaps open for debate, but by blaming the NAACP for being overly sensitive puts The Daily Universe editorial staff on the wrong side of this linguistic debate and feeds into Buttars’ own claims that he is the object of a “lynching.”

Gary L. Hatch
English Department