Don't buy into RecycleMania Recycling should be about improving efficiency, conserving resources and practicing environmental stewardship. The value of recycling should be measured by those standards, because our time, money and resources available to improve our environment are limited.
Let's look at paper, since that is the focus of the RecycleMania program described in the Texan (UT joins recyclcing contest," Feb. 12). Paper is not scarce. It is a renewable resource. We aren't running out of potatoes because we eat more french fries. Eating fries encourages the planting of more potatoes, and using paper encourages the planting of more trees.
Recycling is a manufacturing process. Manufacturing processes have their own environmental impact that should be considered. Trucks come to pick up the paper to be recycled and travel to recycling plants, expending fossil fuels and producing greenhouse gas emissions. Ink from paper has to be removed using a chemical bleaching process that produces its own toxic waste.
The alternative to recycling is to place paper in landfills with the rest of our trash. Landfill space is abundant. Landfills are strictly regulated for environmental impact. The methane produced from landfills can even be captured and used as an energy source.
If you want to help the environment, think seriously about what will have the greatest benefit and what will be the best use of your time and effort. You can feel good knowing that you have thought about the issue rather than blindly following the mania.
Go ahead, throw this newspaper in the garbage, and don't feel guilty about it at all.
Joel Fagin
Mechanical engineering graduate student
Palestinian cherry-picking
While Salam Fayyad's speech last Thursday was well-developed and to the point, it did not address any of the issues confronting the Palestinian Authority today ("Prime minister returns to UT," Feb. 8). All questions asked of him came from his supporting fans. His replies were very cheery and optimistic. I believe a lot more could have come from this event. He might as well have just signed autographs and conducted a photo-op. Before the event had even started, there was an active biased agenda. Out of the 200 audience members, 40 were handpicked by Fayyad's son, giving his supporters a 41-to-0 advantage before the doors even opened.
Angel Martinez
History junior Credit where credit is due
Mr. Staha's argument that "a student's decision of which undergraduate degree to pursue is the most important that he or she will make while at the university" and that there is "universal acknowledgement of that statement" is wrong ("How to survive UT with your intellect intact," Feb. 11). The decision to go to college at all, and stay for four years, is what makes the largest impact on their futures. Check the statistics. The gap between high school graduates' and college graduates' yearly incomes is huge. Many people get a job completely unrelated to their majors - just having the degree is the biggest difference.
As for those who choose to pursue business or engineering degrees as opposed to the liberal arts/classics that Staha deems the only worthwhile areas of study, well, buildings would not be built, and retail, restaurants and everything you own would not be available without people in these jobs. Asking, "How do we know something is true?" and studying Plato are interesting, but they have a time and a place. We need people with practical knowledge, too. Granted, there are many people who don't give enough thought to the world around them and take things as they are. But if you don't think that any one of the McCombs School of Business students can't hold their own in an intellectual discussion, you are wrong again. We are at a top university, and every student fulfills degree requirements that include liberal and fine arts. The people I have met all have extraordinary minds. Give us some credit.
Stephanie Abma
International business sophomore YCT reinforcing its own stereotype
The Young Conservatives of Texas are at it again. First it was Dinesh D'Souza, and now they're bringing in a black lawyer, Ward Connerly, to speak about racism in America. Connerly is the reason affirmative action no longer exists in California, and he's doing everything he can to prevent blacks from getting a fair shake in school admission across the United States. How can a man who believes there is no racial divide in America possibly be fit to speak on the subject of racism at all?
I haven't read YCT's mission statement, but I bet it reads something like this: Do whatever is needed to prevent insular minorities from getting equal protection under the law and to provide for the continuation of the elite known as the white male. They will tell you that they are strict consitutionalists, but they cleverly ignore the separation of church and state and the 14th Amendment. They don't fool me, however. They are just a bunch of racists, and I find it typical that they would bring such a bigoted speaker to our great campus.
David Steil
UT alum An erroneous comparison
In response to "Is Scientology reason to resurrect Hitler?" (Firing Line, Feb. 12): It is insulting to say that what the Scientologists are "going through" with peaceful picketing demonstrations in any way compares with what the Jews went through in the Holocaust. Until Scientologists are rounded up and killed in droves for practicing their faith, your analogy shall remain completely inappropriate, inaccurate and demonstrative of your utter failure to grasp how real and awful the Holocaust actually was.
Claire McCarthy
UT alum
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