Unhappy with endorsement
I am a loyal reader of the Texan. I am truly grateful for the unique service that you provide in informing students about the events of the University that would otherwise go unheard. Thank you.
But I just recently read the endorsement The Daily Texan has made in favor of Sen. Clinton, and I was appalled ("Time to clean house," Feb. 22). With sweeping statements and utter lack of argumentation, you seem to have made a decision that was more convenient than thoughtful. Simply because Obama failed to mention The Daily Texan in the list of major newspapers who have endorsed him does not warrant a "major gaffe."
You then go on to say how Obama has been neglectful of the Austin community even when you acknowledged that he was the first real candidate to come here back in November (trust me, I was there). Not only that, but only a week ago he sent national campaign staffers right here to campus.
Later you make an unsupported claim that Obama "exploits" the term "universal" by saying that "policy can only be universal if its mandatory." To put it bluntly: Says who? Rather than coercing a vast portion of the population, it prescribes a voluntary means by which everyone can have affordable healthcare. On Iraq, by stating that Clinton's plan ensures stability, you seem to imply that Obama lacks a coherent plan of withdrawal. You say Obama is nothing but rhetoric. If that's so, why am I sitting in front of Obama's nearly 50-page economic policy pamphlet?
You state that, "Logically, Hillary Clinton should be our next president." Logically, you should think before you write. I don't think I'll be reading much more of The Daily Texan after that work of art.
Luis Soberon Philosophy freshman
Unhappy with endorsement II
I am disappointed that your paper has endorsed Hillary Clinton based seemingly on a series of soundbites and as a knee-jerk reaction to the debate. I specifically took issue with this statement: "Meanwhile, Obama's current focus is geared toward winning the nomination, and we need more than hope and rhetoric to be reassured that the critical transition to come with the next presidency will be handled safely." First off, Clinton's's current focus is geared towards winning the nomination as well, and in many ways she projects the image that she is entitled to the nomination, rather than having to work hard to persuade the American people to vote for her. She unleashes waves of vitriol at Obama's campaign for silly things such as using a line from a good friend's speech in his own speech.
Obama also brought up a good point when criticizing Hillary's first attempt at bringing universal health care to this country. The fact that she refused to sit down with members of her own party and instead insisted on putting forth her plan unaltered. Do we need a president who has taken more contributions from lobbyists and PACs than any other senator, Republican or Democrat? If her actions in the campaign have been to throw as much mud as possible and hope some of it sticks, what does that tell you about her character? When it comes to fighting special interests Clinton is, to paraphrase her attacks against Obama, all speeches and no action. We need a candidate who can stand toe-to-toe with McCain on the issues of character and fighting special interests.
Patrick Adams History junior
Texan not representing students
While Barack Obama made an error by stating he was endorsed by every major newspaper in the state of Texas, The Daily Texan has made a mistake by claiming they represent "a crucial constituency of close to 50,000 young and enthusiastic voters." I completely agree that Hillary Clinton is a fit and formidable opponent to Obama. However, if the Texan was in the crowd at the Union during the debate, or if The Daily Texan took note of Obama's presence back last fall or even compared the UT chapters of Students for Hillary (94 members) and Students for Barack (607 members) on Facebook, they would realize the overwhelming support for Obama compared to that of Clinton. It is to the detriment of the Texan to claim to "represent" the UT students when in actuality, the paper is supporting its own agenda, and not that of its students.
Samantha Lopez Radio-television-film sophomore
Texan not representing students II
The Daily Texan endorsement of Hillary Clinton was a poor choice on the part of the campus newspaper. Honestly, how much excitement do you see Clinton generating on campus on a day-to-day basis? How many students are at her rallies versus Obama's rallies? Who dominates the educated or 18-to-24-year-old demographic according to every major news source? The Daily Texan is shooting itself in the foot as far as being a credible source for the voice of the students.
Matt Ely UT alum
Texan not representing students III
I am writing in regards to the Texan's endorsement of Sen. Hillary Clinton. To be quite frank, it is misleading and unfair. It is misleading because it implies that the UT student body consents to the paper's endorsement of Clinton. Furthermore, it makes no mention of the fact that the overwhelming majority of students at UT support Sen. Barack Obama (those who vote Democratic).
Consequently, the article is unfair because it misrepresents the students of UT. This is an outrage! The Daily Texan is supposed to represent the student body, not the opinions of the editors or writers.
The article should be rewritten, and this mistake should be rectified.
Jennifer M. Edwards Middle Eastern studies junior
The Texan's major gaffe
As an Obama supporter, Friday's endorsement left me dumbfounded due to its incoherence and poor logic. Three of its reasons left me particularly baffled due to their impertinence and pettiness. The first was the offense taken that Obama left out the Texan from his statement that every "major" Texas paper had endorsed him. Sorry to tell y'all, but the Texan isn't a "major" paper; to be major you have to serve hundreds of thousands or millions. It's also not a "major gaffe" unless lots of people notice and are offended, and outside of the apparently overgrown egos of the Texan's editors, I doubt anyone did.
The second was the local campaign's reaction to the Texan's inquiry about debate tickets. The local campaigns didn't control the tickets; CNN did. Does the Texan really think the minor actions of the Obama campaign's local staff demonstrates how an Obama administration would act?
The complaint that Obama hadn't spent enough time here was also puzzling, considering that Obama has held three major rallies in Austin over the course of his campaign. It was unlikely Texas was going to matter until a few weeks ago, and Austin, while it has a significant population, is still only about one 300th of the country.
Timothy Bray Government and history junior
The Texan's major gaffe II
I was surprised to read the Feb. 21 editorial wherein the Texan editorial board took Sen. Obama to task for not acknowledging the Texan as a "major" newspaper. I do not agree with your implication.
The Daily Texan is a fine paper - excellent by college daily standards - but it serves a small and focused local community, rarely generating original reports beyond the scope of topics that affect the University. By the Audit Bureau of Calculations' figures for the six months ending September 2007, The Houston Chronicle circulated more than a half-million copies daily, and The Dallas Morning News averaged more than 370,000 daily copies. One would imagine that the Austin American-Statesman and The San Antonio Express-News also manage to circulate in the hundreds of thousands. If Wikipedia correctly cites Daily Texan circulation at around 30,000 copies, this means your paper averages about an order of magnitude fewer copies than the Chronicle or the Morning News. Realistically speaking, this would render The Daily Texan of secondary importance.
Alex Addison School of Information graduate student
How about a Hillary-Obama ticket?
In regards to "Time to Clean House," Feb. 21: Hope still abounds. Hillary is certainly the better choice. The media presents Obama as presidential only because our presidents have always been men. This endorsement of Hillary is awesome. It is exactly the way I feel. Thank you for doing this. A Hillary-Obama ticket is the answer. Then Democrats can keep the White House for at least 16 years!
Adrienne Forest UT alum
Maid in America?
The only problem I have with the editorial "Time to clean house," Feb. 21, is that it portrays Hillary as a "cleaning lady" scrubbing away all the grime and crap of the past eight years. Can't we get away from the woman-in-the-kitchen analogy? Hillary is not our maid, and she's not going to be able to clean anything up without our help. Endorse who you will, but write your editorials in a more tasteful manner.
Caleb Dzul Rhetoric and writing/government senior
Lame letters from engineers
In reference to the firing lines: "More E-week speak," Feb. 22, and "It's not L-week," Feb. 21: I just do not know where to start in response to the absurd and borderline supremacist opinions evident in both these articles. I truly believe that anyone with a minute sense of intelligence can come up with obvious examples as to why engineering is not in any respect "better" than other professions. Society cannot live without any of the professions mentioned in the articles.
However, the reason why I am writing this is not to provide such examples, but to explain the hidden reason why these firing lines were written in the first place: There is a thing called E-week, which aims to bring the entire engineering community together for a week of fun and unity. A major part of E-week is a competition to see who is the best engineering organization. The entire week is split into different contests that take place every weeknight, and the organization that wins the most number of points in all these events combined is declared the winner. The winner gets a large monetary sum that they can use for their own organization. One such contest in this year's competition is called the "E-week Scavenger Hunt." As in any scavenger hunt, all the participating organizations have to finish a certain number of tasks, and the winner is the one that has completed the most number of tasks. One such task reads like this: "Publish a firing line in The Daily Texan emphasizing the superiority of engineering education and engineering careers."
This was the reason behind the two absurd firing lines that were published last week. It was meant to be a game and nothing more.
To all my fellow engineers out there that actually attempted this task and to the creator of such a fascinating "game": The Daily Texan Firing Line is a place for serious and logical debate. It should not be used as an object for your amusement, neither should it be a part of a game. This is not what a school newspaper should be used for. By writing such articles you have not only shown to what levels you can stoop for "fun," but you have also shown how much integrity you really possess. Through this classless task, the creator of this contest has not only disrespected this newspaper but the entire engineering community. This is not what engineers stand for.
I am truly at a loss for words to say how bad acts such as these make me feel about the career path I am pursuing. It is these "rotten apples" that give the entire engineering community a bad name.
Vishnu Jyothindran Aerospace engineering sophomore
Save it for the lab
Last week, as part of Engineering Week scavenger hunt competition, sponsored by the Student Engineering Council, the firing line "It's not L-week," Feb. 21, was submitted on the behalf of one of the competing student organizations with the goal of "emphasizing the superiority of engineering education and engineering careers."
The letter closed by imploring all engineers to "remind the youth of our nation of engineering's glorious heritage and unbounded future." Though this sentiment is a noble one, there was nothing glorious, inspirational or superior about the behavior of this same organization at the annual E-week banquet this past Saturday. The organization in question was the overall winner of the E-week competition, and for this they deserve congratulations. However, upon receipt of the E-week trophy, their members proceeded to pour alcohol into the trophy cup and drink from it. This was after the E-week chair specifically requested that no one drink from the trophy. The whole incident was accompanied by general intoxication and unflattering behavior. One would have hoped that student leaders of our great Cockrell School of Engineering would know better than to behave with so little class at a school-sponsored event. Perhaps next time, before accusing law students of hypocrisy, some engineers should check in their own backyards first.
David Hunter Biomedical engineering senior
Editor's note: Lucky for these engineers, The Daily Texan editorial office aims to serve students by publishing as many firing lines as possible. For the record, it's no difficult feat to get a firing line published in the print version or online, as we feel there should not be a wall between the students and their forum. We may work in a basement, but we don't live under a rock, and we knew those engineers sent letters as part of some game (that's why we chose such appropriate headlines). We didn't see that as reason enough to not let those students' voices be heard, but we hope not to see such a childish task as part of next year's E-week.
How about twice the criticism?
I am sad to see that the Texan, and by extension, my alma mater, has sunk to the level of our modern media and has embraced the total misrepresentation of fact surrounding our Texas primary.
The Viewpoint editorial "Your one chance to vote twice," Feb. 22, is one in a string of articles and other sources (including former President Bill Clinton) telling Texas voters they can vote twice. This is patently untrue. Even after laying out some, but not all, of the facts surrounding how delegates are chosen, and at the same time negating your own argument, you wrote, "attending the caucus means that, for the only time in your life, your vote will count twice." This is wrong for two reasons: First, this is not new. Delegates have always been chosen this way in Texas and only if I had never voted before and would never vote again would this be the only time in my life. Second, my vote will be counted once, by the Travis County Clerk. If I attend the precinct convention, I will not be casting any ballots. If I attend the convention, I will be counted but will be voting for nothing.
Later you go on to say, "This time it will be more meaningful because you will only be competing against a relatively limited number of fellow voters." Given that this is the first time in living memory that the Texas primary has been even remotely meaningful in the presidential race, turnout will likely be higher than ever, and due to this, both parties will go out of their way to work with the clerk's office to advertise the precinct conventions wherein delegates will be selected. This means that turnout at the conventions will likewise be historically high and one person's "vote" will count for even less.
Also, you shamelessly advertised the conventions for the Democrats while mentioning the other party not one single time, and you framed the article in such a way as to give the impression that only the Democrats will be holding said conventions.
The only way you, me or anyone else can vote twice during this election cycle is to vote in the primary and then to go vote in November. Period.
Sean D. White UT alumnus
Nuclear solution
I agree with the sentiments expressed by Lovell and Sloan in "An even dirtier debate," The Firing Line, Feb. 21. "Clean coal" is an oxymoron. The city shouldn't be too hasty in building new coal-fired power plants in Matagorda County, a possible scenario recently reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Pulverized coal produces just as much CO2 as other forms of coal, and the mass of the waste is much greater than that of the original coal.
Austin should join with other agencies in expanding nuclear power in Matagorda County. It is the best short-term solution available - a proven source of electrical energy (28 percent right here in Austin), a comparatively low cost of operation and no gaseous emissions to cause global warming.
Many environmentalists believe, mistakenly, that nuclear waste is a worse problem than waste from coal-fired power plants. They should take time to Google some environmentalists who have switched from anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear positions during the 35 years since the construction of the last U.S. nuclear plant - James E. Lovelock, creator of the Gaia metaphor, Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace. Why did they change?
Like Lovell and Sloan, I feel frustrated that so little attention is being been paid nationally to the issue of energy and global warming in the presidential debates. Likewise, why has there not been public demand here in Austin for the city council to cooperate in building more nuclear power plants in Matagorda County? Austin Energy is a publicly owned company. It has until March 4 to accept or reject an offer to help build more nuclear plants there. Shouldn't more of the public become involved in this important issue?
Jesse Binford Emeritus Professor of Chemistry University of South Florida
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