Cell phone ban not Orwellian

Andrew Brown missed the mark on Orwell in his column ("Cell phone ban proves Orwellian," Feb. 26). Do you know what Orwellian means? Have you read 1984 or Animal Farm? I was interested to see how see how he would draw a logical parallel between the proposed cell phone ban legislation and the social issues and fears illustrated in 1984. After all, the headline referred to the Orwellian concept of Big Brother.

Unfortunately, nothing remotely Orwellian was mentioned until the last paragraph, which amounted to little more than name calling, substituting "Big Brother" for "the government." This kind of legislature isn't Orwellian. It's more akin to the seatbelt laws that Ralph Nader pushed for.

An Orwellian Big Brother approach would be to put cameras in cars to monitor whether or not people were on cell phones. Or if GPS chips were installed in every car. Or if they manipulated data on the web while destroying hard copies.

I don't have a cell phone, either. But that doesn't mean I can't get pissed off when I see some jackass sending a text message while he's trying to merge. People are morons, but using the label of multitaskers is misleading since generations before were also multitaskers. Thomas Jefferson could write with both hands simultaneously. Now that's multitasking.

Texting buddies during lecture while you see how your eBay bids are going does not qualify as multitasking. The thoughts of literary giants should not be used frivolously, but rather be saved for more relevant issues.

Daniel McKinnis

English

More to Middle East news

Hanady Kader's Feb. 23 article "Is America listening to the Middle East?" emphasizes that the American political leaders should start listening more to the voices of the Middle East if they want to see positive changes in its politics. I concur that there are fewer opportunities for educated Middle Eastern scholars to express their views and influence the political leaders as well as concerned citizens in America.

Her stronger standpoint appears to be that the political leaders in America are not obtaining the correct information on Middle East politics because they are neglecting the voices of "educated and highly influential" Middle Eastern academics and listening instead to biased opinions of American scholars. This is a rather unbalanced criticism. Quoting a few words from Daniel Pipes and Thomas Friedman as examples of how biased and "ineloquent" these American scholars are sensationalizes small parts of much longer speeches, which were not even from the recent hearing and discussion that she mentioned.

True, some prominent Arab and Muslim individuals have radical opinions towards Western countries and conflicts in the Middle East. Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an educated Muslim scholar and preacher, has praised suicide bombing, backed a war on the Jews, called for the execution of Americans in Iraq and claimed that taking hostages is lawful. One U.S. think tank describes him as a "Jekyll and Hyde figure" because on one hand he condemns 9/11, yet on the other hand he shows support for terrorism. His opinions are well-aired through his popular Website and Al-Jazeera, an influential news source watched by millions of Arabs across the world.

The problem is not Americans who give credibility only to their own people when it comes to the Middle East. Rather, the issue is whether or not the eloquent intellectuals from the Middle East are persuasive enough to clear away the negative images of Middle Eastern scholars generated by radical individuals like al-Qaradawi. In order for concerned Americans and political leaders to listen and give credibility to appropriate individuals, it is crucial that Middle Easterners with unbiased opinions have the ability to present balanced standpoints and advocate more feasible and realistic policies. The biggest problem is a lack of persuasive scholars who are capable of encouraging Americans to give more credibility to Middle Easterners as a whole.

Kaori Miyake

Senior, international studies

Lacking logic

In response to Brandon Dennis' Feb. 22 article "Beauty, Truth and Morality," surely an introductory philosophy class must have taught that all philosophical thought is based on foundations of logic. Philosophy is anything but "oddball reasoning and wild conclusions." The article contains several glaring errors.

He stated that "even if there were no humans around to interpret what exists, things would still exist." This is still debated among philosophers, and more recently among quantum physicists. If you could prove this claim, Harvard might offer you tenure in its philosophy department. The statement, "If there were no humans around to understand morality, right and wrong would still exist," is the conclusion he attempts to argue, but merely asserting that it is so convinces no one of the point he argues. The icing on the cake, however, is his conclusion that "moral relativism is essentially a load of rubbish," and this he bases on the stipulation that "pederasty, among many other things, is a bad, wrong, evil practice, regardless of society, culture or time." This is an example of circular logic. The premise presupposes the truth of the conclusion. One cannot consider that pederasty is a bad, wrong, evil practice, regardless of society, culture, or time without first assuming that moral relativism is false.

A little thinking and some real logic is a good place to start before attempting to get in the metaphorical ring with some of history's greatest philosophers.

Kevin Kohlmeier

Senior, biochemistry

Keeping the community in the loop

I just wanted to express my appreciation for the articles in the Feb. 28 edition by Will Mari ("Task force on terrorism") and Keegan Hamilton ("Textbook rental service not feasible at UW"). I especially liked the dollar bill graphic in Hamilton's article, breaking down how textbook dollars are distributed.

Mari's article, like many of your academic beat articles recently, does a good job of highlighting the interesting and innovative things faculty, staff and students are doing at the UW. It's difficult to know what is going on at the UW since we're such a big place, and it is really nice to see our campus paper making this community more aware of what we're all doing professionally, academically and socially.

Christina Coop

Student Activities Office