Slow down, Huskies

I found out that my friend, a recent UW college alumnus, passed away May 4. As I read the e-mail about his death, I can’t help but feel sad because I didn’t do everything I could to make him feel that he was truly appreciated and loved for all he did. Not only was he in the same major and a great friend and mentor of mine, he was also a lot of fun and always emphasized that people need to slow down in life and make a plan before jumping from one opportunity to another. He was the kind of guy who would bring a spark to any conversation or room he was in.

After reevaluating my time in college, which is busy and full of schoolwork, extracurricular activities and everything else ... I want to make the most of my experience here, and as I try and attain that, I feel that I have become an indifferent individual.

I strive for perfection and attaining a high GPA that will allow me success in life, but at the same time, I do not make time for the people in my life to make them feel loved. I ask my friends as I walk to class how they are and I never wait long enough to hear back. I don’t see them for months and yet expect them to be on the same page when we do meet. I say “I love you” or “let’s hang out soon” all the time, but those words are baseless and saying nothing would have the same value.

Where I am going with having written all this is still unclear to me, but I think what I want to say is that I wish I had spent more time learning outside my classes, I wish I had spent more time with this friend and that we did more than just homework together. I don’t know how to deal with every situation that will come my way in life, nor do I know how to make time to be with every person who comes into my life, but the small piece of insight that I do have is to take some time for everyone and everything, to reflect on experiences and know that everything can change in a split second.

— Ashwini Pai, senior, bioengineering

Choice of guest speakers insensitive

Since it is now a core belief of academic “progressives” that Israel is the world’s most wicked country, responsible for all the globe’s miseries except (perhaps) the avian flu, it’s hardly surprising that the very day of that country’s 60th birthday should, in an act of depraved malevolence, have been marked at the UW by the appearance, courtesy of the Simpson Center and the Graduate School, of two Israel-hating lecturers. We were treated to both Norman Finkelstein, the failed academic and beloved dream-Jew of all the world’s anti-Semites, and Yitzhak Laor, a second-tier poet who specializes in depicting Israel as the devil’s experiment station. Laor delivered the (once prestigious) John Danz Lecture. A few people at the UW may remember that the Danz lectures were founded to deal with “the role of science in society and in understanding a rational universe.”

Since the UW Graduate School long ago decided to disregard the intentions of the Danz family and bring an endless parade of distinctly non-scientific, but very leftist lecturers — Edward Said, Angela Davis, Naomi Wolf — the appearance of Yitzhak Laor, who is less a scientist than any 12-year-old with a chemistry set, is also unsurprising.

But Laor’s appearance raises another question. Since UW President Mark Emmert last year issued a ringing denunciation of the Nazi-style movement to boycott Israeli universities and scholars, how is it that the Graduate School (at the urging of the departments of comparative literature, English and Near Eastern languages) brings to campus, and at considerable expense, one of the promoters of that boycott?

Emmert showed a clear understanding that the boycott of Israel is anti-Semitic because it uses a double standard. If one thinks that Israeli policies toward Palestinian Arabs are objectionable, are they really worse than Russian actions in Chechnya, Chinese actions toward Tibetans and Turkish actions toward the Kurds? But where are the boycotts of Russia, China and Turkey? What Emmert needs to do is require the Graduate School (also the Simpson Center, among others) to boycott the boycotters.

Words of condemnation are not enough. If boycotters of Israel are not given a taste of their own medicine, the highly organized, international assault on Israel, in which Laor and Finkelstein are devoted functionaries, will grow by the weakness it feeds on.

— Edward Alexander, UW professor

emeritus of English

(in response to “Report of rotavirus from Jean’s Deli products, investigation inconclusive,” by Erinn Unger, May 8)

My father (John Chang) is the owner of Jean’s Deli. After reader Unger’s article, I was compelled to write a formal response, with his permission.

I believe that The Daily has acted very insensitively toward our family’s business by publishing an article that needlessly spreads fear and suspicion of the restaurant’s products to the entire UW student body. I believe that The Daily was overeager to publish such an alarmist story without thinking more of the immense consequences it may have for our small, family-owned business.

The article focuses on the graduate student, Alecia Spooner, who has formally issued complaints of food poisoning from what she believes was from Jean’s Deli products. I would like to question why this story was published in the first place, as well as why it was made into a front-page story.

No other student or faculty member has yet to report any similar case of viral illness from consuming a Jean’s Deli product. In other words, the story of Spooner’s sickness is currently an isolated incident with no additional reports from other customers who may have eaten the same products.

The article itself states, “As of yet, there is no way to know conclusively whether Spooner’s meals were contaminated with the rotavirus.” A quote from administrator Paul Zuchowski also admits that “there is no conclusive evidence.”

Therefore, if this unfortunate incident only involves one individual without any conclusive evidence whatsoever regarding her source of sickness, why did The Daily choose to exaggerate the gravity of the story by giving it the front page? If a single student officially reports being ill from what may or may not have been one of our restaurant’s sandwiches, should such tenuous material be worth publishing at all? The bigger accomplishment of this article is not its presentation of any insightful news, but its tarnishing of Jean’s Deli’s reputation within the UW community. I felt that The Daily was blindly overeager to publish, exaggerate and exhibit this embarrassing story on its front cover.

By giving this isolated and inconclusive story an aggrandized front-page treatment, The Daily has greatly damaged the reputation of our family’s business. Yes, the article does make clear that no evidence directly inculpates Jean’s Deli and that the “investigation [is] inconclusive.” However, the damage is still done. Although the article does not explicitly suggest any guilt, it has nonetheless left thousands of UW students and staff members automatically suspicious of our restaurant’s products for reasons Jean’s Deli may have had no involvement in.

The bottom line is this: By overzealously publishing a spurious article about the untenable toxicity of Jean’s Deli foods on the front page, The Daily has needlessly hurt the reputation and business interests of Jean’s Deli, a company that has been part of the UW community for more than 18 years. We believe that The Daily owes Jean’s Deli a sincere apology for its particularly reckless behavior.

— Andrew Chang, senior, comparative

history of ideas