Letters to the Editor

Urination not an issue

Regarding 'Public urination citations increase over 50 percent' (Monday, Oct. 15, 2007):

While I'm sensitive to the thousands of people who have lost loved ones to public urination, I don't think the Borough Police should waste their time cracking down on late night Prospect leaks. Public urination is normally considered bad for two reasons. First, it puts innocent passersby at risk of spotting an exposed penis, or, in rare cases, the nether regions of the female form. But as the article states, suspects are typically surprised by police officers late at night, suggesting there are few people in the area. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course not. Second, human urine is bad for the grass. But careful field research has revealed that the Prospect Avenue sidewalk is covered in a layer of red gravel that is wonderfully resilient to a shower of urine. In fact, one could argue that Prospect gravel is a far better receptacle for drunken gushes of urine than say, a toilet seat. Kent Kuran '08

Abortion arguments are flawed

Regarding 'Honesty and abortion' (Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007):

In his column, Sherif Girgis '08 invokes the "rights" of the fetus but entirely ignores those of the person whose body it inhabits. "The woman" seeking an abortion enters the argument only to be told that "she already has" reproduced (a process better known as conception) and must accept the consequences. Girgis assures us that "no woman should be forced to reproduce" (read: conceive), but this is plainly what happens to those women who become pregnant as a result of rape. Girgis' mother may have been "free to choose not to bring [him] about before [he] was conceived," but that is emphatically not true for all women.

Were abortion prohibited, I wonder whether Girgis would be troubled by the total absence of reproductive "choice" for women less fortunate than his mother.

I doubt it. For his argument does not allow the interests of these or any pregnant women — life, health, bodily integrity, the care of one's non-fetal children — even to enter the question. Until "pro-life" activists can take the rights of flesh-and-blood female human beings as seriously as those of a zygote swimming in a Petri dish, they will justly be accused of misogyny. Jacob Denz '10

Coverage of lecture was lacking

Regarding 'Horowitz decries "Islamo-fascism" ' (Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007):

I was disappointed with this article. Despite the the use of words like "controversial" and "conservative," the speech sponsored by the College Republicans was more like demogagy than an academic lecture. If it was covered in the news pages, it would have been more fit if the racist statements made by a person with an agenda were questioned by a qualified expert of modern Islam. The Daily Princetonian should have at least had an interview with someone from the Muslim Student Association, the president of which is actually a columnist. Furthermore, the article should have questioned the bias of the speaker and the source of the money of his organization.

But more than the content of the speech, what bothered me was the placement of the article. A four-column story on the very top of the front page seemed out of place. Even in the website, the 'Prince' seemed to downgrade the story.

Ironically, on the same day of the Horwitz hate talk, a number of important and interesting events took place on the campus of Princeton that were not even covered, let alone given the top of the front page. I attended the roundtable on religion and media with Terry Mattingly and Jeff Sharlet and was hoping to hear about a parallel lecture by Saleh Barakat, an expert in contemporary Arab art, or "America in the Middle East: Power, Faith and Fantasy," a lecture by Michael B. Oren, senior fellow of the Shalem Center. None of these three events were covered in the Wednesday issue. Daoud Kuttab Ferris Professor of Journalism