Letters to the Editor - Nov. 29, 2007

Shameful use of money

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

I recently found myself at Princeton Borough Municipal Court — though I had not myself been summoned. While there, I saw a young immigrant man being charged with public urination. He tearfully testified through an interpreter: It was late at night, he had desperately needed to relieve himself and had been unable to make it home. Unfortunately for him, Princeton Borough Police on patrol for "urinators" were staking out his chosen alley. The prosecutor convinced him to plead guilty, and the judged fined him more than $150 — no small sum for a food service worker.

After witnessing this tragic display, I believe that the University should cease its donations to the Borough. The Borough has more than enough resources (or is woefully misallocating them) if they are assigning police to hunt down people who are relieving themselves. By targeting the most vulnerable members of society (immigrants) and the least dangerous (Princeton students), the Borough has proven itself unworthy of the University's money. The priorities of the Borough are shamefully skewed if they think they are serving the community through this so-called "justice." Zachary Hughes '08

A different view

As a residential college adviser in Wilson College, I believe I have a unique perspective on both the new alcohol policy and the old one, and my argument is simple: While the policy that requires RCAs to enforce certain aspects of the alcohol policy is not a far cry from the old one, it fails to take into account what are actually dangerous drinking habits, leading to a policy that I believe may be ineffective at preventing deaths or near-deaths due to alcohol abuse.

Wilson College takes a unique angle on the alcohol policy, mostly due to the pervasiveness of large suites, and the correspondingly large amount of parties. I have in my time as an RCA seen other RCAs break up parties themselves, ask Public Safety to break up parties and even come talk to Public Safety while they're breaking up a party, and I myself have responded to smaller events such as individuals drinking or people bringing beer into a room. Basically, the alcohol policy that has been enforced in Wilson for the past few years has been remarkably similar to the policy that is now being put into place. If used properly, however, this policy has the potential to allow just as much freedom as before and potentially to increase the trust and bonding between RCAs and advisees.

Envision the world of a freshman trying to throw a party next year. If they don't tell their RCA about it and throw it anyway, there is one new possible consequence — that the RCA finds out about the party and breaks it up. If that's the case, and keep in mind that RCAs are not required to investigate to find these violations, odds are the party is starting to get out of control anyway, and that sooner or later Public Safety would be called. In a sense, then, an RCA's role next year is to keep you OUT of trouble by busting up a party before Public Safety gets there, or respond to a noise complaint before Public Safety is called. Nic Byrd '08

Defending Finkelstein

Regarding 'A bizarre and unsupported argument' (Monday, Nov. 19, 2007):

Seffy Muller '08 thinks it bizarre that, in his lecture, Norman Finkelstein "reduced the Palestinian Israeli conflict to the international legality and historic fact." So if he is not supposed to talk about these rather neutral references, would a look at the human side of the conflict be better? Here's a look at the morality of the 60 years of the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem: 40 years of military occupation and illegal Jewish-only settlements in Palestinian lands as well as hundreds of Israeli violations of human rights. This would be a more appropriate way to look at the conflict. It is true that, in resistance, Palestinians also broke international law, but the comparison of the Palestinian victims to the Israeli military aggressors is asymmetrical. The argument that Finkelstein doesn't speak Arabic or Hebrew is very weak. I was Finkelstein's host in his first visit to Palestine shortly after the first intifada. He has visited Palestine and Israel many more times and has been a serious student of the conflict, unlike most of the people who attack him.??

Muller also passes as fact that Palestinians use emergency vehicles to smuggle bombs to Israel when the United Nations has proved beyond reasonable doubt that this Israeli allegation (in connection to an ambulance driven by Palestinians) is false, and has demanded an apology from the Israeli army for making that claim. Furthermore, the Israeli treatment of sick Palestinians at checkpoints and their repeated attacks against Palestinian medical vehicles and personnel has been well-documented by neutral groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. The only bizarre and unsupported argument I saw was in the column itself and not the original unreported Finkelstein speech. Daoud Kuttab Ferris Professor of Journalism