Applause for Universal pass deal with Metro
Dear Editor:
I want to applaud the recent agreement Wash. U. has reached with Metro to provide transportation to the members of the University community.
My father worked on the U Pass project for the Chicago Transit Authority several years ago, and I often wondered why we at Wash. U. didn’t have a similar program with St. Louis public transit.
It makes perfect sense that this comes at a time when the MetroLink is arriving in the University’s backyard. It will greatly benefit faculty and staff who regularly take the bus or drive to work and, I hope, could reduce some issues of traffic and parking on campus. But the greatest benefit is to the students. There is now a free way to get to the airport, a more convenient way to go shopping on weekends, and a way to reduce the need for a car on campus. I look forward to putting money that would have been spent on gas to a better purpose: a show at the Fox, concert at the Pageant, or movie at the Tivoli.
This agreement will bring Wash. U. closer together with the St. Louis community, which, like anything else, has its fair share of positives and negatives. But in the long run, this should strengthen our bond with the city that surrounds our school and maybe be a small pin prick in the infamous Wash. U. Bubble.
-Kevin Mulqueeny
Class of 2007
Graduate students barred from cheap Metro passes
Dear Editor:
In the Friday, March 3 edition of Student Life the headline article states that part-time students may purchase a Metro semester student pass for $110. The article, however, fails to point out that Metro regulations prevent graduate students and students over the age of 25 from purchasing such passes. Under this situation, the pass is $55 a month. See www.metrostlouis.org/Passes/fareinformation.asp for more information on Metro pass regulations.
With regards to the age cut-off regardless of full-time student status, a Metro representative had this to say last fall:
“We had to create a cut-off somewhere, and we made it at the undergraduate level and age 25.
“Our regular monthly pass at $55 would still be a terrific value for you even though you aren’t eligible for the semester pass. (Customer fares pay less than 25 percent of the cost of service with the remainder underwritten by taxes in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. Those regional taxes have been static to declining the last few years while our costs such as diesel fuel have increased by approximately 3 percent. As a result, we can ill afford to decrease that customer portion of our operating revenue any further.) I will certainly pass your comments along to our staff as they review customer comments about the fare increase.”
-William Krekeler
Graduate Research Assistant, Biomedical Engineering
More fact-checking required regarding celebrated doctor
Dear Editor:
I was very sad you see you misreported your lead story.
Dr. Joel D. Cooper is not a heart surgeon. While he was the chief of cardiothoracic surgery for Washington University, he was most definitely a thoracic surgeon.
Known worldwide as being the first man to perform a successful single lung transplantation in 1983 and the first successful double lung transplantation in 1986, he also spearheaded research on volume reduction surgery, which aids in the quality of life of those who suffer from emphysema. You should do a little more to check your facts.
-Elizabeth Ochoa
Class of 2008
St. Louis schools get no money from St. Louis County
Dear Editor:
Jeff Stepp’s latest column contained a number of flaws, only a couple of which I would like to address.
First, he states that “the divination of racism was performed completely by the reader herself,” regarding a letter criticizing his previous column about the possibility of crime on the University shuttle service. He also notes he never used the word “black” in that column. Yet in that column, when he introduced the issue of crime, his example was “several friends mugged at gunpoint.” In most of the campus news articles about muggings that I have read in the past year, the suspects were African-American. Stepp knew exactly what mental image he was conjuring up in his previous column, and he can’t weasel out of it now.
Second, the St. Louis Public Schools’ (SLPS) single largest source of income is from city taxes. The city tax base does not include money from St. Louis County, which includes affluent municipalities such as Ladue, Clayton, etc. I imagine the majority of greater St. Louis private school enrollment comes from families not in St. Louis City.
Still, the SLPS have a per pupil expenditure of approximately $10,000 – placing them above the national average. While more money would certainly help, perhaps a lack of funds is not the central reason for Stepp’s negative perception of public schools. Source for data: www.slps.k12.mo.us/districtinformation/index.htm – Annual Report 2003-2004. I am not attempting to defend the SLPS (I have no experience with them, positive or negative); I only comment that Stepp’s argument goes pretty much nowhere. Money for private school tuition, coming mostly from county residents, cannot be destroying the SLPS.
In fact, if you’d like an intelligent discussion of money and performance in local public schools, a bit of Googling quickly reveals the following report: www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/2004/b/pages/tough_lesson.html
For K-12, I attended the Rockwood School District, a public school district in the county (and part of the analysis in the link provided). I’m happy that I received a good K-12 education, and I’m surprised it was at 75 percent of the cost of a SLPS student. Thank you Mom, Dad and Rockwood.
As a native St. Louisan, I took offense to many of Stepp’s haughty comments. His last two sentences border on absurd, and I wonder what point was being made. But it was his simplistic and just plain wrong analysis which compelled me to write this letter. Next time you feel like writing a whole column in response to someone’s letter, Mr. Stepp, at least do some basic research to support your arguments.
If you did, perhaps you would represent the University, and St. Louis, a little bit better. Instead, you brought them down.
-Brian Barnes
Graduate Student in Chemistry
Gays hurt when homosexuality called a ‘choice’
Dear Editor:
Bill Maas writes an interesting piece in Forum. As one of the early-morning protesters, however, I take issue with a lot of what he says. Overall, he argues against “protesting a therapy group that people go to by choice.” I have several responses to this.
First, this therapy is not possible. Much like having a problem with the teaching of creationism in public schools, this therapy is based on no medical or scientific evidence whatsoever. People should not be duped into thinking this so-called therapy will work. Second, he – wrongfully – assumes that everyone chose to go to this conference. I can attest to the fact that there were certainly gay children there brought by their parents – in most instances COMPLETELY AGAINST THEIR WILL. The look of utter dejection on their faces as they drove into the church parking lot convinced me of this sad fact: their parents did not love them for who they were. I could only imagine how terrible I would feel if I were gay and my parents wanted me to change. Finally, Bill writes that the conference-goers want to change their “homosexual lifestyle.” I did not notice a single gay couple drive in during the morning registration hours when I protested. The only people attending the conference were what looked to me like married couples.
Maas also does not see how gays and others are hurt by the message the church is espousing. I’ll try to explain. Basically, gays and lesbians do not choose to be gay, just as I do not choose to be straight. When you are told that the way you are born is actually a choice (even worse, a sinful choice), it hurts. The more people believe this, the more it will hurt. I protested to show my solidarity with the gay and lesbian community – that they cannot “miraculously change.” Maas writes that being gay was once looked at as a choice.
Right. The fact that science now tells us that being gay is NOT a choice further strengthens our argument.
Bill’s final paragraph really takes the cake. He laughably assumes that we protested because we disagreed with the conservative Christian agenda. Not true. We protested because we know that whoever we pray to, we ought to be loved for who we are, and that preaching change of a group deemed immoral by some is WRONG, especially when the group simply cannot change. All this does is spread hatred. I dislike being the idealistic liberal, but protesting the spread of hatred is not the same thing as being a bigot.
Finally, we have the right to protest simply because the American Constitution gives us that right. In no way did we impinge upon the rights of ANYONE to attend the conference. The protest was incredibly peaceful and respected the rights of all.
I am proud of my decision to protest.
-Dave Shapiro
Class of 2009