Ok, so it's only a college newspaper, but you have to start somewhere. This guy who wrote an editorial last week was such a douche, that I had to take a shot at him. Dear editor, I have never written a letter to an editor before, so I hope this is proper etiquette. I am a regular reader of The Student and I think you all do an outstanding job. I especially appreciate that you regularly give our ice hockey team the attention that it well deserves. I was irritated by what I considered an incredibly ignorant editorial in the August 30 edition, and I felt that it needed some sort of a response. I hope that you will consider publishing my letter. Thank you, and keep up the good work, I’m writing in response to Ryan Jones’ August 30 editorial about animal rights activists. To connect activists with world hunger in the way that he did is so ludicrous that it borders on irresponsible. If this was meant as self caricature, then I confess, it was too subtle for me to catch. A faithful reader of “The Onion”, the wonderful satire newspaper out of Madison Wisconsin, I would have gladly laughed along had the rant been completely outlandish. But I think this guy was actually serious. So here’s a serious response: First, you’re annoyed by activists on campus? Well what did you expect? College campuses have a long tradition of being hotbeds of activism and, at times, serve as the voice of moral dissent for the nation. Remember Vietnam? If being exposed to opinions and ideas different from your own is so troublesome, perhaps you should look into other options rather than college on a liberal arts campus. And secondly, if you’re going to write about something like world hunger and food production, please have some sort of clue what you’re talking about. The truth is that meat production, besides being a huge environmental problem (think global warming, hurricane Katrina…), is counterproductive to solving world hunger. The issue is efficient land use. Raising meat is the most inefficient way to produce food. Besides its very low yields, it also requires additional land to grow the grain for the animals. If we converted even a small portion of our farmlands from meat to grain production, we could feed the world many times over. In the interest of brevity, I won’t even address the cruelty issue except to say that it’s only a certain type of western (i.e. American) self-centeredness and arrogance that could possibly believe humans are the only form of life capable of self-realization. Give me a break!
I think that's a great letter. I write a little for my college paper and read it every week and - not saying that the two papers are alike - but compared to what i've read in our paper, it's so refreshing to see a letter to the editor that is based in knowledge and education and that is articulate to boot. that was awesome.
Awesome! I'm actually planning on writing a letter to my college newspaper as well. If they don't print it, I'm going to distribute the article anonymously. The article will be about wastefulness on campus. It will be both environmental and pro ani-rights. For example, there are these shelves in the cafeteria where students are to put their trays with garbage. Almost everytime, I'll see a student has discarded a whole, untouched slice of pizza, or whole, untouched hamburger, etc.... So I'm going to take photos of such things. And I'll put a photo of a chained up, sick cow in a farm factory, and label it "The hamburger you may have thrown in the garbage."... etc.
That's great! I remember working at a Burger King when I was a teenager and we would trhow away full buckets of uneaten food every day. Maybe you could take a couple of stealth pictures in or around a fast food joint.
that defeats the purpose of fast food. Besides, then the perishable items will go bad and be unused. At least if they are made, people can make anonymous calls to homeless shelters informing them that they are dumping food so that homeless people can pickup the food. Food in general is 'wasted' by restaurants and people in western countries. It's a shame, but it is NOT a trait characteristic of fast food industries only. p.s. not all land used for maintaining cattle can be used for growing grain. Farmers are often restricted on what they can grow by the land that they own. Also, we can already feed the world many times over. The problem is getting the food to the people. That is the real problem and the real horror of the situation.
