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| Tuesday, 30 August 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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‘Community Watch’ is well taken Dear Editor, I’m glad to see The Argonaut up and running again after the summer. The point made in the “Community Watch” column is well taken, but I’d like to add that UI needs to do more on its own to make members of the Moscow community more welcome. I have a long experience of living in college related communities. I have never experienced an attitude more closed to community participation than UI. Yes, people here are very closed. It is as if they are all islands in a stream, or maybe bumper cars is more apt. They just kind of go along taking care of their own agenda rather than creating a real sense of community. The excuse is, “oh this is a transient place because of all the students.” What a crock! Moscow is just not a welcoming community, and many people in the past three years I have lived here have shared and supported my observations. The difference is that I am a long-time activist and I speak up about it, rather than say nothing, or talk about it behind people’s backs. Gayle Eversole Moscow Column off target Dear Editor, I am compelled to write to you after reading the op-ed piece in The Argonaut about Pat Robertson (Robertson: Killer coot or noble Christian, Aug. 26). After reading the piece several times I have no idea what Frank McGovern was trying to say. I read the article because I was curious about McGovern’s opinion on this matter. I enjoy hearing student’s perspectives on world events. However, what I read was a diatribe filled with inflammatory, racist and down right disgusting language. I was extremely disappointed to see a “journalist” using anti-Semitism to make a point. I read that paragraph over and over, along with the one before and the one after, I can see no reason or no point to the anti-Semitism used. Clearly, your language choices to date do not do justice to your opinions; rather, you hide behind your language choices because clearly you do not have well informed, or for that matter, well formed, opinions! I don’t need to agree with your premise, but please don’t subject The Argonaut readers to such blatant homophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic language in the future. Elizabeth Higgins staff member University of Idaho Goathead ravages railroad tracks Dear Editor, I recently observed a huge bloom of goathead, a.k.a. puncture vine, on the railroad tracks here in Moscow. If you’ve ever ridden a bicycle over a patch of puncture vine, you will never forget it. I was seven the first time I hit some — my tires were peppered with thorns, and both immediately went flat. I had more than a dozen punctures. The goathead is commonly found in drier climates, like Lewiston, Boise, Weiser, Tri-Cities, and is widespread in New Mexico. In these places you don’t dare venture off the beaten path without triple protection for your bike — slime, liners and puncture resistant tubes. Is warmer, drier weather making the Palouse a friendly environment to the puncture vine? Are we going to take this invasion sitting down? Dave Peckham Moscow TLC really is cool Dear Editor, I am not sure who wrote the letter in the recent Argonaut concerning the TLC (TLC: No love for students, Aug. 26), but I am really sorry they have such a low opinion of the building. I have been working for UI for over 16 years. If this person had any idea what the history was behind the TLC building, maybe they would have good thoughts instead. The UI Commons building is a “new” building. The old School of Communications building, the old media center building and the old mechanical engineering buildings were torn down completely to accommodate the new Commons building. The next phase was the remodeling of the old UCC building now known now as the TLC. Money was not provided by the state of Idaho to completely destroy the old UCC and build a new building. It was remodeling money. The remodel was delayed after the 2000 recession when many state building projects were put on hold. That money for the remodel did not increase with inflation over the years. I worked with the architects on the project, and I can tell you that the TLC was not an architectural disaster; it was not perfect, but it was an architectural miracle. Somehow UI pulled off 30 new technology-enhanced classrooms rather than the original 10 planned in 2000 with the same money. Somehow UI ended up with a fairly nice building. The hundreds of data ports that are wired into the seats are wired all the way to the closet and are most certainly not a waste. It was believed that eventually there will be money for network switches. They are not useless, because the cost of doing so in the future would be millions because of floors being removed to accommodate conduits and closets being reconstructed, as well as concrete walls and electrical circuits. Not to mention another disruption to the students and faculty. The cost of connecting the equipment now is currently around $8 a seat and will only go down with time as network switches become cheaper. All that is needed to make a white board available in a classroom is to push the up switch on the wall to move the projection screen out of the way. All that is needed to find a bathroom in the building is to put one foot in front of the other. It is easier than finding one halfway across campus. As for windows: I love windows too, but there were no funds for windows, not to mention the extra costs arisen from problems that sunlight can cause in a classroom. John Neff Academic technologies University of Idaho  Add as favorites (24) | Views: 939
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