Hello, my name is Jorge Marcano and I am from Venezuela. I was writing in reference to an article published by your newspaper on Sept. 19 about the ongoing political turmoil in Venezuela, “From Venezuela with love.”

I must say that I am rather disappointed to see that the article only focused on the opposition point of view. Should you decide to focus in future editions on the Venezuelan situation and wish to provide a more balanced coverage to readers, here are some links that you may consider looking into that will give you a more objective view of the situation rather than the perspective of wealthy Venezuelans that only represent a minority in the country.

It would be great if the majority of the people’s voices in Venezuela were heard on the debate – rather than only those of the wealthy and upper middle class, who by the way also control the private media in Venezuela. Here are the links:

http://www.cepr.net/columns/weisbrot/Venezuela’s_Recall.htm

http://fair.org/extra/0207/venezuela.html

http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipients/ned.htm

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16255

http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/editorials/LTE/weisbrot/weisbrot003/venezuela.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3167225.stm

http://www.journalstar.com/nw.php?story_id=81681

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030823/wl_nm/venezuela_chavez_dc_1

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0909/p07s02-woam.html

I hope that you, as journalists, would appreciate some news links from respected international organizations about the situation in Venezuela and not only one person’s opinion about the whole context of the nation’s democratically elected president twice, in 1998 and in the year 2000. Have a nice week,

Sincerely,

Jorge Marcano

I read Jesse McLain’s article titled “Guns: easy to get?” which ran in

Monday’s paper. It was a simple, concise report about a politically-charged issue. However, what is more important is that the author’s opinion concerning the subject never appears in the article. That is refreshing. I have grown weary of the media in this country. News agencies are no longer interested in giving us the facts; instead, they use radio, newspapers and television to assault us with their political agendas. I hope Jesse McLain is majoring in journalism; the cheap, editorial rags that the Denver Newspaper Agency churns out and passes off as newspapers could really benefit from this kind of reporting.

Ashley Ficke

Graduate student, fish and wildlife biology

What does the American flag represent? I want you to stop and thank about that for a moment, because I suspect very few students here at CSU know the answer. I often hear students outraged at the fact that American soldiers are dying overseas as we speak. Shannon Baldwin wrote an article to that effect as recently as Wednesday Sept. 17, ranting about the mounting death toll in Iraq, infuriated by the fact that a quarter of our fallen troops were under the age of 21.

Now who has the answer? What does the American flag represent? It is a symbol for the sacrifice made by each and every one of our countrymen who has died in service since the birth of our great nation. That includes the lives of our newly fallen “babies.” Why then, with all the outrage and indignation toward the war and loss of life, did only a miniscule fraction of students attend the ceremony geared at honoring those brave souls lost in Iraq? Were you there Ms. Baldwin?

It’s time to find a new excuse to bemoan the war in Iraq, because feigning anger about loss of life is not only exceedingly transparent, but inexcusably disrespectful to every American in the military, both living and dead.

Jason Surges

Freshman, political science

Thea Domber makes a valid point in her commentary about traffic on campus.

It is a problem. There are far too many car versus pedestrian or bike

accidents. However, there is a finer point and a different idea that our “powers that be” should consider in addition to the column’s suggestions.

Ms. Domber suggests that a few traffic lights be installed. Too many rapidly growing communities see a sudden back-up in traffic and hastily install traffic signals. As a result, there arises new back-ups. One may sit at a light waiting around for the light to turn green while, meanwhile, no one competes for time to cross the intersection. Any installation of automatic traffic signals should be monitored and maintained using proper traffic engineering techniques.

The columnist points out the impracticality of converting CSU into a pedestrian campus, noting the need for off-campus students to access the campus. However, CSU could join the growing number of metropolitan cities with park-and-ride systems. Ideally, Parking Services could construct satellite parking lots off campus that students could park at. Such full time off-campus students thus could give Transfort some work to do with their fees and take the bus from the remote lots to the already conveniently located transit center on campus.

Robert Wade

Freshman, civil engineering