April 20 letters
Letters fail to grasp initial concerns over center’s ad
TO THE EDITOR:
In response to Kris Wampler’s letter, what is racist about the Patrick Henry Center’s ad is that it does not simply point out that an act of terrorism took place. It is vague in its accusations.
If one checks the center’s Web site, they can find center director Gary Aldrich’s response to a letter written to him by none other than Wampler himself.
In this letter he characterizes the University as “pro-Islam” not as “pro-terrrorist” or even “pro-Islamic terrorist.” Because the center’s ad was a direct response to Wampler’s complaints, I conclude that the “one cause” the ad refers to is not terrorism but all of Islam.
Even if my interpretation is wrong, I am still concerned that the advertisement’s vagueness should have been taken into consideration before the ad was printed because The Daily Tar Heel has a policy against printing ads that “discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color or sex.”
If the ad’s aim was simply to condemn terrorism, then the ambiguity should have at least been addressed.
However, because the Pit attacks have also not been officially declared as “terrorism,” I would also reconsider the rationale for printing an ad that declares the acts something they are not officially recognized as.
Jillian Bandes, who earlier this year wanted “all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport,” assumed that I see condemning Islamic terrorism as condemnation of Islam, but nowhere in my letter do I make that conclusion. I completely agree with her that condemning Islamic terrorism “express(es) disdain for the perverted individuals who skew an otherwise peaceful religion,” however contradictory this seems to her previous statements about Arabs.
I did not feel that the advertisement was condemning Islamic terrorism but rather Islam itself.
Finally, I would like to point out that, yes, the acts were motivated by Islam, but to make this the only point in one’s condemnation of the attacks is to imply the conclusion that I found so asinine before — that Muslim equals terrorist.
Reuben Baker
Sophomore
Public Policy
Dental researcher weighs in on the ‘Gospel of Judas’
TO THE EDITOR:
I am writing to dispute the claims of professor Bart Ehrman who claimed that the Gospel of Judas was authentic.
While it might be true that the document might be ancient, to automatically claim it was written by the real Judas is totally unfounded.
For Jesus to lie to his apostles, telling them that Judas was a traitor and that Judas was essentially the son of the devil by betraying the son of God, when he actually had permission to turn him in, would be uncharacteristic of Jesus and would set Judas up to be attacked or shunned by the others.
This would not be a loving thing to do to a “most beloved apostle.” Jesus was always open with the truth, and for someone to conspire in a sneaky way like this would immediately make him not messiah material and would make any apostle suspicious of Jesus, not cooperative.
It was also witnessed by the other apostles that Judas hanged himself immediately in despair after he realized he had betrayed the messiah. Judas, therefore, was not alive to write any gospel.
The true gospels agree with each other but contradict this particular document. The document, although ancient, was written about 250 years after the death of Jesus, so it could not be written by anyone alive at the time of Christ.
Just because something is old does not make it true. This would be analogous to finding transcripts of the Jerry Springer Show a thousand years from now and claiming he was having a church service, or thinking that the tabloids we see in the grocery line must be true because the tabloids would be 2000 years old in the future.
Jesus had no need to conspire with anyone. He accomplished many miraculous works, and there were witnesses to these events. The Gospel of Judas might be entertainment and fantasy, but it has no truth in it.
It seems secular people are very hungry for strange stories about Jesus from odd places like Egypt, but they cannot accept the accounts in the gospels written by eye witnesses.
Marianne E. Tioran
Research Specialist
UNC Dental Research Center
Women and men unite in Raleigh to protest the GA
TO THE EDITOR:
N.C. Women United, a volunteer organization composed of more than 40 women’s organizations from around the state, is hosting Women’s Advocacy Day to be held on June 20 at the General Assembly building in Raleigh.
The event will bring together hundreds of constituents to lobby their state legislators on an array of issues like raising the state’s minimum wage to $6 per hour, opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, instituting needle-exchange programs and correcting some of the medical inaccuracies and biased language in the state’s currently mandated Abstinence Until Marriage school health curriculum.
Participants can advocate for whichever issues they personally support. A lobbyist training session will be provided for neophytes. Refer to www.ncwu.org or contact me for more information.
On a more personal note, I challenge Nathaniel Gindele to attend, as he done much to denigrate others’ activist efforts while doing little himself to advocate for change.
Nicolette Hylan
Sophomore
Women’s Studies
Go to Fetzer to check out sweet handball action
TO THE EDITOR:
Unless you happened to catch NBC’s 3:30 a.m. coverage during the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, you’ve probably never seen team handball.
It is a fast-paced, high-scoring, hard-hitting, action-packed game that is the world’s second most popular team sport.
This weekend the Carolina Team Handball Club is proud to host the 2006 U.S. Team Handball Collegiate Nation Championships, sponsored by the U.S. Olympic Committee. Men’s and women’s teams from colleges across the country will be competing in Fetzer Gym on Saturday and Sunday to take home the national title.
Game times are from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday and 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The Carolina Team Handball men’s club is the two-time defending national champion and the women’s club won the title in 2004.
Students are encouraged to check out this exciting sport and cheer on the Tar Heels this weekend, as the men attempt an unprecedented threepeat, and the women try to win their second title in three years.
Johnny Massengale
President
Carolina Team Handball Club
Andrew Jones
Sophomore
Economics