Alligator

Paul Murty's Monday column was so shamefully dishonest that I felt I had to respond. He claims the Republicans are not listening to voters, when it is the Democrats in Congress who have pushed through multiple 1,000-plus page bills they haven't read (and have broken campaign promises by not giving the public time to read them, either). The latest Pew poll shows only 34 percent support for the new congressional health plan, with an opposition of 47 percent. And the opposition is growing. Mr. Murty, it is not the Republicans who are ignoring the will of the people.

This letter is to commend President Bernie Machen for an extremely prompt response to an e-mail I wrote to him regarding the rusting hulks of bicycles that have dotted campus since I arrived in fall 2008 as a graduate student. I wrote this e-mail Monday afternoon expressing my dismay at having to constantly dodge the rusty carcases of abandoned bikes, and was pleasantly surprised to receive a personal response that evening. Further, a phone call came from the appropriate person at UPD the next morning, with a pledge that the issue would be handled immediately. When I arrived at ARCH today, the worst of the problem was gone. Kudos to President Machen for making the time to care about the small problems.

Last month, an interracial couple seeking a marriage license was turned away by a Louisiana justice of the peace on the grounds that their marriage was "mixed." The refusal was met with an eruption of criticism from civil rights groups and public officials, including Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal.