LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: An Alienated UA Member

To the editor: I think this comment clearly shows just how completely paranoid and insane Debicella has become. I left because I was sick, period. Debicella can make whatever excuses or theories he wants for why UA members do not show up for meetings anymore but the real reason is clear -- faulty, directionless leadership. Proof of this fact is clear; at the beginning of this UA every member showed up and actively participated. After only a few months of the Debicella term, he had managed to alienate almost everyone on the body and attendance dwindled. The problem is clearly his fault and now he is attempting to shift responsibility. I can honestly say that I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But now it seems I have angered the almighty Debicella. Apparently I, along with others on the UA, do not understand the real reason we are here at Penn. This reason, obviously, is to serve Debicella in his Holy Crusade to lead undergraduates to the Promised Land. I would like to add that besides being completely false and unsubstantiated, his conspiracy theory is insulting to every member who could not attend Sunday's meeting. To imply that all of us blindly follow a select group of people is outrageous. Seriously Dan -- Get some help. SUNDEEP GOEL Engineering '96 UA member A View of Women To the Editor: It is quite pathetic to see that Mary Beth Kochman in her letter to the editor ("Ignorant Statements," DP 2/13/95) has accepted and embraced contemporary society's view of what a woman should be or should look like physically. I am sorry that you think that only women who work out can look good. Do you realize your own contradictions when you are putting down and judging every other woman at Penn? And how sorry you are to need approval from this dork, Manny. I think the women here at Penn are quite fabulous, and believe me you, I am not judging the way they look (maybe the way they dress, but doesn't everyone?) To quote you, "we do not need you to imply differently" -- that everyone has to work out in order to achieve society's view of looking good. Shame, shame. There goes half of Penn's psychotherapy down the drain and you probably drove some more chicks back to bulimia. Oh well. And just for the record, I love that gratuitous butt picture of the courageous flashers every February. My only regret is that I've slept through it every year. Thank goddess (ha) the DP catches it for me to paste on my wall like most of Penn's administrative assistants do. Mary, honey, I approve of you. Be who you are -- but I still think you could use a little psychotherapy every now and again. And thanks, DP for your brilliant photo footage. "Just like being there." Thomas Eng Wharton '95 Clearing Up MAChO To the Editor: I am writing to clarify a misrepresentation in Shawn Klein's last column ("For Former Glory," DP 2/9/95). He incorrectly describes MAChO as "a club to support sensitive men." This is understandable, because MAChO has been characterized by the DP as a support group for men. It is neither. MAChO is devoted to gathering men for informal discussions on issues such as pornography and homophobia. Issues which have tended to alienate men from progressive movements. MAChO is devoted to the idea that by getting men to discuss these issues they can improve their relationships with each other, women and society in general. Guilherme Roschke College '97 Men's Alliance for Change and Openness co-founder Questioning Objectivity To the editor: I am writing in response to the article "Orthodox Judaism Faces Challenges" which appeared in the World section of the February 7, 1995 issue of The Daily Pennsylvanian. Firstly, the article's lack of objectivity in its treatment of Orthodox Judaism gave me -- and many of my friends -- the impression that the article was discussing a war ("Greenberg has quite a fight ahead of her") and not merely "challenges." The author then tries to justify the strength of the tone by using Orthodox Judaism's refusal to follow the example of other movements. Such an implication is unfair in a society devoted to religious freedom, for the right as well as for the left. Indeed, the overweening presumption of Orthodoxy's "inequality," suggests that the appearance of a "news story" is a tenuous one at best. As a matter of fact, the first five sixths of the article -- setting aside the conclusion for a moment -- could be seen as an uninformed attack on Orthodox Judaism. The writer's generalization of Orthodoxy as a "bastion of male-dominated ritual," completely ignores the many religious roles shared by and unique to women in Orthodox Judaism. Only rabbinical ordination and seating arrangements are considered by the writer as evidence of "equal" status. This bears testimony to the writer's ignorance of the subject; an ignorance which one is hard pressed to defend as naive. The unreserved tone of condemnation in the piece (and the scarcity of reporters who write on subjects foreign to them), forces the conclusion that the absence of the Orthodox side of the story was deliberate. The impression formed is that the article's aim was not to describe challenges to Orthodoxy, but to provide a public forum for the writer to air his/her prejudices against Orthodox Judaism. This raises the question, why was such an article printed in the DP? How did the small final paragraph of the article justify printing the attack which preceded it? For that matter, why was such a relatively inconsequential event in the world given such a prominent place in the limited space of the World section? Although I understand that this article was not written by anyone on your staff, it was nevertheless selected to appear in your newspaper. It is with this "poor judgement" that I am taking issue in writing this letter. To say that you could not see through this transparent scheme to use this event as an occasion for this untrue, anti-religious speech, would be putting it charitably. I hope the inclusion of the article was not used as a vehicle for the expression of the attitudes of your editorial staff. Menachem Schwartz Wharton '98