LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Nursing students request feedback

To the Editor: Our group is concerned about these numbers. We would like to put this survey to use. We know from the survey that many students smoke due to emotional and academic stress, as well as in social situations; many already know the harmful effects of smoking. Therefore, developing an intervention to remedy the high rate of smoking is difficult at best. We want input from the campus. We want to know how people feel about the findings of our survey, and we would like your opinions on how we as a community can improve the situation. We appreciate everyone's help who participated in the survey; we could not have done it without you. Now, we would appreciate replies to the findings presented in Monday's article. Opinions, comments and suggestions can be sent via e-mail to smoking@dolphin.upenn.edu. We look forward to reading your ideas and striving to make a difference. Ellen Boxer Nursing '96 Homosexuality in nature To the Editor: Steven Rubenstein's Letter to the Editor about homosexuality ("Homosexuality unnatural," DP, 3/26/96) is factually incorrect. While he is entitled to his opinion (and I compliment him for his tolerance despite his misinformation), there is a large canon of empirical literature on homosexual behavior that he should consider before making claims. For example, he suggests that there are "no other examples of homosexuality in nature." In fact, ecologists (those who study animal behavior) have found abundant homosexual behavior in a wide variety of animals, from rats to cows to lions to monkeys. Same-sex mounting, especially by males, is very common throughout the animal world. So homosexual behavior is part of the "laws of nature." Rubenstein is also incorrect in stating that there is no scientific evidence that there is a genetic component to homosexuality. Recent research by J. Michael Bailey shows that homosexuals are more likely to have homosexual siblings; in fact, gay males are more likely than straight males to have lesbian sisters. Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute found that homosexual males tended to have more homosexual relatives on their maternal side, and claimed to have found a gene that appeared in 33 of 40 gay siblings. Simon LeVay has found differences in brain physiology between gay and straight animals. These are controversial findings, but they certainly refute Rubenstein's claim that there is "no scientific evidence" for such a claim. But such arguments are ultimately unimportant. The questions about whether homosexuality is "natural" are irrelevant. What is natural? No animals have religion, art, humor, clothes, jewelry.? Are these therefore "unnatural?" Should they be condemned? Homosexuality, like these other traits, is found universally in human culture, and is therefore as "natural" to humans as any other human trait. Paul Root Wolpe Center for Bioethics Sociology Professor Crash not staff's fault To the Editor: I am writing this letter after reading Tuesday's article about the Wharton e-mail system's crash last weekend ("Disk error disrupts Wharton e-mail," DP, 4/2/96). I am appalled at the inaccuracy of the DP's reporting, and I would like to clear up a few of your inaccuracies. First, Wharton e-mail was not entirely disrupted by the disk error; only undergraduate e-mail was unavailable. Equity.wharton, the Wharton Graduate MBA machine, was fully functional throughout the weekend. The futures.wharton crash was from 4:45 p.m. Thursday to 1:15 p.m. Saturday, not Sunday. Wharton students were informed about the crash to the best of the Wharton Computing staff's abilities. The Wharton Consulting office changed its answering machine to inform students about what was happening, and the operations status line changed its message to indicate that futures was down. For future reference, the Wharton Consulting phone number is 898-8600 and the Wharton operations status line is 898-6491. Wharton Computing staff members worked unusually hard to restore the system as quickly as possible. Our system administrators spent all of Thursday night and Friday working on it. Our senior system administrator spent 42 consecutive hours in the operations office, which houses futures and many other Wharton computers, without going home or getting sleep in order to bring computing back to undergraduate Wharton students. Specialists were brought in from other departments and our staff spent hours on the phone with technical support staff at other companies. As a student who had the opportunity to observe the events, I think the Wharton Computing staff should be commended for their dedication to undergraduate students. The staff was well-prepared, but sometimes things happen that are beyond all control. Jeremiah Kalan Wharton Computing employee Wharton and Engineering '99