LETTERS: Inebriation: Who's in control?

To the Editor: My assumption is that by publishing this article you hope to raise the student body's consciousness regarding the dangers of indiscrimenant alcohol use. May I suggest that if the person ingesting the alcohol sees themselves as a victim instead of the responsible party, there will be little value in your consciousness-raising effort. Better words to describe the "frosh" may have been "inebriated person," "intoxicated person," "drunk person," "the person rendered unconscious by alcohol ingestion," "irresponsible person," "person without the ability to protect their airway" or "person at risk of aspirating their gastric contents." "Victim" is not something that comes to my mind when I see someone throwing up or unconscious from excessive alcohol in their system. Regina Oliver Nursing '99 u To the Editor: I question some of the assertion Nick Stukas makes in his letter (DP, 9/24/98). He claims that personal responsibility is the only way to reduce alcohol-related incidents on campus. As everyone knows, alcohol impairs speech, balance and judgment. How can one be responsible when one cannot think clearly about the situation? He also claims that, "College students, by and large, are capable of handling alcohol with maturity." Apparently, this is not so, because the three publicized alcohol-related incidents involved freshmen. In one case, a girl consumed 10 mixed drinks and at least two shots of tequila. All cases involved sending the victims to the hospital. Obviously, they did not take responsibility for their own actions. Ironically, it is actually illegal to consume alcohol under the age of 21. The Greek houses are liable for punishment if they are caught serving alcohol to "minors." Many dispute that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 or 19. Age, however, does not matter since those who want to drink will obtain their source one way or another. I am not denouncing drinking as a social option, but there are some people who intentionally drink to get drunk. That is clearly not responsible drinking and personal responsibility is a futile safeguard. It seems as if there is no proven way to stem the rise of alcohol-related incidents, whose victims do not anticipate the consequences of their actions. Newton Lee College '02 Malice in the mailroom To the Editor: My daughter is a sophomore and for the second year in a row we have been frustrated by our inability to reliably send mail and packages to her. Most recently a CD player I shipped to her via UPS for her birthday mysteriously vanished after being signed for by the Penn mailroom. Her grandmother's birthday gift, a Walkman shipped via the United States Postal Service, also vanished. Last year, every single greeting card from virtually every member of our family mailed to my daughter was never delivered. Conversely, nondescript envelopes and boxes with books, bedding, etc. have arrived flawlessly. I believe a pattern exists. Either somebody in the mailroom is stealing with impunity, or procedures are so sloppy and inadequate that cards that may have money and boxes of new electronic items are accidentally thrown in the trash, or perhaps stored so securely nobody can ever find them again. I find it difficult to believe my daughter is the only student suffering from the performance, or lack of performance, of the Penn mailroom. Here in Kansas we established the sanctity of mail delivery in the days of the Pony Express. The system at that time was to shoot anybody who interfered with the safe and speedy delivery of mail. We have not had a problem with mail delivery here since those days. One would think a university administration that rewards itself with huge pay raises surely should be held responsible to provide one of the basic tenets of civilization for its students. It is a sad thing we can't send a birthday gift to our daughter without it disappearing in the Penn mailroom. Don McKenzie Topeka, Kansas Make free weights free To the Editor: After personally speaking to Recreation Director Mike Diorka and reading his comments in the article "UA challenges U. over gimbel fees, payment" (DP, 9/23/98), it is clear in my mind that Diorka and others still do not understand an important issue in the debate. Yes, the fitness center is state-of-the-art. After being encouraged by Diorka to take a look at it, I agree that it looks great, and I'm sure that the equipment works perfectly. If I were interested in having access to all of that equipment, I would probably pay the $75 fee. My problem, however, is that I just want to have access to a bench press and a small set of free weights. Diorka told me that Hutch's basement weight room, which I used last year, was unsafe and unhealthy. But as far as I am concerned, it was free and it served my needs. In short, I think that most of the student population would like to work out the minimum three times per week that physicians recommend. It would be wonderful if students could do so, for free, without paying a fee for high-tech machinery and climate control. Marcel Benjamin College and Wharton '01 Not so naive about sex To the Editor: I am embarrassed for David Kim, the author of the recently printed commentary entitled "In praise of 'sluts': the female orgasm," (DP, 9/22/98). In it, he explains to his ostensibly sexually-naive readers the importance of the clitoris in achieving female sexual gratification . In choosing this sophomoric topic, he unintentionally presents his readers with the longings and curiosities of an inexperienced, eager adolescent. He presumes that we need to be guided through a lesson in female anatomy, when, in fact, I sincerely doubt that the gist of his commentary is news to many of the readers to whom it is addressed. America was awakened to the merits of clitoral stimulation decades before Kim was even born, and although this may be a personal epiphany for him, I doubt many readers would find it to be a hot topic (excluding those readers sitting on a bench outside a general store along a dirt road on a hazy day in Haydirt, Tenn., in 1937). In an attempt to wax erotic, Kim blatantly betrays his unrequited libido, perhaps under the assumption that certain female objects of his sexual affection will believe him to be skilled or knowledgeable in the art. Nice try, Dave. The only woman you're likely to tempt into the bedroom with this transparent strategy (accompanied by the bovine expression you strike on page six) is one who is equally desperate, and there aren't that many of them out there. Here are some tips: be honest, don't drool on her hair and don't pull out a copy of Gray's Anatomy in the midst of a sweaty encounter. Larry Leibowitz Family Practice Resident Independent bookstores To the Editor: This semester the majority of my professors decided to order their required texts from the Pennsylvania Book Center. Many of them stated that they did this to show their support for the underdog -- the dusty, musty, independent bookshop -- and their defiance of the huge, corporate conglomerate, the Barnes & Noble-managed University Book Store. At first the irony of this situation struck me as rather funny. Now, however, I am not laughing. For three years I have groaned, along with many of my classmates, when a professor announced that we would have to buy our books from the Pennsylvania Book Center. I believe that the store is extremely unaccomodating to students -- making book-buying and returning major ordeals. Usually, I try to buy all of my books from the Book Center in one trip because the store rarely has more than four people working the cash registers, creating enormous lines early in the school year. Needing a drop slip from one's school to make a return to the Pennsylvania Book Center is only a minor inconvenience; however, this becomes a major problem when a professor decides that she will not use one of the texts on her course syllabus. When there is no way to return the book, the student is then stuck with a $20 or $50 text which he does not need. In general, I have always found the Pennsylvania Book Center to simply be a bother. I would much rather buy course books from the University-owned bookstore, where they have tens of cashiers, where texts can easily be returned and where there is actually space to move around. I am certainly in favor of independent bookstores, but class texts are costly and it is difficult for me, as a student who does not have extensive financial resources, to commit to spending hundreds of dollars at the Pennsylvania Book Center when I know that if I have to, I may not be able to return a text. I hope professors will start taking their students' concerns into account when they order books. Lisa Sandell College '99