Women athletes ignored
To the Editor:
As a former high school athlete and a current friend and fan of many women athletes at the college level, I would like to express my disappointment at the Nov. 12 sports page's unbalanced allotment of space and attention for the different teams.
I frequently read this section of The Daily Pennsylvanian, and usually I am happy to find a reasonably good representation of articles devoted to women's sports. What distressed me about this Monday's issue was the inordinate amount of space devoted to the loss of the men's football team in comparison to the small article tagged on the bottom of the page about the exciting and historical win for the women''s soccer team.
A championship should be glorified over a loss. I understand the tradition and pride Penn has for their outstanding football team and I shared the excitement and tremendous disappointment over their heartbreaking loss after such an exciting season. They deserved a large article about the game and their reactions, but to have three articles in the sports page as well as a large photo on the front page -- while women's soccer was relegated to a small blurb on the front page and a small portion of the bottom of the sports page -- seems unfair.
Women's sports have made great strides these past few years as is attested to by the skill demonstrated by this women's soccer team. The community at Penn as well as the paper that reports its news and events so thoroughly should not let their enthusiasm for football outshine the accomplishments of other teams, especially not the women's teams that have come so far.
Elizabeth Wilson
College '05
An opportunity wasted
To the Editor:
Marc Tarlock's letter regarding the Penn For Peace camp-out on College Green ("Sleep, Not Action," DP, 11/14/01) aptly illustrates the apathetic ignorance that Penn For Peace is working so hard to combat.
Tarlock evidently never stopped to speak to the students he is so quick to insult. He would have learned that Penn For Peace does all the things he suggests would be time better spent: organizing campus discussions, raising humanitarian aid and supporting a range of educational activities around campus.
The sleep-in was intended to draw attention to these activities, and to provide students with an opportunity to discuss the war with members of the the peace movement. It was also a peaceful protest in the most noble tradition of democracy. Far from being a waste of time, such protests have been critical in almost all the reforms of American society we take for granted today.
Tarlock is bothered that "they had no poster to answer a very important question: What happens if the U.S. does pull out?" Had he asked, he would have recieved a detailed answer. Posters are designed to catch attention and deliver a succinct message. Serious attempts at limiting terrorism around the world require real thought and complex answers -- though you would not know it for listening to our political leadership.
Like DP columnist Michael Vondriska, many of those who came to the camp-out learned to consider U.S. policy in a more nuanced and intelligent fashion. Lessons like these hold great hope for our democracy and for the safety of the world. But Turlock is right, in at least one case- for him, the opportunity was certainly wasted.
Ian Kaplan
Physics and Astronomy
