Letters to the Editor

Looking for leaders

To the Editor:

For decades, the Penn Course Review has served Penn undergrads in course selection. Last year, PCR pushed in a new direction by going online at no cost to the students. Unfortunately, PCR lacks leadership to keep the publication alive.

I have been working with the Undergraduate Assembly to resurrect the Penn Course Review. It is my hope that the Undergraduate Assembly and the Office of Student Life will synergistically revive PCR so that Penn students can once again benefit from this useful publication.

Since PCR is experiencing a true rebirth, I encourage the UA and OSL to seriously consider student input to the new structure of PCR. Undergraduates, the future of this Penn tradition is in your hands.

Will Lavery College '03 The writer is a former business manager of the Penn Course Review.

Living with a 'non-problem'

To the Editor:

This is year two for me at Penn. I have paid for an "N" sticker, yet there doesn't seem to be an "N" facility closer to my class less than the one located a quarter mile away. (Last year, my classes were in close proximity to "N" parking facilities.)

My problem? I'm handicapped. I have lupus, fibromyalgia and ankylosing spondylitis, diseases not readily seen to the naked eye. "You look fine to me" is the usual response when I explain the purpose for my handicap license plates. I can walk one or two city blocks on a good day. When a "flare" hits, I'm lucky to walk 10 feet.

I was told, by the Transportation Department, to get a shuttle to pick me up from the closest garage and take me to my building. They want me to arrange for a shuttle to pick me up! Sure, I'll arrange for a shuttle to pick me up. Why not be limited as a handicapped person going to school at night? As "they" see it, the handicap alone must not be a problem. Anyone out there paying $440 a year for the same non-problem?

Suzanne Gurenlian CGS '05

Philadelphia's fortress

To the Editor:

For more than 200 years, men, women and children of all ages and all nationalities could walk west along Walnut Street, turn right onto Fifth Street and stroll onto the grounds of one of America's national treasures. Anyone could sit in the grass, rub the bricks or peek into a window. Independence Hall was the quiet but ever present reminder of our great "experiment" in democracy.

Now it is a fortress. It is walled off by a bulwark of steel fence. It is patrolled by stone-faced pistol-toting park rangers. The only entrance is through a security checkpoint worthy of an Israeli airport. Visitors must obtain a ticket from a separate location, and then pass through a search tent, where the colorful backpacks of first graders are checked for explosives.

It is a disgrace. Seeing Independence Hall, I was enraged at this blatant example of security overkill. I just learned that until recently the entire block of Chestnut Street between Fourth and Fifth streets had been barricaded off.

In the days when senior citizens must take off their shoes before boarding a plane, finding a steel curtain around Independence Hall was infuriating. Benjamin Franklin's often repeated yet rarely heeded opinion rings as true today as it did 250 years ago. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." He would be disgusted to see what his old Pennsylvania State House has become.

In less than four years, I will graduate from Penn. I hope that when I look upon Independence Hall as an alumnus, it will have returned to its former self, as the national church of liberty, in both history and in practice.

Alex Weinstein College '07

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