Letters to the Editor

We feel obligated to correct your suggestion that the In-N-Out petition is “pointless” and will “force the ASUC to waste time” (“Pointless Petition,” Nov. 29). Far from it, the In-N-Out petition will compel the ASUC to listen to their constitutency: the student body. The petition itself, which can be found at www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~sino, merely seeks to put a statement on the spring ballot asking that ASUC work to attract an In-N-Out to campus. Hence, it does not force ASUC to do anything without a majority of the students’ consent.

As attested by the enormous popularity of In-N-Out’s location in San Francisco, which lacks a drive-thru, given its heavy pedestrian traffic, toursim activity, and large Southern California population. In addition, according to several In-N-Out customer service representatives, In-N-Out does not always own the property where their restaurants are located. Hence, they can be willing to rent land from ASUC. Had the Daily Cal done a minimal amount of research, it would have discovered that “elected representatives” do not decide what vendors are allowed in the student union; but rather since 1998 such authority comes from the Store Operations Board, only two of whose eleven members are elected. This petition was started out of the belief that we need to attract better vendors to the student union than the one that was a mere block away (such as Cheese N’ Stuff). Furthermore, the Daily Cal fails to mention that Gelateria Naia is only opening a sotre on campus because a Spring 2003 student-initiated peition, similar in nature to the In-N-Out petition, compelled the ASUC to convert the Bearcade into a gelato lounge.

Finally, we argue that there is no “stiff competition around campus.” Ironically, one of the Daily Cal’s own writers stated that “Berkeley is a great food town, but it’s not a great burger town … where can you go for your half-pound of flesh?” (“Hamburger Helper,” Sept. 29) We agree. Thus In-N-Out can certainly find its own niche within the Berkeley restaurant scene.

Martin A. Kohan

Students for In-N-Out

Pull University Out of Labs

As some of you may or may not be aware, our lovely school, UC, has announced plans to renew its vows to Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. The ceremony will be held on Dec. 1, when the U.S. Department of Energy consecrates their union: Mama Bomb and Papa University, together forever. Here is why we, as the neglected foster children of this dysfuntional marriage, should be concerned.

UC Berkeley developed the first atomic weapon during World War II at the Los Alamos Lab in the Manhatten Project. The U.S. dropped this horrific weapon on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, incinerating 120,000 innocent civilians immediately, with 250,000 people dying over the years, to this very day, of radiation sickness.

Perhaps we should have paused then, as an institution, to question our role in education. Unfortunately, our lust for the bomb eliminated any sense to terminate the love affair. So the question remains, is it ethical for any school to develop weapons of mass destruction? UC has been married to the bomb for 60 years. In that time we have developed 10,000 weapons for the nation, which are a million times more lethal than the first atomic bomb. Quite a lineage. As students we have a responsibility to consider that our current occupation in Iraq is based on the false accusations of the possession of weapons of mass destruction, whereas UC is currently cementing its declaration to love and cherish weapons of holocaust, and commit wholeheartedly to further procreation. It shouldn’t be forgotten that in the hubris of the ceremony, UC (as an actor for our government) is violating the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty. The marriage of UC and the bomb is against international law. Furthermore, UC is violating its academic commitment outlined in its mission statement “to serve society as a center of higher learning, providing long-term societal benefits,” which doesn’t exactly fall in line with creating genocidal weopons which threaten the existence of our species.

Students, our university is engaged first hand in the war machine, acting as a tool of the state, perpetuating violence to ensure our political and markets interests, all so the governing body of our school, the regal UC Board of Regents can line their pockets with Energy Department funding while wheeling and dealing as private citizens to profit from the nuclear weapons labs. It should not be forgotten that the renewal of vows to the bomb include UC partnership with war profiteer Bechtel. Let’s start making links from within our academic community to the global implications of continued nuclear weapon development.

Let’s take some individual responsibility for our school and ensure that it is acting in our interests. Imagine the profound influence our school would have on society if we disengaged from developing weapons of mass destruction and instead strove towards education centered around actual peace and equality. Fellow students, we need to call on the regents (seriously, call them) before the marriage is consecrated. Our school is in bed with the bomb.

Kamara Rose O’Connor

UC Berkeley student

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