Letters to the Editor: Lab Is Not Violating Law

In regards to the article "Berkeley City Council Is A Nuclear Weak Zone," (Sept. 19) Elliot Cohen is mistaken when he states that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is violating the terms of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act.

In a section of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act, it is clearly stated that no prohibitions can be placed upon, "any unclassified research, study, evaluation, or teaching."

The linear induction accelerators being designed at LBNL accelerate electrons which are then used to produced X-rays. This amounts to nothing more than a large X-ray machine used in biomedical imaging - technology that is far from being classified as top secret. In fact, such accelerator technology has been LBNL's forte since the lab's inception.

Unfortunately, nuclear weapons will not disappear in the forseeable future. Therefore, the existence of facilities, such as Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Testing, is essential to ensure that our current stockpile of weapons is (ironically) safe and effective. Without such facilities, it would be necessary to resume full-scale weapons tests, making it impossible for the U. S. to comply with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In fact, when Congress decided not to ratify the CTBT, one of their major qualms was that there were no facilities that could ensure the reliability of the current stockpile.

Ultimately, facilities such as DARHT are steps in the direction of reducing our stockpile of weapons. Without such facilities, new weapons must be fabricated to replace those that have aged. While I fully support the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, more efforts should be focused on eliminating the need for weapons if there is to be any hope of disarmament.

Lance Kim

UC Berkeley student

Morning-After-Pill Is Abortion

I was shocked by reading Emily Chung's column "Morning After Tuesday" (Sept. 19) in The Daily Californian. Chung is misinforming her readers on purpose. Using the Morning-After-Pill in fact is abortion: it is killing a human life. Just as she writes, "it is preventing the fertilized egg from implanting," and there is wide agreement among biologists that human life begins with the egg being fertilized.

I regard it as Chung's duty to clearly tell this to her readers!

It is really disappointing for me to see that not even at a university are the rights of the weakest human beings protected. On the contrary, Chung is calling her readers to ignore them, to put blind pleasure at the top.

Unfortunately, Chung's column makes her a spokesman of a culture of death. Think about it.

Elmar Grosse-Kloenne

UC Berkeley visiting professor

Nudists Display Typical Berkeley Behavior

Why does Berkeley always look so Berkeley? Nude appearances always seem to be made by over-the-hill, hippy types that, despite their age, never tire of the same old shtick: new agey messages about inner freedom and healing balls of white light. Really, I'm not trying to be a "tit," there's a place for everything, or there damn well should be, but really, when will we see the rest of the people out celebrating the beauty of being human?

Brian Forsyth

San Francisco resident

Public Humiliation Is Disgraceful

Too many terrible things have been done in the name of "tradition," and I'm sickened by the apparent lack of humanity exhibited by Alistair Neal and Matt Bishop ("Students Unified By 'Red Shirt' Cheer," Sept. 19). In their half-wit response to the article "Tradition Does Not Justify Humiliation," (Sept. 14) they show a dearth of morals which is frightening.

Are they trying to be funny? Or do they really mean it, when they seem to say that the humiliation of a person in front of a crowd of thousands is acceptable? They say that "... any activity that results in a female sitting in her bra is not something Bowles Hall would condemn." Come on, guys, you have to draw the line somewhere - clearly, Bowles Hall must be so choked with tradition that its residents sometimes forget common decency.

Lan Danwen called the incident a "chilling case of mob senselessness at its worst," and Danwen is right. Whenever a band of people (idiots, "self-appointed law-enforcers," jerks, or what have you) gang up on a stranger with the deliberate intent to violate his or her rights - that's chilling mob senselessness. When Neal and Bishop try to justify our ridiculous tradition by comparing it with "what frequently happens in European soccer games," do they not realize that the lesser evil is not made better by comparing it with the greater?

Neal and Bishop seem to be the spokesmen for Bowles Hall. If the entire hall indeed shares their opinions, well, that's too bad. For all of us. But if there is anyone living there who disagrees with Neal and Bishop, then listen to this: if you want to redeem the name of your hall, now's your chance. Speak out against these two goons.

Ian McKee

UC Berkeley student

UN Sanctions Disturbing

The Daily Californian article regarding the UN sanctions against Iraq ("UN Criticized for Stringency," Sept. 18) left me disturbed, and wondering where I could find more information about the impact of the sanctions from trustworthy sources. I was happy to find that UNICEF and the Red Cross reports on the issue are available online (at www.unicef.org and www.icrc.org).

I thought other Daily Californian readers might be interested as well.

David Gelbart

UC Berkeley student

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