Letters to the Editor

1/21/10 6:00pm

Water balloon fight date incorrect

To the Editor:"Tsk, tsk" to the Thresher for repeating the facts fed to them by the Office of Student Affairs (or their student representatives) every time the university wants to change a Rice tradition. In the article "Beer Bike parade changes proposed," published Jan. 15, the Thresher repeats Brian Henderson's assertion that the water balloon fight has been around for "about a decade." This same line of "it's not really a tradition, it's only developed in the past few years" is what university employees truck out every time they want to take advantage of the fact that students spend a relatively short period of time at the university. They used it to reduce or eliminate traditions like open admission to Night of Decadence (first started in the 1960s, ended in the 1990s), college cheers at matriculation (started in the 1980s, ended in the 2000s), and apparently now the Beer Bike water balloon fight, which first started in 1992 - almost 20 years ago. Since the Thresher is many students' primary source for information like this, it needs to check its facts before contributing falsehoods to the public discourse.

Robert Lee

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Jones '03

Online Comment of the Week

In response to "Catholic Church abandons social services for homeless," Jan. 15:

Dogma is what every institution is about, including the secular state. The Catholic Church was required to do something it did not want to do, so it is withdrawing its services. Big deal. The Church would never have been put into the position of providing any public services if the state were willing to create enough institutions to provide these services in the first place; however, it is cheaper to give small amounts of money for those services to outside agencies willing to do them.

In a clash of beliefs, the writer is quite willing to see his belief imposed upon persons who do not share it rather than to respect others' beliefs and values. He also voices his disappointment with an institution he does not agree with or understand. The Church clearly told the state where their line in the sand was and the state took no steps to replace those services with services provided by someone else. Sometimes, compromise of belief is just not possible.

Of course, people who rely upon private agencies for a service are going to be angry that they can no longer access them, but the real question is, why is there an expectation that a private institution is obliged to provide those services in the first place?

Lawrence Oshanek

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