In response to the Dec. 1 editorial, “An unfair ‘weight’ for a diploma” by the Daily Kent Stater editorial board:

“Is that rule going to be enforced on the members of the football team? If so, most of the defensive linemen will fail to graduate with their peers. You can impose those restrictions in the military, but not in the civilian world. If you start teaching children when they are young to eat right and provide them with a real gym workout when they are young, then they have a chance, but it’s the parents of these children who are mostly at fault for over-feeding these kids and producing overweight and obese adults. There are some people who, due to medical concerns, cannot get down to this BMI, but forcing adult children to adhere to this or not graduate is not realistic. Their parents will simply take them out of school and transfer them to another college.”

-jane

In response to the Dec. 1 guest column, “Protect yourselves on campus” by Matthew Dermody:

“A well-written and well-intentioned article, but completely unexpected from an international relations major. Usually the curriculum in that field tends to encourage dialogue before guns.

Keep in mind that campus policy does not only prohibit concealed guns, but guns in general. And while your 10-college experiment (out of 1,055 total NCAA institutions) is a start, I would hardly think it convincing to the 26,000 or so people on campus at any given moment.

But if you must have guns and you think that guns keep you safe, then I would suggest carrying it on the outside and foregoing the CCW training altogether. Nothing says I’m trained in firearms like a long-barrel Smith & Wesson .357 hanging from your shoulder-harness or slung from your waist.”

-Mr. Duck

In response to the Dec. 3 column, “Sins of the flesh” by Theresa Bruskin:

“I didn’t notice the discrepancy either. Thanks for pointing it out!

Language changes with changing times and cultures. Doubtless the ‘flesh-coloured’ description came from a journalist striving for an adjective to describe the colour of the garment, not thinking of the discrepancy in tone between garment and wearer. I suspect that this sort of error will become less common in the future.

‘Partner’ is a useful word to describe a multitude of relationships, and so it is seized upon by those wishing to note a relationship without giving offence. But I wonder if we will see the term fragment to describe more specific relationships. It seems odd to use one word to cover (say) a member of a business partnership and a spouse of a lesbian marriage.

Undoubtedly as community attitudes become more enlightened, language use and word choice will follow suit. Perhaps one day we won’t describe the female sector of the community as being a minority – in most nations there are more women than men.

Thank you, Theresa, for highlighting jarring uses of language. The more that people have discrepancies pointed out to them, the more chance that discrepancies in community attitudes will follow suit.”

-Skyring

In response to the Dec. 4 column, “The real outrage of D.C.” by Sonali Kudva:

“I don’t blame them for crashing the party, nor do I disagree with the attention they’re receiving. They were smart enough to get themselves into a party with Obama, his wife, Biden and many more famous officials – it’s not their fault the Secret Service is putting Obama in danger. I heard after this happened that Congress was thinking about ‘punishing them’ so nobody tries that stunt again. Punish them? We should be thanking them! Fire those Secret Service agents; they’re putting the president of the free world in danger. This shows a major flaw in our security system. If I could crash a government party as big as that, I would do it in a heartbeat. If the Secret Service can’t stop me, oh well. Not my fault.”

-Alan Rhea