Americans’ privilege to vote is not granted to all

Dear Editor,

“With privilege comes great responsibility.” We live in one of the richest, most comfortable and safest countries in the world. We have some of the best public schools, access to the finest medical technologies and a justice system that does a remarkable job of keeping the peace.

Even the poorest person living in this country has access to clean drinking water, something that _% of the world is lacking. Unlike many governments, ours is controlled by the people. We choose our representatives and lawmakers thereby influencing how our country is run. Every American citizen over the age of 18 has the right to vote, and yet how many of us don’t?

This summer, I had the opportunity to travel to the Canary Islands. One evening at dinner, a waiter stopped at my table to talk to me. “Who is to win the election?” he asked in his heavily accented English. We talked for a while and I was ashamed by my lack of knowledge about the upcoming elections. Clearly he had been doing his research.

Finally, I said “I think you know more about this than I do,” and his response was, “You in America do not understand how much your choices can change our lives.” We are being bombarded by campaigning; maybe you are fed up with the whole process. However, before you decide not to bother with it, I think it is important to remember our responsibility.

Not only are we responsible for choosing the President of the United States but we are also the select few who get to choose a World Leader. So if you wonder whether it is worth voting try explaining why you didn’t to someone who wishes they could have.

Emilie Dunlop

sophomore exercise science major

The word “like” doesn’t belong in a newspaper

Dear Editor,

I don’t appreciate the columns that you’ve been allowing to run in the Daily Kent Stater. I can’t tell if I’m reading a valley girl’s diary or a “Clueless” monologue, but I’m sure it doesn’t belong in a newspaper. I am a junior PR major, which is very similar to journalism, and I read The New York Times, the USA Today, and the Daily Kent Stater every day. To be blunt, I simply can’t digest any more adolescent teenybopper writing in our newspaper. Unless the columnist is making a simile, the word “like” doesn’t belong in a sentence. I’ve had like all I can take. I’m ashamed as a Kent State student and disgusted as a writer. I’ve read about the pains of getting a minor haircut, and the Halloween costume ideas of a dog, and I simply don’t see how anybody is benefitting from reading these. If you’re truly starved for ideas, perhaps the paper should simply do away with the vexing, unimportant columns and only run them when something is worth running. In the mean time, you can expect this reader/writer to abstain from reading the columns. If I wanted to read a paper that didn’t matter to me, I’d pick up the University of Akron’s Buchtelite.

Jason Clevenger

junior public relations major