Number of dead not important

Dear Editor:

I am the parent of a freshman, and do enjoy receiving the Daily Kent Stater online. It is an excellent college newsletter. I welcome the right for all opinions to be expressed.

I must take exception to the opinions of two of your editorial board in their piece “Story not a tribute to heroes” (11/01/05), especially in light of the recent recruiter activities on the Kent campus, as reported elsewhere – let alone the campus’ Vietnam protest legacy.

To state “the Times has distorted the significance of the number of the dead” makes me wonder if these two writers have an I.Q. above dull-normal. What a bizarre statement! What level of significance do they seek? Dead is dead – regardless of the Times‘ political agenda, whether it is the 1,999th or the 2,001st, or the war is just or unjust.

The deaths are fact – hard numbers. The faces of the grieving relatives and neighbors in the small villages and large cities they came from who line up at the funeral homes to view the bodies (those that can be viewed) are discreet numbers, too.

To suggest the images of these fallen heroes have been “hijacked” is a non-sequitur. The faces are real. To the two editorial staff members who wrote this piece, why don’t you take some time off and go attend the lying-in-state of the next 20 or so Americans who die in the Iraq War. You don’t even have to count – just look long and hard at their faces. Then come back and try to espouse the same editorial opinion.

Charles H. Barney

East Amherst, New York

Kent State females need compassion

Dear Editor:

After speaking with my friend this past Saturday, we dwelled on a problem that I have seen countless times at this university. Much of the female population lacks basic human functions like compassion and sympathy for others. Many of the females I have come into contact with these four years have exhibited a deficiency of this compassion for people they should supposedly support and love. They simply do not care. I never experienced such misdirected contempt, regardless of gender. For me personally, and probably many others here, they have come into my life, led me on, rearranged a few things, then left me for dead in the trash somewhere. That is a little melodramatic, but it emphasizes the point. My only question is, “why?”

Why this savage and atavistic lust to destroy the lives of well-meaning individuals? I blame it on blind self-absorption. Their lives are obviously too important to sacrifice anything for someone else. They may just get too wrapped up in the college life of excess. Still, there remains a small minority that actually does have an ounce of decency. This is not meant to offend, but I have never encountered such an idiosyncratic mass of individuals isolated to one area like this before. Perhaps it is just my problem and I need to adapt my search a bit. Perhaps the females feel the same way. Please help with this baffling and strange dilemma.

Patrick McCann

Class of 2005