Law should promote compassion, reason

Dear Editor:

I’m new to Kent State, and I haven’t been keeping up with the Trimble case, but I don’t need to know the facts surrounding it to know Trimble should not be sentenced to death. A person’s court sentence should not primarily be a reflection of the gruesomeness of his or her crimes. If anything, one’s sentence should be based off of the ways and degrees to which one broke the law.

I agree that all decisions of life and death should be tempered with reason and compassion. But wouldn’t a life sentence be more compassionate than a death sentence? Wouldn’t anything be more compassionate than a death sentence?

Let’s take one of your opinions and really run with it. Those responsible for gruesome deaths should be killed? How about Kent State students? What about us? We go out on the weekends and spend money on drinks, drugs, movies, clothes and all kinds of things. Yet, don’t thousands of people die gruesome deaths each day from malnutrition and starvation? We all know this, but each of us is simply too good at forgetting about all of that.

I wouldn’t think for a second about having to buy my clothes from, say, Wal-Mart or Goodwill, so that my closest friends could have enough to eat from day to day. Think of all the creature comforts you have afforded yourself over the years – years that certainly weren’t devoid of starving masses full of people who needed $20 much more than you did. Don’t we all have blood on our hands?

Forget about how an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. If we killed gruesome killers, a gigantic portion of humankind would end up dead. So yes, we need reason and compassion – we need to use them to promote and sustain life rather than seek to end it.

Andrew Schiller

Sophomore communications major

Reveal the facts about task force block funding

Dear Editor:

Just as the Kent State administration recently reprimanded Undergraduate Student Senate boss Bill Ross regarding May 4 Task Force block funding, somebody also needs to put Stater editors in their place this semester. Why does the Stater continue to refuse to reveal the whole story of this doomed controversy manufactured by Bill Ross and a few biased Stater editors?

Recently, your newspaper has published two Stater staff editorials and two front page stories, and always fails to mention the most important point about this block funding issue. In 2003, it was Kent State students who voted overwhelmingly to grant annual block funding to the May 4 Task Force to ensure annual commemorations of Kent State’s 1970 tragedy.

Why does the Stater prefer to repeatedly hide the fact that Kent State students voted to create block funding for the May 4 Task Force? Why deny the fact that in 2003, many campus organizations (including the Stater editors, USS, BUS, KSU Greeks and others) supported annual guaranteed funding for the May 4 Task Force?

Why deceive 2005 Kent State students about 2003 events, including that year’s Stater editorial board support for this unique block funding? Will your editors continue to be so dishonest until you are replaced by probably more enlightened Stater editors next semester?

Please tell the whole story so the community can understand why sensitive Kent State leaders understand the impossibility of disregarding a 2003 vote by Kent State students in support of the May 4 Task Force. Any misguided attempt to subvert the 2003 Kent State election referendum vote will trigger national controversy.

Alan Canfora

Director, Kent May 4 Center