Capital pubishment misses targetJeff Gaither’s satire of lethal injection makes a legitimate point, but focuses on a symptom instead of the problem.Capital punishment by the state assumes that the debt a criminal owes is to society or the government rather than to the victims. When such a criminal is executed no retribution, save psychological, is made to the victims. The loss has not been repaid, and now a second loss, the life of the criminal, has been incurred.For example: Mary’s husband John has been murdered by Bob. The state has tried and convicted Bob and he is set for execution. Mary is now poor and destitute without John’s income. Yet she continues to pay taxes, her share of which may be wholly absorbed by the cost of incarcerating Bob until his execution, which will also be costly. How has Mary been helped?How has justice been served? She may feel a good deal safer, but she is much the worse off.How much better if Bob were compelled to make retribution to Mary. Mary and Bob’s taxes would be put to better use than his incarceration. Mary will have recovered some portion of her lost income. Bob will have recovered a portion of his dignity and the whole of his life. There is a risk to such a proposal, that Bob may run off and murder somone else. We must then ask ourselves which we value more highly: security or liberty? To answer security is to give in to fear which enslaves us. Liberty, in contrast, leads to personal responsibility which encourages productivity and peaceful resolutions to conflict. We ought to be willing to take the risks of liberty.
Nathanael SnowJunior, Economics
Rowe knows — and gets — sexIn response to Emily Westmoreland’s letter, let me assure the readers of Viewpoint that Mr. Rowe knows sex and is indeed getting some.
Rachel ZajacSenior, Environmental Technology
Band does what it canAs a current staff member for the marching band and someone who spent the previous two seasons marching, I feel that Allen Robson and many others need to understand that the price of taking the band to away games is not low by all means. Two years ago the band was able to take less than 50 people to the game at Clemson. Compared to a lot of college marching band budgets, ours is rather small. We are not the Marching Chiefs of FSU who, when they cannot make it to a game, have the money to pay another band to go in their place. The band would love to be able to go to every away game and not just that but it would be nice if the whole band were able to go to every away game. Our director is working on trying to get us to more away games but it takes time to get everything to go through the system. If you feel such the need to have the band at away games you can shell out the five digits it takes to get the band places. Unless you or anyone else that has a problem with the marching band not being at away games can give us that money please do not critisize the band for not being there.
Jessianne PipkinsJunior, Religious StudiesMarching Band Music Librarian
Tip o’ the hatHats off to a number of N.C. faculty members who along with many State students have been very helpful in discussing and evaluating various musical projects with which I have been involved in the Triangle region in recent years. Regardless of their areas of academic specialization, their comments and observations have certainly been beneficial to this writer-musician’s composition initiatives, recording projects and performance objectives.
And in this latest round of musical activities, I wish to acknowledge timely advice and assistance from two State professors in particular.
Dr. William Erchul of the NCSU Psychology Department, who also happens to be an accomplished player of the acoustic guitar, the dobro and the pedal steel guitar, brought two of these instruments to a recording session for the recently released “Changin’ My Mind” CD by our Cleaver Smith Swenson & McKnight band, playing dobro and pedal steel guitar tracks on six of the songs and instrumentals on the CD.
Among these is an original song, “I’m Back in Texas Again,” which wouldn’t have sounded nearly so Texas-like if it hadn’t been for Dr. Erchul’s great pedal steel lines, which gave the song more of a traditional Lone Star State flavor, especially since it was in Austin that Professor Erchul acquired his knowledge of the steel guitar while earning his Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Texas.
Dr. Gerald Huntington of the NCSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences rendered an important contribution to composition efforts in another way through informal conversations about day-to-day farming and ranching life in the state of South Dakota, which along with its neighbor, North Dakota, is the subject of our new original mandolin instrumental, “Dakota Dash,” one in a series of tunes we are writing about the Western states.
So many thanks to all State faculty for “going the extra mile” in helping out your neighbors and making the NCSU-Hillsborough Street community an inviting venue for people from all walks of life.
David McKnightHillsborough Street Fiddler
’50s wasn’t all that greatMeghan Woodall, in your column on 10/27, you indicate that journalists’ cynical world view may be responsible for the breakdown of social cohesion. Maybe society’s ills have a few additional causes, including pride, greed and lust. Those of us who experienced the 1950s remember a society built on prejudice, repression, self-deceit, exploitation and corruption. I Love Lucy offered escapism, not leadership. In that sense, it was very similar to the perspective delivered by the Republican leadership for the past six years. No doubt we’ll be watching re-runs of the Bush administration for many years to come. Many of the episodes are as goofy as anything Lucille Ball could have dreamed up.
Albert Scadino
