Reach for realistic solutions
In response to Andrew Jenson’s Oct. 18 columnYou have some good points in your writing, but I only agree with 90 percent of what’s been posted in the comment section in reply to your article.
Your piece had some pretty random statements, i.e. “Contraception and condoms do not work half as well as abstinence or marriage.”
Of course nothing works as well as abstinence, that’s true by definition. But telling people to not have sex to prevent things from happening isn’t educational, nor is it realistic. It is brushing a problem aside and hoping the problem will subside.
It’s very much analogous to the pope trying to convince the people of Africa that AIDS can be better cured by abstinence than by using a condom, in fact that example isn’t much different at all. The next comparison that contraception and condoms aren’t as effective as marriage is comparing apples to oranges.
You can still contract STDs if you’re married, and you can still get pregnant if you’re married. Also, a condom is a form of contraception so you’re being redundant there.
You say we dispose of consequences and use things as scapegoats to avoid responsibility. I would contend to you that you do the same by blindly preaching abstinence. Don’t expect to push morals and your faith on people and expect them to agree kindly with you.
–Cameron Hjeltness
Grad student
mechanical engineering
Man brave and bold
The recent firing of football coach Robb Akey caught my attention. It saddens me to see coach Akey — and I’ll always call him coach — leave this university.
When I arrived at school here in 2003, I went to the games, took the heat at family functions and made sure my brown paper bag hat was always with me.
Then something changed. From the west came a man brave and bold.
I will never forget watching at a friend’s house when Bowling Green went ahead with 32 seconds to play and the Vandals marched down the field and then went for the deuce. We were stunned. This wasn’t the Vandals I had come to know, the lovable losers who always choked at their greatest hour.
I gained something that day — something indefinable. I scoffed before at those who became invested, people who laughed and cried, lived and died with their heroes on the field. That day I walked out to join them.
I graduated from the University of Idaho that year. My first job was as a paperboy. I still remember when the man I was replacing pointed out an average house and said, “Robb Akey lives there.” That’s right. Me. I delivered his papers. Every morning around 4 a.m. I’d show up, put it in the box and think to myself, “Just doing my part, coach.”
I was there the next year when No. 2 Boise State came to the ASUI Kibbie Dome, probably the last time for the foreseeable future, and people were offering me hundreds of dollars for my season ticket. The ticket I paid $120 at the beginning. I wouldn’t have sold it for $1,000. Although they lost that game and many others since, for a while I believed. Thanks, coach.
“The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.” — Marcus Aurelius
–Cameron Leslie