Dear Editor:
The College Republicans aren't the only ones canvassing during this campaign season. More than 20 members of Students for Kerry, on behalf of the League of Conservation Voters, traveled to Philadelphia on the same day as the D.C. Federation of College Republicans. The only difference was that our humble AU contingency managed to canvass approximately 200 more houses in one afternoon than their entire D.C.-wide effort could muster in an entire weekend.
I'm also happy to report that almost half of the registered Republicans I talked to said they would be voting for Kerry on Nov. 2. Let's hope for the same results when more than 50 of us travel to Florida this weekend to ensure that, this time, a recount will not be necessary.
Brian Conway Treasurer, Students for Kerry Sophomore, SIS
Dear Editor:
The Eagle, at first glance, seems to have imposed an unnecessarily harsh response to guest columnist Joshua Wu for allegedly lifting excerpts from a published book without citation. In her reasoning for banning Wu from ever writing again for The Eagle, Editor Anne Godlasky cites the page's "high standards of originality."
Unfortunately, the paper's op-eds have been anything but original lately. Most of the paper's columns on national politics merely parrot the talking points from Republican and Democratic spokespeople. If anything, Wu's column was quite original - the subject of faith is not usually tackled on the college paper's op-ed section.
Furthermore, one of the examples that Godlasky cites as plagiarism does not seem to be that evident to me. The original author cited a secondary source for his findings, and Wu paraphrased the original author's findings - giving him due credit.
The Boston Globe had to deal with a similar situation with its featured columnist Jeff Jacoby, who cribbed a column from another author verbatim. He was suspended for four months but wasn't banned from the paper. The Eagle chose to deliver a much harsher punishment when the crime, in my view, was much less serious.
Josh Kraushaar Alumnus, Class of 2004, CAS
