Letters To The Editor

China Connections

I was surprised at how eager Joel McCormick was to gloss over human rights abuses in China (“China.com,” September/October). He devotes all of one sentence to a journalist who received a two-year prison sentence for commemorating Tiananmen Square on the web. He dismisses religious oppression and political codes of silence with the same flippant enthusiasm. In addition to being a country where Stanford alumni can hope to make lots of money, China is also a country where the government sells off the organs of executed prisoners. It’s a country where a woman who gets pregnant a second time and refuses to have an abortion will lose her job and be denied admission to a hospital for delivery. Is profitability the only thing Stanford alumni are interested in when it comes to discussing emerging relations with this country?

Courtney Guest Kim, ’92
Houston, Texas

Regarding the cover story subtitle, “In China’s land of opportunity, some Stanford entrepreneurs are changing the country that’s changing the world,” similar words describe the United States for my family. My paternal grandfather, Ow Wat, emigrated from China to the Palo Alto area in 1922. He was an entrepreneur who had a thriving business delivering laundry to Stanford students from 1936 to 1942.

He also owned a laundry near David Packard’s electronic production shop. As a 4-year-old, my father, James Jue, would gather punched-out round metal chips made from chassis collected from garbage drums behind Mr. Packard’s shop. Mr. Packard showed him the vacuum tube chassis, and years later visited him at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. My dad worked for SLAC for 34 years as a package designer, building chassis for engineers and scientists and coordinating systems.

My paternal grandmother, Mabel Chew, worked as a cook and nanny from 1927-28 for the first woman graduate from Stanford Law School, Mary Conway Kohler. They became good friends; Mrs. Kohler helped my grandmother divorce her first husband, who had run off with another woman. She also later helped my grandmother and her entrepreneurial second husband, Ow Wat, obtain a laundry contract at Moffett Field.

My maternal grandfather, John K. Chen, graduated from Peking University first in his class, and immigrated to the United States in 1972. He worked at the Hoover Institution, translating Chinese texts and calligraphy and helping professors understand what was going on in China.

Stanford’s connections in China run long and deep, and will become even stronger with the new program at Peking University. I am grateful that the United States was the land of opportunity for my grandparents, allowing my connections to Stanford to run long and deep.

Miranda Ow, ’84
Alhambra, California

Homegrown Apathy

I wonder if there aren’t deeper reasons for the voting apathy among today’s youth than ineffective student councils (“Teaching Apathy,” September/October). The seeds of cynicism were more likely sown many years before within their homes, by their parents.

Far too many parents deliberately or inadvertently embed within the impressionable young minds of their children hardened, cynical views not to trust government, not to trust politicians, that government does not work, that all politicians are irresponsible, that government workers are shiftless, that all these politicians do is waste money and raise taxes, and therefore my vote doesn’t really matter, doesn’t really count—so why vote?

In my own experience, as someone who values (and exercises) his right to vote,
I believe that it was my parents who instilled such values, which endured even through my own experience of an ineffective high school government. Both my parents voted in practically every major and minor election, and all of us children were well aware of this from an early age.

I agree with Alexis de Tocqueville that Americans tend to belong to voluntary associations and that this “associationalism” teaches us civic virtues indispensable to self-government. Nevertheless, if a young child’s mind is poisoned by parents with diatribes against the government and against the profound importance of the constitutional right to vote, I doubt that any young person is going to care much about any form of government—student, local, state or federal.

Donald A. Bentley, MS ’82
La Puente, California

Car Culture

Leave it to the professors and college students to tell us what cars to buy and their cultural impact (“Heavy Metal” September/October). How does the notion of an elite, biased media/academia get fueled anyway?

Your article comments on many points, all designed to condemn the SUV. Given that many of your readers own at least one SUV, are you suggesting that we just don’t know any better? I loved the student who traded his $55,000 SUV for a $75,000 SUV. Great.

College professors are notoriously embarrassed by the actions of the United States, its people and policies. Don’t fret, though; when we’re all out of oil this won’t be an issue.

Tom Shellworth, ’78
Vacaville, California

Native Names

Laura McDaniel reports that Nathaniel Corum is continuing the American tradition of teaching the native peoples of America how to live (“Bale Bonding,” Being There, September/October). I am confident he is well intended, but I wonder how much he sought to learn about the peoples he wants to help. At the very least, he and McDaniel ought to know what the peoples he is helping call themselves.

McDaniel reports, “Turtle Mountain Reservation . . . is home to 8,000 Chippewa. . . .” Many Anishinâbe-Ojibwe believe the word Chippewa came from the inability of Europeans to pronounce “Otchipwe.” Today, we call ourselves “Ojibwe” (Oh-Jib-Way).

Robert A. Fairbanks, MA ’84
Leech Lake Ojibwe
Norman, Oklahoma

Ethics for Some?

I note with disappointment, but not surprise, in your article “Ethically Speaking” (Farm Report, September/October), three separate pictures of the Abu Ghraib prisoner infamously adorned in black robe and hood. The article goes on to mention Abu Ghraib prison and the abuses committed by our troops there. I agree, it is a shame that these things occurred.

What disappoints me is the lack of any pictures or mention of the mass graves created by the previous Iraq regime, the Iraqi thugs preparing to behead defenseless prisoners, Iraqi mobs mutilating dead bodies, Chechen murderers planting explosives amongst innocent schoolchildren, suicide murder bombings of noncombatants in Palestine and Iraq, and innocent victims of the Twin Towers leaping to their deaths to escape being burned alive by the flying murderers on 9/11. Am I to assume that these topics will not be covered in the ethics class? That ethics only applies to Americans, and radical Islamists get a pass? It seems to me that we should all be held to the same standard.

I find the comment that [the Abu Ghraib abuses] “ . . . focused on the need for the United States to play by international rules” laughable. What “international rules”? Those exemplified by the cases I just cited?

Bill Lorton, ’64
San Jose, California

Sexuality, Marriage and Vitriol

The vitriol in the September/October Letters to the Editor regarding gay marriage was stunning for the prejudiced and prehistoric notions that were shared. How does someone compare my long-term, loving and committed relationship with my partner of six years to that of a 60-year-old man loving a 12-year-old girl? My partner and I can’t have children because we are in a same-sex relationship?

One of the writers said he was “saddened” to see Stanford align itself with a lesbian-gay agenda. The magazine should be applauded for recognizing that the University’s alumni come in all shapes, sizes, religions, races, genders and sexual orientations. What is sad is that some of my fellow graduates cannot see past their bigotry to be open to accepting their gay and lesbian friends, neighbors and—yes—family members who wish to live their lives, love, have children and be left in peace.

Susan Frank, ’88
Mountain View, California

As a graduate student in communication during the height of America’s AIDS panic, I produced and directed the first film on AIDS to be broadcast on PBS. These were the days when homophobes used the AIDS epidemic to spread hatred and fear. I will forever appreciate how Stanford’s faculty, staff and students were entirely supportive of my filmmaking efforts. As a result, “Living With AIDS” went on to win a number of top professional honors, including an Emmy. While making the film I came out as a lesbian and, I am pleased to say, did not encounter homophobia while on campus.

I understand that some people may be opposed to gay marriage but am deeply troubled by the type of sentiment that led one correspondent to compare same-sex love to that of the “love between a 60-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl,” which most of us know as pedophilia. Another beseeched your publication to stop publishing articles about issues relating to gender and sexual orientation in order to “spare us further embarrassment.” What a sad, sad state of affairs.

Tina DiFeliciantonio, MA ’87
New York, New York

Many alumni firmly support our gay, lesbian and transgendered classmates and peers across the country. We respect their right to enjoy the same freedoms and privileges as other Americans, and feel nothing but shame ourselves for those who twist religion into a tool of discrimination and hatred. Stanford has always represented freedom, forward thinking and open-mindedness, and I applaud the magazine for embodying those ideals in its publishing.

Mariah Ruth, ’99
New Haven, Connecticut

The collection of letters was stunning. One of the common themes, that marriage is ordained (by nature or by God) for procreating children, leads me to wonder why our society doesn’t then prohibit marriage by postmenopausal women, or men and women who are infertile. And why doesn’t our society allow marriage by individuals who are able to procreate, such as 8- to 10-year-old girls and 11- to 12-year-old boys? The reasons for and justifications of marriage are more complex than simply procreation. The “nature” argument falls short and loses credibility if seen to its logical end.

Carol Caronna, MA ’94, PhD ’00
Towson, Maryland

In seeming to endorse, or endorsing, same-sex marriage, transgendered professors and openly lesbian staff members, Stanford (or its alumni magazine) is no different than many other universities in the United States, Canada and Europe. Are all of them also dens of iniquity, signs of the downfall of Western civilization, and thorns in the sides of their alumni?

The qualities that the letters have in common are hostility, rigidity and prejudice. I wonder what these alumni learned during their time at Stanford, other than to satisfy themselves that received wisdom never needs to be questioned.

Frank Lester, ’88
Ann Arbor, Michigan

I am ashamed to share my Stanford degree with people who have the gall to condemn others so vituperatively and ignorantly. Such perspectives kept me in the closet throughout most of my years at the Farm, not to mention resulting in great emotional and psychological difficulties, and they continue to be responsible for elevated rates of depression and suicide in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities— especially among our youth.

I was delighted and proud to see Stanford’s coverage of the weddings and of Professor Joan Roughgarden’s work. As a scholar of gender studies, queer studies, and religion, I can attest to the ongoing need for greater visibility of these issues and life experiences both in academic research and in the public arena. But perhaps the aforementioned letters themselves attest to that need.

Melissa M. Wilcox, ’93
Walla Walla, Washington

Stanford has always been, and I hope will continue to be, a place where all sorts of people can creatively, peacefully and intellectually coexist. Gay people are a fact of life; we are not going to go away. We do all the things that make the world work and we deserve an equal place at the table. Discrimination has no place at Stanford and no place in the Constitution of the United States.

I have never been moved to give to the Stanford Fund but now I will, as long as my money keeps the doors of my beloved University open to gays and lesbians who want to marry, and people, like [correspondent] Jennifer Cullins, who clearly need more education.

Noel B. Rosales MD, ’82
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Sexual orientation doesn’t call for moral judgment. Embedded in DNA and perhaps enhanced by nurture during our earliest and most plastic years, sexual preference is involuntary. So why should we deny gays partnership privileges? Would legal recognition of gay partnership subvert parentage and religion?

My Roman Catholic friend finds her granddaughter’s lesbian partnership, and the artificial insemination of the mother-to-be, a loving commitment to God’s desire for monogamous nurturance. My friend knows that without some recognition of her right to equality, her granddaughter would suffer from alienation and self-distrust—invalidated and invalided by a social convention which has insisted gays are mentally warped. Some homosexuals opt out of straight society to become the stereotypical alcoholic “fairy” or “dyke.” Many others, like me, withdraw into themselves—accommodating, bland, cramped, weak as water.

I’m a retired professor who only now, as a protected 81-year-old, feels free to sign a letter like this. Questioning myself, I lost effectiveness, the ability to communicate genuinely with students, to question and guide them. The voice of society reverberated within me: “You’re inauthentic; you’re not entitled to lead a discussion; you violate tradition.”

Yet isn’t the very tradition of America that of freedom and individualism in all activities not harmful to others? Isn’t marriage a mutual contract, free from mystical dogma or governmental okays?

Today, homosexuality is no longer classified as a disease. We have to
junk the crippling social construct of homosexuality as deviation. Let’s honor our tradition, “Let the winds of freedom blow.”

Hugh Mooney, ’44, PhD ’52
Yountville, California

Sin of Omission

An addition to the "Sports Shorts" (Farm Report, September/October): Mary Sloan Siegrist, ’02, currently in the PhD program in public health/microbiology at Harvard, ran the 1,500 meters in the recent Athens Olympics, where she represented Guam.

Henry G. Siegrist,
Barrigada, Guam

About Bloomingdale's

I am writing to offer a small correction to your recent piece on the Stanford Shopping Center ("Bloomingdale's Across the Street . . . Priceless," July/August). You claim that "in 1996, Stnaford became home to the first Bloomingdale's west of Chicago." In fact, the first Bloomingdale's west of Chicago (and west of the Mississippi River) opened in 1992 at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

Stacey Pelika, MA ’97
Madison, Wisconsin

Caribou Conundrum

I am embarrassed by the irresponsible story about the caribou photograph ("Students to Bush: Get the Science right," Farm Report, July/August) and how it can be considered a misrepresentation [on the part of] the Bush administration. Graduate student Stephen Porder is using a single, insignificant, irrelevant and probably incorrect observation to justify his political opinion.

Here is an important fact that he and his scientist pals may want to look up: female caribou have antlers. There appear to be several females in the picture, and at least one calf. Furthermore, a recent study (http://www.anwr.org/features/pdfs/faces-caribou.pdf) stated that the Central Arctic caribou herd near the Prudhoe Bay oil field has grown more than sevenfold since Prudhoe Bay development began in the mid-1970s.

By what scientific measure is the pipeline considered a detriment to the caribou? A more plausible explanation as to why more females are not pictured in photographs with oil field equipment is that male caribou are physically more impressive. Speculation about other reasons, without interviewing the photographer, can hardly be considered scientific.

Steven M. Tipton, MS ’78, PhD ’85
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Square Circles

I was taken by the title "Back to Square Roots" (Showcase, July/August), because folk and square dancing already had strong roots when I was a student. There were several classes taught in the women's gym; the Stanford Hoedowners gave performances in MemAud as well as at festivals; and we even had a tour out of state one summer.

Although many student groups break up after graduation, the Hoedowners have not. We have our own square-dance band and have met at least once a year since graduation either in Nevada City or Santa Cruz. We greatly miss Willie Grishaw, ’52, MD ’55, who was our original caller, but Dick Jacqua, ’53, Engr. ’59, who was a pupil of Lloyd Shaw, is ably taking his place behind the microphone. If any of the Cardinal Whirlwinds would care to join us, we would be delighted to have their company.

Alan Wilmunder, ’53
Palo Alto, California

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