"Fusion" review prudish and insensitive
I was bothered by the overwhelmingly negative review given to Dance Ensemble's Fusion ("Dance 'Fusion' Storms Robsham," Dec. 3). My objections refer mostly to Mr. Neese's discomfort with the level of sexual energy present in the show.
Mr. Neese, how old are you? The suggestions that the dancers used every opportunity to sex up the show and draw a more male crowd are absurd. I attended an equally invigorating and entertaining performance two years ago and the audience was more or less the same, both in demographic and enthusiasm. By describing the performance as "dumbed down," you wrongly slander the members of Dance Ensemble who put much time and effort into creating a production that was, in the opinion of a humble student with two left feet, fresh and eclectic.
I hope this response reminds you to be more sensitive to the efforts of the students who put on such productions. I also hope that the next time I see your name in a letter to the editor, it is expressing praise of one of your articles, not displeasure.
Madeleine Carson
A&S '08
Chanukkah celebrations explained
The Hillel board wanted to wish campus a happy Chanukah! This year, the Jewish "festival of lights" falls between Dec. 5 to Dec. 11. Although the holiday is often seen as the "Jewish Christmas," it is actually a minor holiday celebrating the victory of the Jewish Maccabee family army over the Greek tyrant Antiochus. After the victory, the Jerusalem Temple had to be rededicated. However, there was only a small jar of oil to kindle the Temple's eternal light. It miraculously lasted for eight days until a new supply of oil arrived.
To commemorate these miracles, Jewish families light the Chanukah menorah, a nine-branched lamp, on each of the holiday's eight nights. It is traditional to eat foods fried in oil, such as "latkes" (potato pancakes) and "sufganyot" (donuts), give children "gelt" (traditionally money, but now chocolate coins), and play "dreidel" (a spinning-top game).
We invite the campus to share these traditions with us on Dec. 9 at 6 p.m. at our Chanukah celebration. For more information, contact Gulienne Rollins, Hillel president, at rolling@bc.edu.
Wishing you eight crazy nights,
BC Hillel
Students make grocery shuttles a success
On behalf of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC), I would like to thank everybody who used the UGBC Grocery Shuttles over the past month. We ran these shuttles as a pilot program to demonstrate to the University that there is demand for this service. Based on the ridership we received, I believe that there is a demand for shuttles to the grocery store.
Over winter break, members of the UGBC will prepare a proposal to the University using the data collected from each week. We also plan to explore possible funding donations from area grocery stores based on how much money students on the shuttle buses spent at the stores. We are working hard to make grocery shuttles a permanent service for the BC community.
As a result of a misunderstanding with Boston Coach this past weekend, we received a refund and are able to run one more shuttle during one of the first weeks of next semester. We hope to see you all there, and more information will follow. If you have any comments on the grocery shuttles, positive or negative, please e-mail them to bcgrocerysundays@gmail.com. We would really like to hear your feedback in our efforts to ensure the future of this program.
Michael Bisanz
Executive Director of Student Life, UGBC
A&S '08
Military a blend of service, opportunity
I was heartened to see a letter from 2nd Lt. Matt Collier, BC '06, in the Dec. 3 edition of The Heights. As Matt's two-year roommate and a Navy officer myself, I feel obligated to offer my insight. The fact is that the military shares many of the same values that Boston College as a community represents. For every Abu Ghraib, there are great deeds that go unnoticed by the mass media.
When a tsunami devastated my parents' homeland, Indonesia, a Navy Carrier battle group was among the first entities to offer humanitarian assistance. During Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard worked to the brink of exhaustion to rescue survivors. The military offers more than many realize to motivated individuals. Where Matt's pilot training will translate to a six-figure airline job, the Navy pays me over $75,000 a year to cover my DMD program for only four years of service. Others may acquire valuable technical or health-related skills.
The military will not be a great fit for many, even the most patriotic of students, but many of you may find the perfect blend of opportunity, service to others, and service to your country.
Michael Lee
Tufts DMD '11, Ensign, U.S. Navy
BC '06
Eagle Eye View
AIDS not equal-opportunity
A few years before the Class of 2008 was born, Gay-related Immune Deficiency (GRID) was the correct way to describe AIDS. This changed in 1982, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bestowed the disease with the name AIDS and named four groups as "risk factors" for HIV infection: homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, and Haitians.
Since that time, there have been huge changes in the amount of information on HIV and AIDS and amazing advances in medical science. The New York Times had an article last week saying that AIDS is now stabilizing and conforming to the classic epidemic paradigm ("A Time to Rethink AIDS's Grip" by Donald G. McNeil Jr.).
The knowledge that AIDS reflects other epidemic patterns gives us a framework within which to view the disease and extrapolate effective prevention strategies. This is not the only framework that is relevant to HIV and AIDS, however. The spread of HIV and AIDS also reflects hegemony and access to resources, whether they be information, funds, or political clout.
Within the United States, AIDS was the fourth-leading cause of death among African Americans (13 percent of the population; 48 percent of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses in 2005) ages 25 to 44 in 2004. Though overlap exists, men who have sex with men represented 53 percent of the new HIV diagnoses in the United States in 2005. HIV and AIDS thus manage to be both gay and racialized, as well as non-gay and non-racialized, because they affect people from every community, though their effects are felt most by certain communities.
In addition to queer people and people of color, women who are unable to use condoms in their relationships, youths and adults who never learn safer sex practices, the insurance-less, and those living in countries with monopolized drug markets have a relationship to HIV and AIDS that is inextricably linked to their social positions. Therefore, treating and preventing HIV and AIDS requires a solution that deals with more than anti-retroviral drugs and condoms; treating and preventing HIV and AIDS requires that we also address issues of power.
Lindsay Darras
A&S '08
2008 Woodie Awards
