Monday columnist Ben Prat was slightly inconvenienced by increased security at the post office. Please allow me to be the first to not give a damn. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to start complaining about the hassles that were sure to come about after Sept. 11, but I can’t believe Prat couldn’t even go two months.

Enemies penetrated our lines of defense. This safe nation became a lot less safe. Are we so spoiled that we can’t deal with longer waits at airports and more stringent regulations at the post office if those waits and regulations increase the security of this nation?

I’m not helping to rebuild New York and I’m not joining the Army, nor do I expect everyone here to. What I am doing is adjusting to what will be a permanently changed nation, and doing so with an understanding that my new daily inconveniences are worth the security they just might bring.

In short, suck it up. A pain in the ass might save an ass or two.

Dave Goldstein

Medill senior

NU offers treasure trove of resources to ILR students

For nearly four years, I’ve been a student in Northwestern’s Institute for Learning in Retirement Program on this beautiful lakefront campus. The terrors of Sept. 11 made me realize how lucky I have been during my lifetime. Before more time elapses, I want to thank the administration, staff and student body of NU for sharing its treasure troves — classrooms, “smart” labs, plays, concerts, art galleries, lectures and the library — with me and other ILR students.

An area on campus that I cherish is the Marjorie I. Mitchell Multimedia Center, which houses a video collection of over 12,454 titles, including feature films, performing art films and documentary films covering all subject areas.

In the media center Friday afternoon, I viewed a prophetic award-winning PBS documentary produced in 1994 titled, “Jihad in America,” which I recommend to those wishing to understand the events leading up to the horrors of the past month and a half.

Thanks again for all that you make available to me.

Leah Shifrin Averick

student, Institute for Learning in Retirement

Equating bad foreign policy with terrorism dead wrong

Throughout U.S. history, various presidential administrations have pursued ill-conceived and often cold-hearted tactics when dealing with other nations. Our government has supported cruel dictators, encouraged civil wars and fought seemingly pointless battles. But presidents have pursued poor policies because they believed they would inevitably help many more people than they would hurt. At no time has our government embraced the murder of innocent civilians simply for the sake of killing. Electing bad presidents does not make U.S. citizens terrorists.

In his Monday guest column, Colin Dixon wrote, “We label people terrorists because we don’t agree with their methods.”

But terrorism is not a simple matter of disagreement. Everyone is entitled to hold different values, but moral relativism is taken to an extreme in this case. Dixon is wrong: Terrorists are terrorists. Sometimes that which we label evil really is evil. There is no moral equivalency between genocide and bad foreign policy. No matter how one feels about Osama bin Laden’s grievances, there can be no justification for his actions.

We must stop bin Laden because he encourages indiscriminate killing. All human beings ought to recognize this inherent wrong. War alone will not eradicate violent fundamentalism, but if fighting can bring bin Laden to justice now, then war may be a necessary evil.

Jason Krigel

Weinberg junior