Katrina underscores the need for more university search and rescue team members
In addition to donating to the American Red Cross, university students, staff and faculty can learn about disaster response and train to become search and rescue responders by joining the Potomac Valley Rescue Group, an SGA-sponsored student organization.
Over the past week, PVRG has been on alert to respond to the Gulf area. The internal mobilization and coordination for such a response has taught us many lessons and made us ask many questions.
One of the most important questions raised is: What would we do if a similar emergency occurred closer to home? Would we be prepared? Of course, it is impossible to plan for every conceivable disaster. However, every person can do their part by learning life-saving and survival skills, assembling a disaster response pack and knowing what to do and what not to do in the event of an emergency.
PVRG is a great place to learn some of these skills. Our team always looks for new members, and even if you can’t make all of our searches, you can come to our weekly training sessions or help us in other ways so we may better work to find missing people, downed aircrafts and respond to disaster situations like this one. For more information check out our website at www.pvrg.org.
Feel free to contact me at (240) 643-9635 or (301) 226-0259 if you have any questions.
Jeff Wharton
PVRG President
Senior
Physiology and neurobiology
Response was hypocritical in use of stereotypes, missed the point of sarcastic challenge
I think Joshua Berman’s rebuttal (“Debunk Greek Myths,” from Sept. 8) to Amie Ward’s criticism of Greek life (“Greek cult selection made easy,” from Sept. 7) was off on two counts. He started well by noting how people use stereotypes to make sense of the world; however, he immediately became dismissive, and implied Ward was jealous based on speculation that she was once unpopular. How can he attack her for using stereotypes when he begins a paragraph by saying “I am sure you can imagine the type…”
Berman also showed that he missed the point of Ward’s column. Ward’s sarcasm was a commentary on, well, the Greek stereotype. Congratulations to the individuals who break the mold, but you can’t say that the people who fit the stereotype don’t exist at all. There are plenty of fools who play right into the type, who define their worth by clothes and how good they are at beer pong. Those are the people Ward is challenging with her opinion. I truly doubt Ward believes all Greeks are like that; however, there is no need for her to bite her tongue when addressing the ones who are.
Chris Short
Class of 2004
Offender, not alcohol, responsible for crime
I was astounded to read Kelly Tavenner’s comments (“‘Innocent parties’ do contribute to crime; if you’re concerned about campus safety, stop taking up officers’ time with parties” from Sept. 7) regarding policing policies that favor disrupting underage drinking over patrolling for violent crime.
Her arguments distort notions of personal responsibility. She says it is “just ridiculous” to claim alcohol consumption doesn’t lead to crimes in College Park. Claims such as these obscure the connection between the ingestion of a particular drug and its effect on a particular person.
No drug, including alcohol, automatically makes people act in a certain way. In the course of several nights of drinking the same amount of alcohol, the same student might become a bit louder, a bit quieter or a bit more emotional. On another similar night of drinking, the student might not exhibit any outward indication of having ingested alcohol. If we add other individuals to the equation, we’d find an even more diverse set of responses.
Assertions that people commit violent crimes because they drink alcohol ignore these realities. Furthermore, they take responsibility away from an offender and place it into a liquid. We should leave the responsibility for actions in people, not kegs of beer or handles of liquor.
Brian Robinson
Senior
Government and politics
