Perez’s reasoning faulty

Does Oscar Perez know what it’s like to be a teenage girl? I certainly don’t, so I won’t pretend to know what teenage girls are taking away from today’s pop songs.

I was a teenage male with a fresh driver’s license when “What’s Your Fantasy?” by Ludacris was a chart-topping hit; I did not try to persuade women to get in my back seat with the windows up.

I’ve heard over 20 years worth of music in my lifetime where male musicians objectify sex with women. I didn’t turn into a sexual deviant or malcontent. To think girls or women will do the same because female musicians are singing about male sexuality is a rather sexist and bigoted opinion.

Besides, did you just turn on the radio yesterday? Madonna is the top-selling female artist of all-time and she’s made a 20+ year career objectifying males and glorifying sex. And well before I was born, Arthea Franklin’s signature hit “Natural Woman” was about””you guessed it””sex with a man!

To go on a tirade about women sexually objectifying men but not mentioning songs where men objectify women is sexist. To draw opinions and correlations between teenage girls and the music they listen to without any supporting proof is an insult to those who have journalistic integrity.

Mr. Perez, next time you want to stand on your soapbox so arrogantly, please do more than wax philosophical on a faulty premise without any ground to stand on besides a clouded opinion.

Christopher Moss
Communication

Prop 23 misleading

Many voters are mistaken on Prop 23. It states that laws concerning greenhouse gas emissions will be suspended until the state unemployment rate is 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. It might sound like a good idea (though I don’t believe it would substantially affect jobs anyway), but with more background knowledge, this Prop plays on the economic ignorance of the voting population.

The unemployment rate is inversely related to the rate of inflation shown in the Phillips Curve. The higher the rate of inflation, the lower the rate of unemployment. For unemployment to decrease, inflation must increase, though the decrease in unemployment is only temporary. The natural rate of unemployment hovers around 6 percent, depending on economic factors like an industrial/technological boom that would drastically decrease the unemployment rate.

Prop 23 is sneaky. It suggests suspending environmental laws until state unemployment is at or below 5.5 percent (below the natural rate) for four consecutive quarters to re-establish the pollution regulations, yet this phenomenon is highly unlikely. For me, cleaning up the pollution in California and holding corporations responsible for their emissions is a far better alternative than falling prey to political tricks and allowing pollution to persist while waiting for an unemployment rate that has a slim chance of being realized.

Alyssa Smith
History, Economics

Objective facts on Prop 19

The Collegian’s section about Prop 19 lacks objectivity and facts. Law enforcement spends millions each year enforcing marijuana laws, bringing offenders to court, trying them, and housing them in state penitentiaries. Prop 19 would make these processes unnecessary and save the state millions. Saying that “there is no certainty that it would bring in a sizable amount of revenue” ignores that marijuana is California’s largest cash crop and brings in more money annually than California’s agriculture and dairy businesses combined.

No crop in California, including the most expensive wine grapes, approach the price of marijuana by volume. In 2008, a comparably tiny marijuana harvest, concentrated in a handful of Northern California counties, generated twice as much revenue as the state’s second leading cash crop, dairy (stats from Miller-McCune).

How would Prop 19 would be a “nightmare” for businesses? This argument’s emotional connotation is unmerited for the lack of substantiated facts explanations to support it.

Better “driving under the influence laws” can be developed only once Prop 19 is legalized and the scientific community can freely research the effects of marijuana on human participants. Simply suggesting that problems will arise ignores the probability that real, scientific research will be newly legalized, and will give the legal and scientific community a better understanding of marijuana’s effects.

Devin Harris
Psychology