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Time-honored rivalry takes a back seat

The Bruin Bear is hibernating. Why else would a 2-ton piece of aluminum foil be hiding underneath a specially tailored tarp?

Is it the same reason that Tommy Trojan is wrapped up in duct tape?

The excitement of the USC-UCLA rivalry has been apparently getting so intense that we had to slow it down or we would implode from excitement. They did it for our health.

What was once a rivalry worth discussing has diminished into an annual exchanging of tides – USC wins at football, UCLA wins at basketball.

Losing the football game this weekend would be sad, but it would just be one more tick on the bedpost of L.A. bedfellows.

But desecrating Tommy? That is an honor worthy of remembering. And it won’t ever happen again.

What we have now is a situation in which both schools are so proud of the legacy of the rivalry that they are intent to kill it.

Instead of being offensive, we have become defensive, and in doing so we are becoming apathetic to the UCLA-USC rivalry altogether.

Wake up the bear, undress the Trojan and let’s find out who’s devious.

Daniel Hage Third-year, History

Draft will only intensify our loss

Columnist Katie Strickland justifies her support of the military draft (“If it takes a draft to make us care, so be it,” Nov. 30) by citing Rep. Charles Rangel’s assertion that we wouldn’t have gone to Iraq if there were a draft in effect.

I can only stand in awe of this stellar idea: In order to stop the use of force of dictators, we’ll use force on our own civilians.

Our current soldiers chose to serve and knew the risks going in. Compulsory armies, on the other hand, are armies without the will to fight.

We’re losing the war in Iraq. Whether the American people choose to evade this fact or face it will determine our ability to defend ourselves in cases of an actual threat.

But the last thing we should do is defend the land and people of America at the expense of freedom – the foundation of our country.

Nader Badri Fourth-year, International development studies

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