Despite our problems, we won't be written off by some pseudo-intellectual, wanna-be editor.

Sean Quast, how can you condemn a city (Counterpoint: Pack it up, Sept. 11) with so much history and beauty based on several problems that many if not most bigger cities have, especially in the so-called Rust Belt of central North America?

Chicago has these same problems; take a nice walk on the south side of Chicago. Ever heard of Newark? It's virtually a statistical fact that in racist America any city with a large minority population is also going to have a higher poverty rate, which leads to the other problems you feebly discussed in your "article."

Do you think that Washington D.C. or New Orleans or Cleveland or Detroit should be condemned because they're also often at the top of these lists that you referred to?

And how can you compare our city to Minneapolis or Madison? Minneapolis is less than two-thirds of the population of Milwaukee and Madison is quite a bit less than half the population of Milwaukee, and neither have a similar history to that of Milwaukee's. Both of these cities are significantly younger and have hugely different ethnic compositions.

There was a time when Milwaukee had a lot of jobs for the middle class community, but the time of industry has come and gone for Milwaukee and many other cities like it. It's too expensive to run these kinds of operations in America, much less in Milwaukee, with its historical support of unions and environmental regulations.

The middle class has been disappearing everywhere, not just Milwaukee.

By your twisted logic many cities in the U.S. and even more outside the U.S. need to be condemned. Condemning problem areas is not the answer.

The United States Genetics Department was once called the Eugenics program; they argued that poverty and crime was a genetic trait and the humane and ideological thing to do was to begin eliminating these genes from the gene pool. They advocated sterilization and marriage laws in order to accomplish this.

The United States Eugenics Department funded similar programs in Canada and Germany to name a few of the countries involved. One result of this "science" was the Holocaust.

This is the kind of thing that can and does happen when you start condemning people and places. Despite our problems we won't be written off by some pseudo-intellectual, wannabe editor.

All the problems you mentioned are problems for many communities nationwide. On the positive side Milwaukee has many tremendous attributes. It is the most park-intensive city in the country with the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic Rivers flowing through it.

It has phenomenal year-round open water sport fishing right downtown. Beautiful historic neighborhoods with classically designed homes and large trees in many neighborhoods. It is located on one of the largest bodies of fresh water on the planet Earth.

Despite all the bad press Milwaukee receives over segregation of the "races" there are also strong integrated communities such as Washington Heights, Sherman Park and to some extent Riverwest.

Unfortunately much of Milwaukee is quite segregated but the fact is much of the United States is still very segregated. On the more abstract side Milwaukee has great character that Minneapolis or Madison could never hope to attain, built on generations of laborers.

The only thing that comforted me about your article is that you plan to “get the fudge out of dodge,” meaning Milwaukee. The sooner the better.

I have in the past been somewhat worried about the possible brain drain occurring in Milwaukee, but in this case I'm confident we won't be losing anything of value.

Milwaukee will be better off without you. Milwaukee was and still is great in many ways. If you need CNN to verify this, you are the one in a sad state.

Andrew H. Euting

Sophomore

Speech disrupted learning environment

On Sept. 12 I was appalled to walk through the center of campus and find anti-gay protesters.

UWM has a responsibility to provide a safe learning environment free from discrimination, intimidation and fear. I fully support the right of every citizen of this country to practice free speech when their voices are not being heard.

However, there exists a line when free speech turns into hate speech and the university failed in protecting us all from this. I am almost certain that UWM would not allow a neo-Nazi or KKK rally to take place on campus.

So I can only conclude that UWM administrators have allowed their own views on homosexuality to cloud their judgment in allowing this to take place.

The policy of free speech on campus should be that if the issue at hand does not directly relate the school and its policies, the protestors should be forced to remain off campus.

Patrick Dowell

UWM student

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