I have been tempted to write in to your publication several times in the last two weeks. First it was about the ridiculous firing of three Daily editors due to pressure from advertisers. Had I the power to cancel my subscription, I would have, and no doubt so would hundreds (thousands?) of others. But I can’t do that, and there were already enough people complaining, so I let them speak for me.

Then I almost worked up the initiative to reply to the rather amusing letter about how KURE should model itself after Channel Q, but decided the writer had done a nice enough job of demonstrating his own idiocy.

The third cause I had to (almost) write was the editorial board’s claim that the GSB has no business telling the Daily how students, all Daily subscribers, feel about how the Daily has conducted itself. The Daily should count itself lucky to be a government-subsidized monopoly. It should not complain when its subscribers express displeasure, but rather take that into account (and rehire the editors, if they would work for the Daily again).

No one of those items on its own was enough to get me to write in. But this was:

The state of Iowa is in a budget crunch, as everyone affiliated with one of its public universities knows. Here at Iowa State, students have been required to foot the bill in various ways. From something as seemingly minor as having to print out the worksheets and other classroom documents previously covered by tuition and fees, to losing university jobs and paying almost 20 percent more next year for the privilege of attending, students have shouldered a good portion of the burden.

I received my monthly statement from the Telecommunications Office in Durham. It informed me that I made 27 cents worth of long-distance calls last month, and stated that should I pay by mail when I get my U-bill. That’s 27 cents. The postage alone was 34 cents.

Not counting the cost of printing and the envelope, the university is already at a 7 cent loss, and it hasn’t even asked for my money yet. As a means of saving thousands of dollars a year, I request that the university either put our “Statement of Telecommunications Charges” online, or in the envelope that contains our U-bill.

We’re already expected to check online for our grades, and I see no reason why we can’t do the same for a phone bill.

Chris Crouch

Senior

Political science