To the Editor:

As a former conservative Yale Daily News columnist, I write to thank you for running today’s guest column by Keith Urbahn — what a breath of fresh air. I’m grateful that real affirmative action has taken hold in New Haven and that someone is actually allowing a diversity of views to be expressed in the YDN.

Urbahn successfully and artfully defined the most potent and guarded dogma of the Northeastern left; namely, that Republican voters are either religious wackos or ignorant rednecks. As a student, I also regretted that this thinly veiled bigotry was so pervasive at Yale. Unfortunately, this postmodern leftist view has been taken a step further. The perspective often applies not only to the GOP but to white males in all the red states and, more broadly, to anyone who refuses to attack our most treasured institutions, e.g. family, religion and state (i.e. military). Such dangerous self-loathing made me, and, I think, other “ignorant” recruited athletes, feel uncomfortable at Yale, and maybe even in the Northeast generally. It made me want to move to places where, I was told at Yale, only religious wackos and ignorant rednecks lived, the same people, it turns out, who grow our food and defend our nation.

But I stayed because, as Urbahn implies, we get used to wearing the T-shirts.

Well written, Urbahn, and well done, YDN Board. The opinion page has gained credibility.

Nick Madden ’98

Oct. 26, 2004