Editor,
Professor Richard Berthold is an outstanding lecturer on the history of Greece and Rome. He is articulate, flamboyant, outspoken and very funny. His style is to provoke the interest of his students by peppering his classes with jokes and outrageous remarks.
He cracks so many jokes that some of them inevitably go awry. He has apologized for his recent, unfortunate joke. Students who wish to take this matter further are sissies, not patriots. Politicians who want Berthold out remind me of the Taliban.
The timing of his joke is significant in two ways. He cracked his joke on the day of the massacre before he had a chance to appreciate its enormity. And as was pointed out on KUNM, Berthold's joke was almost identical to one made here by Noam Chomsky of MIT. But Chomsky's joke was before Sept. 11 and was greeted with laughter and applause.
Kevin Cahill
Physics professor
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
