The Tuesday, Feb. 9 edition of the Red & Black reports that I received a 26.18 percent raise over the past year.  

I want to set the record straight by reporting my contractual salary and cumulative raise over the past two years. My 2007-2008 salary was $288,750.  

I received a 3 percent raise the next year, yielding a 2008-2009 salary of $297,673. I received no raise and six furlough days in 2009-2010.  So, my salary is currently $290,037.  Thus, my total raise over two years is approximately 1 percent.

I regularly contract with UGA to do overload teaching in evening and weekend Atlanta-based programs that generate incremental revenues to support Terry College operations (including faculty hiring). 

The amount of the overload work depends on how many senior faculty are available and occasionally varies year to year.  

However, a difference between years in overtime pay is not a raise. 

Stephen P. Baginski

Faculty, Terry College

Springfield, Ilinois

GOP using Sarah Palin for agenda

 “The devil is in the distractions”.  Our corporate banking and military industrial establishment has purposefully placed Mrs. Palin into our collective psyche to further placate our falsely-divided liberal and conservative populace.

Mrs. Palin is a brainchild of GOP stalwarts such as Karl Rove and others whose main objective is to steer populist fervor away from familiar ideological principles of an interventionist central bank, expansive military empire and toward the phony and petty differences of the current administration.  

It is very possible that Palin isn’t even aware of how she is being tooled by her handlers, similar to President Wilson (although I believe the dogma she has been fed since her parlay with McCain has actually convinced her that their warped paternalist ideology is noble).

Don’t be naive. Palin is being paraded to Americans as a leader of small government, less taxes and “conservative” values, when really she is only diverting attention away from the small brushfires set by Dr. Ron Paul and others who champion the ideology of individual liberty, sound money and constitutional government. Join yalibety.org to learn more.

Carter kessler

Senior, Eatonton

Economics

Foreign Coca-Cola workers ‘victims’

Georgia’s loyal support of Coca-Cola may have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of “philanthropy” here on campus, but union leaders in Colombia working at Coke bottling plants have not been so lucky. 

According to the activist organization Stop Killer Coke, no less than eight union organizers employed by Coke have been killed by paramilitary thugs with close ties to bottling plant management in the past twenty years. 

Coke employees in Latin America, prevented from organizing, receive abysmal wages and work in hazardous conditions, while business students in Athens enjoy their newly refurbished lounge and Coke executives watch football games in skyboxes. 

How could they explain this extravagance to the families of the victims who have suffered every hardship from union busting to outright murder? 

Nick Kalivoda

Sophomore, Athens

Linguistics

Coca-Cola contract hides UGA’s profits

Monday’s article on Coca-Cola’s relationship with the University stated “Coca-Cola and Pepsi … bid based on the amount of money they would give the University in return for the University only selling its product.”  

This money doesn’t come from Coke but from the pockets of students and employees who purchase these products.  

Based on the commissions stated in the article, that $1.25 bottle of Coke in the vending machine costs about $0.83 with $0.42 going to UGA.

Perhaps the Red and Black could find out how much money UGA earns from these hidden price increases.

Kathleen McManus

Senior, Gainesville

Pharmacy

Article attempt to ruin reputation

 In regards to the “Insults lead to the arrest of three” article published on Tuesday, Feb. 9, the mentioning of Pi Kappa Alpha was a completely pointless attempt to, again, hurt their reputation. 

The entire first paragraph about Greek nicknames has no legitimacy and has absolutely nothing to do with the “backbone” of the story. 

I thought we learned that in high school English? 

Ruthless stabs at UGA Greek life seem to be a common theme in the articles in the Red and Black, most of them boring and pointless.

 I would recommend gaining some facts and maybe even writing articles that have more depth than drunken fights. 

I would also recommend losing the attempts to tarnish the reputations of fraternities and sororities by including them in articles about events they were not even involved in.

Kacey Pulliam

Freshman, Powder Springs 

Psychology