page 4 - The Behrend College Beacon. Thursday, February 25, 1999 The Behrend College Beacon published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College News Editor Shannon Weber Editorial Page Editor Natalie Gagliano Business Manager Jaime Davis Photography Editors Jason Blake Andrea Zaffino Layout Editors Mike Perkins Elizabeth Guelcher Wire Services Editor Katie Galley Features Editor Jon Stubbs Postal Information: The Beacon is published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College; First Floor, The J. Elmer Reed Union Building, Station Road, Erie, PA 16563. The Beacon can be reached by calling (814) 898-6488 or (814) 898-6019 (FAX). ISSN 1071-9288 A Career fair is full of opportunity The Career Fair, which is being held on February 25th, is a great op portunity for students who are gradu ating soon, as well as for other un dergraduate students. For under graduate students who attend, there may be a possibility that they may be able to find a potential summer job or internship. This is an added bonus, because a summer job or an intern ship would give students one more thing to add onto their resumes when they Finally graduate. The career fair would also give students a chance to learn about many job titles. It would also offer them a chance to ask any questions that they might have about the requirements of the job, such as hours, responsibilities, and pay. A wide variety of employers, such as Old Navy, Mellon Bank, the Governor’s office, the Erie Family Center for Development, and the Erie Art Museum, will all be attending the fair. These people are mostly techni cal staff members. Their job is not to hire people; this benefits those stu Letters to the editor: behrco!l2 @ aol.com Face it Greeks, you’ve asked for ridicule By Ryan Van Winkle Orange Source Syracuse University First, a little background: A soror ity girl wrote a letter to Syracuse University’s Daily Orange, complain ing about an editorial cartoon the pa per ran that portrayed sorority bimbos in tight, black pants. The girl didn’t think it was funny and la mented that because she wears letters on her chest, she is a target. I wrote this letter to the paper in an effort to dig the prissy’s long nails out of the editors’ backs. They didn’t print it, so I’m sharing it with you. To the Vocal Greeks: Shut up. You ARE a target. Just like guys who drive Humvees are tar gets. People who join your society know full well what they are getting into. You did this to yourselves. You joined a stereotype. That’s what the Greek system is a big, ugly, binge drinking, black-pants-wearing, roofie- dropping, leg-spreading ste reotype. It was like that when you joined and it will be like that after you’ve left. I am sick of the Greeks telling us how smart they are and how hard they work. I am sick of people with letters acting like they were born that way, like they didn’t choose to feed their poor self-images by joining a herd of really trendy people. Joining the Editor in Chief Will Jordan Managing Editor Ayodele Jones Advertising Managers Erin Edinger Carey Smith Distribution Manager Mark Greenbank Letter Policy: The Beacon encourages letters to the editor. Letters should include the address, phone number, semester standing and major of the writer. Writers can mail letters to behrcoll2@aol.com. Letters must be received no later than spm Tuesday for inclusion in that week’s issue. rom the ll dents who are uneasy or hesitant about talking to a high position em ployee They are there to provide cru cial information about their com pany and to refer a prospective stu dent to someone at their company who does hire. In all, the career fair has a lot to offer: a chance to ask questions to a knowledgeable group of people, a chance to explore their major and the possible jobs it has to offer, and a chance to find a potential full-time or part-time job Greek system is like being in the SGA or the Chess Club or whatever certain myths go along with it. If any of us gave a shit about you or your REAL lives, we’d ask. Truth is, we don’t care about your petty little world. Our made-up one is more fun. We don’t care how smart you think you are, or how much community service you do. We’d rather envision you as whores; it’s an image we can deal with. We don’t hate you; we just don’t give that much of a damn. Listen, people are mocked by cartoons on a daily basis. And according to them, I am a drunk, OK? But I am not com plaining because I don’t have that big of an ego. Most Greeks are content to blow off the student newspaper and its cartoons, because both are as mean ingless as your little Barbie-and-Ken lifestyles. But there are some Greeks who have to get all pissed off and whine. Or, better yet, BLEAT like the lousy sheep they are. Shut up and stop complaining that the stereo types get in the way of your cross word puzzles. You are pathetic. Not because you’re Greek, but because you think it matters. PS: For the record, I, too, am pa thetic for wasting my time writing this. Sports Editor Jason Snyder Copy Editor Rose Forrest Associate Editors Angela Rush Jessica Tucci Assistant Editor Mike Frawley Advisors Robert Speel Jim O'Loughlin hthouse What You Tt MP3s are great for college students What's the deal with MP3s? For those that don’t know. MP3 stands for Mpegl Layer.T An MP3 is a software program that enables people to plav a MP3s can be found at many sites throughout the world wide web. You can find virtually any song, from any artist, from any genre of music. Whole albums are even available at several of the MP3 sites as weii. MP3s are a great thing lot consinn The Behrend Review Should Matthew Hale be allowed to practice law? In Illinois there is a twenty-seven year old guy named Matthew' Hale who wants to be a lawyer. He has gone to and graduated from law school, and he has taken and passed the Illinois state bar examination. He has never been convicted of a felony. So what is the problem .'Any other person with these credentials would definitely be allowed to enter the le gal profession. However, Matthew Hale isn’t just any other person. He is a white supremacist. Due to his personal beliefs, should Matthew Hale be allowed to practice the law? No - according to an Illinois state panel which determines who should be granted a license to prac tice in the state of Illinois. In a 2-1 split decision the panel stated that Hale: "free as the First Amendment allows, to incite as much racial hatred as he desires and to attempt to carry out his Hate crimes law would undermine protection of rights By Robert W. Tracinski Knight-Ridder Newspapers The gruesome killings last year of two men - a black man in Texas who was dragged along the ground while tied to a pickup truck, and a homo sexual student in Wyoming who was bound to a fence and beaten - have in spired new cries for a "hale crimes" law. This law would make crimes moti vated by enmity toward blacks, gays or other protected groups into a spe cial federal offense. The ostensible purpose of such a law is to protect mi norities from persecution. The result, however, would be the exact opposite. Targeting those with "politically incor rect” motives undermines the principle of objective law that undergirds our legal system’s protection of rights. Criminal law exists to prohibit cer tain actions - to safeguard individuals against force or fraud. For this purpose, there is no shortage of existing stat utes. The accused killers in Wyoming and Texas, for example, are fully pun ishable for murder. What, then, will a "hate crimes” law add? Despite its name, it is not "ha tred” as such that the proposed law tar gets. After all, which crimes aren't motivated by hatred? Are assaults and murders usually committed out of be nevolence toward the victim? The real OtttWftPO ■ftftYWKOf ftpOMSA. THJHW Kvtma®& Editorial Ikin ‘Bout Willis ers, especially college students try ing to save a few dollars on CDs. You are able to download and listen to favorite things for nothing. MP3s and MP3 players are free to download. So, what’s wrong with saving a few dollars and listening to your fa vorite songs? Well, by downloading MP3s and trading them over the internet, people are breaking copy right laws. So in a sense, taking ad vantage of what is made available to life’s mission of depriving those he dislikes of their legal rights. But, in our view, he cannot do this as an of ficer of the court.” It is my personal opinion that Hale is an idiot. He is basically a pathetic loser who finds it easier to blame oth ers of an ethnic or racial background different from his own for his prob lems, rather than to blame himself. I think if Hale is ever allowed to prac tice the law, he will be a despicable attorney who will most likely be dis barred within a year for conduct un becoming of a lawyer. Anyone that is dumb enough to even listen to this imbecile is a bigger loser than Hale is. However, my personal opinion of Hale has no basis within the law. "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech.” (First Amendment) “No State shall make or enforce any law target is the criminal’s ideas. The proposed law declares that criminals motivated by a govern ment-designated set of intolerable ideas - racism, sexism, religious sec tarianism, anti-homosexuality - de serve special prosecution and addi tional punishment. But to subject someone to trial and punishment on the basis of his ideas - regardless of how despicable those ideas might be - constitutes a politicization of criminal law. Why, for example, should a racist be pros ecuted for the special crime of tar geting blacks, while the Unabomber is not subject to special prosecution for his hatred of scientists and busi ness executives? The only answer is that the Unabomber’s ideas are con sidered more “politically correct” than the racist’s. A “hate crimes" law would ex pand the law’s concern from crimi nal action to “criminal thought.” It would institute the premise that the purpose of our legal system is not to defend the rights of the victim, but to punish socially unacceptable ideas. This is a premise that should be ab horrent to a free society. In addition, if committing a crime based on bad ideas warrants greater punishment, then committing a crime based on “politically correct” ideas should warrant lesser punishment. swd.ttrtouiw& TftKTaittMvttw w 401 (k) put of «rone nsn^wvusmeß fyb STAT& OF UNlOty us. is wrong There are many sites that give a warning to whoever is downloading that if they do not delete the MP3 within 24 hours, they are breaking copyright laws. After those 24 hours, the site which the MP3 is downloaded from is not responsible. Yes, breaking copyright laws is wrong. But it really doesn’t seem like the companies who hold the copy rights can do to much to stop the pi- which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any to any person within its juris diction the equal protection of the laws.” (Fourteenth Amendment; Sec tion I) That is the law! What it basi cally says is that a person is entitled to believe whatever they want to be lieve and will not be discriminated against for that belief. The fact that we may not like what Hale has to say is irrelevant. Under our Constitution, he has the right to say it, just as we have the right not to listen. And by not allowing a quali fied individual to practice a given profession they have chosen, their right to freedom of speech is thus being abridged. And that is discrimi nation! The judicial process would have to focus on the criminal’s ideology, rather than on the objective violation of his victim’s rights. The beginnings of this politicization of crime are already in place. When anti-Vietnam War pro testers, for example, forcibly occu pied buildings and bombed laborato ries in the ’6os and ’7os, they were heralded as "political dissenters," deserving of special leniency - while today, those who commit similar crimes in the name of racism are con sidered deserving of special penalties. Similarly, in recent years the left has (properly) campaigned for laws to prevent anti-abortion protesters from harassing doctors and halting access to abortion clinics. Yet its own protesters routinely use force - such as the occupation of limberland to prevent logging - with no fear of spe cial government prosecution. Nor is the attempt to politicize the criminal law limited to the left. Sev eral years ago, a conservative judge suspended the sentences of two priests - arrested for physically block ing entry to an abortion clinic - be cause they were motivated by "sin cere religious beliefs.” Under such a system, anything goes. The entire criminal justice ap paratus can be used as a political tool by whatever faction happens to be in WILL JORDAN rating of songs over the internet. In time, the music industry will lose millions of dollars due to the fact that people are no longer buying CDs. It is impossible to stop the whole pro cess due to the fact that there are too many sites that offer MP3s and too many people already in possession ol them. Will Jordan is the editor-in-chief of the Bea eon. His eolunin appears every four weeks. CHARLES TESTRAKE In a perfect world we could just tell Matthew Hale to go to hell and that he will never be allowed to be come a lawyer. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. If we deny Matthew Hale his Constitutional rights, where does it end? Those who have extremely liberal or extremely conservative views may have their rights be discriminated against. Then those whose views differ from the governing party’s may have their rights violated. And finally those with brown hair and blue eyes could have their rights violated. Who knows? So if the Constitution works for a racist like Matthew Hale, then it works for all of us. Charles Testrake is a junior political science major. His column appears every jour weeks in the Beacon. power. Crimes can be whitewashed it done for the "correct” political mo tives, while extra punishment can be meted out to those with “incorrect” motives Where will this end? If a man con victed of an actual criminal act can be sentenced to additional years in prison simply for his ideas - then, il logic, why can’t someone be pun ished solely for his ideas? Even il he has not committed a single action against another person, why can't he be tried simply for being a "purveyor of hate”? Indeed, this development is already foreshadowed by campus "speech codes,” which bar statements deemed “offensive” to protected groups. The first official step on this deadly path - the creation of a spe cial category of “hate crimes" - should be resoundingly rejected. It is an attempt to import into America’s legal system a class of crimes for merly reserved only to dictatorships: political crimes. Instead, we should insist on the one principle that forms the foundation for the protection of all rights, i.e., that the purpose of law is to punish criminals for initiating force against others - not for holding bad ideas. AfaMUST M auction W ASAH4ST ' cAmßuia an auction UUUSSIfS HIXOU
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers