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The Behrend Beacon
THE BEHREND BEACON
(.0 I)\ Ilrr of(lcilts Pc/111 Shrfr 8r1ii.rit(1(.,)11,,,,,,
News Editor
Liz Hayes
Asst. News Editor
Erin McCarty
Sports Editor
Mike Bello
Asst. Sports Editor
Kate Levdansky Petrikis
Editorial Page Editor
Ben Kundman
Features Editor
Karl Benacci
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Jeanine Noce
Wire Service Editor
Guy Reschenthaler
Health Page Editor
Sarah Orr
4THE REHREND
. BEACON
•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.
The View From the Lighthouse
Everyone's working for the weekend
Professors love to give projects that measure your ability to
implement knowledge from lectures, homework assignments,
tests and quizzes. We admire professors for pushing students
and teaching that they don't have limits, but instead have the
ability to expand their minds to do great things. We want to
prove to professors that we have the knowledge, the desire,
and the aptitude to meet all of their expectations. Every stu
dent wishes to earn an A grade for their diligent work, but for
some it is unrealistic.
It is recommended that each student spend a minimum of
three hours outside the classroom for each hour they spend
inside it. Many students take 18 credits at a time. Therefore,
they spend 21 hours with the professor, and at least 63 hours
on their own to meet with groups, study, complete projects,
prepare homework, and all other assignments. Now, students
are supposed to get eight hours of sleep per night to maintain a
healthy lifestyle. This totals 140 hours out of 168 hours in a
week. This leaves students with four hours a day to eat, work,
socialize, participate in on campus organizations/activities, and
relax. Obviously, it is impossible to have such a schedule. For
most students sleep is the first thing to go.
We can deal with being tired, missing friends, not going home
on the weekends, and being frazzled. However, we hate doing
all this work and making sacrifices to get things done on time
to earn a C grade.
Students are pressured to get things done on time. and there
fore lose sight of a project's or test's purpose. Instead of earn
ing an A grade for really having an opportunity to show off
how much you know, you have to try to get it done. and hope it
satisfies. It is typical to have four tests and a project due in one
week. It appears that some professors get a real kick out of
having both deadlines in the same week.
We want to earn an A like most students. But all we know
about a project sometimes is when we have to turn it in, and
like most students, are stressed about completing it on time.
Students say, "we can't wait to get this done" instead of "this
was a great opportunity to learn, and I want to put this in my
portfolio."
Why do professors make test and projects due within the
same week and/or class is beyond me. Will they ever change?
No. Will the campus make a policy against it? No.
Instead, we'll get it done without proving our knowledge.
We all have the ability, just not the time. Since this won't be
changing anytime soon, at least C is for Commencement.
Seven things Behrend can do to suck less
as a sanctioning body recognizes it as a
Viva Las Vegas! pathway. For the sake of
simplicity, I will refer to the
Ben Kundman pathway that runs from the
million-dollar staircase to the
t 01 ' 1) ‘ / ge b'r back of the science building as
"the cut."
Homeless pirates throughout "the cut"
would make walking to campus more
interesting, as well as much more urban. It
will also teach college students about the
importance of snubbing the needy at an
early age. The single best thing about
having homeless pirates on campus is their
willingness to supply minors with alcohol.
Once you get past their smell, the homeless
provide a fairly reliable method of obtaining
1. Scatter homeless pirates throughout
'the cut."
"the cut" is the pathway that runs
from the million-dollar staircase to the
back of the science building. It's not
actually known as "the cut" anymore,
because the university put a bridge in.
Any cut ceases to be "the cut" as soon
Editor-in-Chief
Robert W y nne
Interim Managing Editor
Paige Miles
Professional Publication Mgr.
Dave Richards
Advisor
Mr. John Kerwin
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
5 p.m. Monday for inclusion in
that week's issue.
Associate Editor
Kelly Walsh
Photo Editors
Jeff Hankev
Kristin Rodgers
Advertising Manager
Ann Marie Havev
Public Relations Manager
Katie Galley
Office Manager
Jason Alward
Copy Editor
Becky Weindorf
Website Editor
Dave Kusinsk
Technical Support
Doug Butterworth
"Professionalism
with a Personality"
•Letter Policy.
1111 1
A
21
116,1 -
111 1 k
Response to Burn Bra, Burn
I am writing in response to Paige
Miles' editorial "Attitude Problem,"
titled "Burn Bra, Burn." Looking at
this title, I was intrigued. I am an
avid fan of Miles' column and look
forward to reading her once every
three weeks.
This week, however, I was sorely
disappointed. In fact, I was
devastated. Miles started out
magnificently with a fleeting history
of the struggle of women throughout
history, but her editorial plummeted
from there. She states the following
things, in this order:
1. She has nothing to fight for in the
way of rights as a 20-year-old female.
2. She hopes we never relapse into a
situation where women are not
allowed to advance again.
3. She wonders why the feminist
movement still exists.
4. She then states the following:
a.) The glass ceiling still exists.
b.) Women still receive less pay than
Another Response to Burn Bra,
On Friday, N0v.16, I read an editorial
entitled "Burn bra, burn," in which
Paige Miles expounds her views on
feminists. or as she so eloquently calls
us, "bra-burners."
I understand that this is an editorial,
and therefore one person's opinion, but
a successful and strong argument
should be backed by statistics and facts.
This article is backed up by a few
unresearched points that are easily
refuted.
In the beginning she asks an
important question: "What do I have
to fight for as a 20-year old female?"
She concludes that there are no battles
left to be fought, no great problems to
solve. I don't know what world Paige
Miles lives in, but she is completely
ignoring enormous, global problems
that millions of women face in their
lives. For example, FGM (female
genital mutilation) is a barbaric
practice in which a young girl's clitoris
and labia are removed in an unsterile,
primitive surgery in order to make the
woman "marriageable" and
submissive. It is a practice existing
solely for the pleasure and benefit of
men. All women gain from it is a
lifetime of pain and infection (National
Organization of Circumcision
Information Resource Center).
This is one example of a global
problem that is overlooked in favor of
To Mac or not to Mac, that is the question
As was said, Macs are not preferred CEOs John Sculley, Michael Spindler,
at Penn State. I suspect this happened and Gil Amelio. No exaggeration; it
fora reason. I've heard that they were was big crisis panic explosion time!
abandoned in the mid-nineties. That And a time for mourning, for even non
being said, one can certainly under- Mac users had a place in their hearts
stand why PSU gave up on Apple; why for Apple. The company once had a
not, when it's obviously given up on shine of youth and was fun and chal
its customers (and shareholders?) lenged IBM to a duel eons ago.
That was a time when Apple was dy- Finally, ousted founder Steve Jobs re
ing thanks to inadequate products and turned to the company after it bought
mismangagment by a succession of his sinking company, NeXT, and re-
Give me my Mac, or give me death...
I just wanted to say thank you! Thank
you for the article "To Mac or Not to
Mac" written by Liz Hayes. I've been
a Mac user since my family first bought
a Pertoma 6200 CD almost eight years
ago (which still works great by the way,
although a little slow on the Internet).
Back in January, I was computer shop
ping for myself, and I bought an iMac
DV/SE+ and I LOVE it. I am not a
computer literate person, so when it ar
rived, I was afraid of hooking it up. The
instruction manual. It is a picture book
with five steps!
How easy is that? And this year, I
witnessed everyone around me trying
to hook up their new Gateways, or
Dells, or whichever PC they have so
praised. An hour later, they were still
trying to hook it up.
Many people leave they're comput
ers at school over breaks, mine goes
home with me. And the space I save
without havin . a tower is amazin !
alcohol. If you buy them a bottle of Mad
Dog or maybe some Thunderbird, they will
happily provide you, the needy minor, with
some booze so you can get your drink on.
2. Book bi-weekly appearances by
Happatai.
Happatai is a Japanese boy band, and
man oh man, do they rock. They make all
of the crappy American boy bands look
like the retched vomit that they are.
Happatai's hit song is called "Yatta," and
in their video they dance around wearing
only fig leaves and fly through the air. It's
really cool.
3. Appoint the Baldwins as the Dean of
our school.
In case you are not "in the know," the
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
men for the same work
c.) We have yet to see a female
president.
d.) Problems such as rape, unplanned
pregnancy, and abuse still exist.
e.) She respects modern day feminists
for trying to solve these problems.
5. For this last one, I will quote directly:
"It seems to me that we, as females, have
reached that equality fairly well. And
if so, then why do some 'feminists' still
push?...My solution?...Stop your
crying, and get over it."
WAIT. I'm confused. This sounds
like a personal conflict to me. Can
somebody say contradiction? Or double
standard? As a woman and a feminist
in this society, I take the unfairness in
the facts stated above very seriously
and personally! In fact, I consider it
cowardly of any of us NOT to take this
personally, because we are all affected
men included. Doesn't everyone love
a woman in their lives? I know I have a
mother, a sister, grandmothers, aunts,
a seemingly Western, white viewpoint,
ignoring the plight of women in
Afghanistan who, until literally
yesterday, could not obtain an
education, hold a job, or even walk
down the street with their faces exposed
(Feminist Majority Foundation Online).
In rural China, despite the Chinese
government's laws forbidding it, female
infanticide still sometimes occurs.
Women of color face discrimination not
only based on skin tone, but gender.
Women across the nation and around
the world face inequality, violence,
aggression, poverty, and starvation.
Their children, both male and female,
are subjected to the same injustices.
No problems to fight? In the U.S., the
"Neanderthal companies" that Miles
talks about are more prevalent than the
article makes them out to be. On
average, women still make 83.8 percent
of what men make in one hour. On a
weekly basis, the number drops to
76.5%. The annual earnings of a woman
are, on average, 72.2% that of her male
counterpart (Women's Bureau of the
U.S Department of Labor.) Female
managers and administrators make
66.3% of what their male counterparts
are making. These statistics are from
2000. Of the occupations listed in the
U.S. DOL web site, the least
discrepancy is found in nursing, where
women make 94.4% of what men make.
Granted, I wish I had a disc drive, not
that it would help since there are no com
puters on campus that could read them.
But I can do work on any computer on
campus, email myself the work, and still
be able to work on it on my computer.
Thus is the versatility of Macs. Many
people say that the reason Macs are not
good computers is because of the lack of
compatibility. This probably has been
solved by Virtual PC, although my Mac
is good enough without it. I read in a
computer magazine article over the sum
mer that Macs can do several items
quickly, while a PC can only do one item
quickly. This is evident when compar
ing my computer to my brother's PC. His
PC cannot compare to mine in speed of
tasks performed, and I get annoyed when
using his because I am used to a faster
computer. Every day I talk to some PC
user whose computer has just crashed,
yet again. This happens to my best
friend's corn guter which likes to shut
Baldwins are four brothers who have minor
roles in major movies and major roles in
movies that go straight to HBO. Basically,
they are mediocre celebrities, but they're still
better than you or me. Rather then letting
them sit poolside sipping martinis with their
supermodel wives, we should force them to
take over as dean here. We couldn't just
appoint one Baldwin: alone they are weak
and feeble, but together they form an
unstoppable force. Kind of like the A-Team
or the Power Rangers. You can't mess with
the Baldwins.
4. Host Foxy boxing Fridays at Bruno's
and Foxy Jell-0 wrestling Saturdays.
5. Give me "Washed-up Celebrity Death
Match."
Ben Kundman, Editorial Page Editor
cousins and friends. Don't you?
You're right Paige it is the new
millennium. Wake up and smell the
injustice. Because if you can't see it
at Behrend, you're not gonna see it
anywhere.
Feminism is NOT about "making
females the dominant race," as you not
so eloquently stated it. Nor is it about
the "advancement of women over
men." What makes you think that the
focus of the feminist movement has
changed since the 19605? Or the 19205,
for that matter? We are still very much
about equality. If you want to pick on
affirmative action, make your editorial
about that instead of a bash on
feminism. We are bashed enough!
Women are already overworked and
underpaid. Women for women are
even more so. Do you think that I or
the other feminists at this college get
any thanks or recognition for fighting
against the rape and abuse of women?
What about fighting for the equality of
The article seems to be putting down
those women that make the decision
to have and raise a family. Having
children, despite Miles' low opinion of
it, can be a rewarding experience, as
many women will attest to, and it is
part of the expanding choices that
feminism has championed for women
in the last 40 years. A woman can have
children and have a career. I see
motherhood as an admirable and
respectable choice. Here, too, many of
the inequalities that Miles' denied can
be found. These inequalities begin in
the health care system, in a medical
world that isn't always sympathetic to
the needs of pregnant women (Ms.
Magazine October-November 2001),
to the lack of child care facilities and
limited time off for pregnancy granted
to women in a generally male
dominated corporate world. Where is
the already-achieved equality cited in
Miles' article?
Miles says she does not believe in
the advancement of women over men.
I wholeheartedly agree, and many
feminists would support this as well.
The definition of feminism (if one
bothers to look it up) is "belief in the
social, political, and economic equality
of the sexes," and "the movement that
follows this belief' (dictionary.com.)
It does not advocate dominance of
women over men. It is not an attempt
stored the lost innovation and profits,
resurrecting a company thought dead
in a way seen as both miraculous and
curious by the press. Even though
things are much, much better now,
there is still aversion to the Macintosh
that is more than partly caused by the
problems in the 19905, a scary time
when one could say "Macs are crap!"
and actually be correct. It's not true
now, but it's become a mindset, and the
down on him constantly while we are
talking online. When this happens, I
like to laugh, because my iMac has not
crashed once. In fact, in eight years,
our Performa back at home has only had
one problem, and that was with the
screen turning blue. I'll take a blue
screen over a crashing computer, any
day.
One day, while talking to my father
about the benefits of Macs over PCs,
he pointed out to me that Windows is
corning closer and closer to a Mac setup.
If you can recall the evolution of Win
dows, you can see how the desktop has
come to be almost identical to what Mac
has had since almost the start, with the
exception of the start menu. This is be
cause of the ease of use of the Mac and
Mac desktop. And I can give you testi
monial after testimonial of people who
formally owned PCs, but grew sick and
tired of having them crash repeatedly
and bou Iht Macs. One woman told me
Instead of getting mediocre bands to
play here, we could have "Washed-up
Celebrity Death Match." I suggest Webster
vs. Gary Coleman for the opening match,
the Coreys versus Milli Vanilli, and have
Steven Seagal vs. Jean Claude Van Damme
as the heavyweight match. We wouldn't
even have to pay them much, they'd
probably all be happy to take a vacation
from pumping gas so long as we gave them
a hot meal and a floor to sleep on.
6. A T 3 that works like a T 3.
Our network connection on campus is
slower than a sloth stuck in molasses. We
have a 56K modem at home and it blows
away our residence connections every
weekday. It's not even worthwhile for me
behrcoll2@aoLcorn
women in the workplace, in hiring as
well as payment practices? What
about fighting for the equality o
women in politics? It is an exhausting
and thankless job. We are fighting for
YOU. Why then, do you, as a college
educated woman of our times,
perpetuate the cycle?
When you and the rest of our racist,
sexist society, turn their eyes from the
injustices that women and other
underrepresented groups battle every
day, you willingly perpetuate the cycle
of hate that permeates our society. I,
for one, say NO MORE HATE. I, for
one, will stand up and fight for the
rights of myself and others in this
society.
Jaimi Bonczar
President, Women Today
to make women a "dominant race"
(race? Are the genders separate races?)
Miles says we do not need a
coalition to help women progress.
Who, then, will continue to work
towards the equality that she claims
already exists? Yet she also claims she
doesn't care if men are still the
"dominant race (sic)." How can there
be equality when one gender is, as she
admits, dominant over the other?
She is correct when she says we
have just as much right to submit a
resume as the next man does.
Feminism is still necessary to ensure
that the submission of that resume is
given the same consideration as a
resume submitted by a male
counterpart.
To conclude, I'd like to cite a quote
from Gloria Steinem which really
sums up the reasons for the ignorance
expounded in "Bra Bum, Bra."
"Young women haven't yet
experienced the injustices o
inequality in the paid labor force, the
unequal burden of child rearing and
work in the home, and double standard
of aging. To put it another way, i
young women have a problem, it's
only that they think there's no
problem."
- Jen Town
company is still smarting from the stu
pid mistakes of three men who were
the wrong men. Nobody's forgiven
Sculley, and Amelio got what he de
served from thinking that he could buy
Steve Jobs and use him as a prop: a
coup. Spindler, because of his health
problems, can be pitied, but not them.
-Karen Niemla
"I will NEVER go back to a PC. I love
my Mac!"
Granted, there are many benefits to
PCs, the main one being the fact that
everything is written for them. But with
all of the troubles my friends are hav
ing with PCs, I'm happy with my beau
tiful iMac, which came with more
memory than I'll ever need, the ability
to make and edit movies, a printer, and
the ability to unhook the keyboard and
the wonderful optical mouse without
having to restart or reconfigure the
computer. To any of the computer il
literate folks out there, to you I recom
mend getting a Mac. And for you PC
owners out there, I offer up this chal
lenge. Go out, find a Mac, and try and
teach yourself how to use it. I guaran
tee that you will at least learn to appre
ciate the Mac, if not fall in love with it.
Amanda Tuscan
03 Meteor°lol
to do research for my, uh, anatomy classes
7. Get a free ATM machine
As most smart shoppers can attest, $2
= a bottle of Heineken on import night at
the PJ,ymouth, six cans of Beast Ice out of
a case, a forty of Old German, or eight
drafts at Jimmy Z's on quarter draft nights.
The preceding items represent reasonable
expenditures in comparison to paying $2
to use a MAC machine. Getting money
out Reed's ATM is more like getting
robbed by gypsies than making a bank
withdrawl. Seriously, the Pennzoil on E.
38th street has a free ATM. Why can't we?
Kundman's column appears every
three weeks.