page 6- The Behrend College Collegian. Thursday, March 26, 1998 The Behrend College Collegian published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Layout Editor Nathan Mitchell Photography Editor Jason Blake Business Manager Dona Greenhouse Features Editor Jon Stubbs News Editor 1k Chun Kong Postal Info nation: The Collegian Letter Policy: The Collegian is published weekly by the students encourages letters to the editor. of Penn State Erie, The Behrend Letters should include the address, College; First Floor, The J. Elmer phone number, semester standing and Reed Union Building, Station Road, major of the writer. Writers can mail Erie, PA 16563. The Collegian can their letters to behrcoll2@aol.com. be reached by calling (814) 898-6488 Letters must be received no later than or (814) 898-6019 (FAX). ISSN spm Tuesday for inclusion in that 1071-9288. week's issue. The dreadful conditions of Turnbull Barn Turnbull Barn seems to be the one place on campus that students try to avoid having class. The complaints range from the temperature to over crowding to the pillars in the middle of the room. There are plans to change the Barn from a classroom building into a stu- dent service area. As for the com plaints about the heating and pillars, only a major overhaul could change the conditions. Having class in this building is very distracting. Fall classes have to deal with the heat of August. The one air conditioner is too loud to hear a lec ture, so it is usually not used. The building is still hot in the wintertime, To Prevent Germ Warfare, .Treaty:.otl972Nee.ds:Teeth., By Debora MacKenzie Special to the Los Angeles Times The United States and its allies go to the brink of war to get U.N. inspec tors into guarded buildings where Iraq may be hiding biological weapons. And a Russian defector to the United States, once a high-ranking official in the Soviet germ warfare program, says Russia continues to develop bio logical weapons under the guise of de fensive research. One thing has become clear: What ever the U.N. team finds in Saddam Hussein's palaces, the world will be only marginally safer from the threat of germ warfare as a result of the in spection. That's because there is little to stop another nation or another fa natic or even Iraq once the inspectors go home from going after the perverse power that a bit of anthrax or botulin toxin has given Saddam. There is only one real answer: Watch everyone by finally giving some teeth to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. The 140 countries that belong to the convention, including the United States, Iraq and Russia, have re nounced using germs and their toxins as weapons. But there are no legal means to check whether members are Student recounts week in Spain Two weeks ago, myself and others from International Studies 497 spent a week in Spain. We started our so journ in Madrid, capital, a city of ap proximately four million people. Dr. Juan Fernandez Jimenez, was the leader of our expedition, being a native Spaniard, from the Province of Jaen, he proved as always to be truly remarkable. My first impression of Madrid was that there was a lot of "scooters" (Vespas) slashing their way through out the narrow, twisting, turning, me andering streets. Someone in our group almost got "Aced" by one. The whole experience of the tapas bar was an incredible culinary expe rience. Choosing and sharing little morsels of ham, cheese, calamari, etc. My biggest observations from Spain are that the family unit is incredibly strong. Everywhere you looked were Editor in Chief Andrea M. Zaffina Managing Editor Anne M. Rajorte Sports Editor Dylan Stewart Associate Editor Brian Ashbaugh Advertising Manager RJ Frelin and windows are usually opened, which wastes energy and money. The rooms are filled to capacity with desks and some students are forced to sit behind a pillar. As a re sult the student can't see the profes sor and the professor can't see the stu dent. Obviously, it takes a lot of money to overhaul a building such as Turnbull. Also, there is a shortage of classrooms which makes Turnbull classrooms a necessity. Efforts should be made to have as few classes as possible in this building. The situa tion currently is distracting and not conducive to an effective learning environment. keeping their promises. Even•fr:aq could not be inspected for biological weapons without special permission from the U.N. Security Council. Ear lier this month in Geneva, treaty members tried again to put verifica tion procedures into the agreement. The talks have been hamstrung by President Clinton's refusal to consider a type of inspection that European Union countries, and most others, think is essential to deter prospective The 140 countries that belong to the convention have renounced using germs and their toxins as weapons. But there are no legal means to check whether members are keeping their promises. bio-warriors While there are big differences be tween the United Nations' unfriendly inspections in Iraq and the friendly, just-checking sorts of inspections pro posed for the treaty, the Iraqi experi ence has taught us what works. Tech nical experts must be free to go any where--breweries, biotech companies, fertilizer plants that are perfectly le gitimate but easily converted to dis ease factories--at random, on short mothers and four or five children playing during the midday siesta. I found my Spanish skills were not exactly the "creme de la creme" of verbosity, but I managed to keep my belly full. I also had a lot of fun play ing soccer with some children in a park in Jaen. I showed them my American football, and they had an exciting time. Another experience I had, while chatting with a few ladies in their for ties in an English style pub, was this lady called Sheila, who was smoking the cigarette called "Ducados." After explaining to me she hated everybody from the U.K. and the United States, she blew a "Godzilla-like" plume of smoke into my eyes. It felt like I had just been hit with some CS gas. Im mediately my eyes began a salty, boil ing sensation, I regained my compo sure and continued the conversation. Advisor Robert Speel Advisor Alan Parker Proposed fees show Behrend's lack of authority Next month, a committee at Uni versity Park will meet to decide if the student activity fee will be raised. Although the actual amount the fee will be raised will be determined at each campus, the decision to increase the fee is entirely up to administra tion at University Park. Michael Zampetti, Student Gov ernment Association president at Be hrend, stated that he was asked his opinion on the increase and both he and Dr. Chris Reber, Dean of Student Affairs, expressed their disapproval. Despite this, Behrend students may have to pay between $l-5 more than they are currently charged. The Student Activity Fee has his torically been a point of contention between students and adminstration. Many students claim not to see the benefit of the fifty dollars they pay each year. An increase in the fee would only heighten this frustration. However, it is important to realize that Behrend administration seems to be against the increase. This is just an other example of how Behrend is of ten forced to follow decisions that are made for the benefit of students at University Park. The most blatant example of this is the proposed recreation fee. Accord ing to Zampetti, University Park doesn't have adequate facilities for their intramural program. To remedy this, an extra fee has been suggested in order to provide funding for the program. This fee is still in the pre- notice. There are two major objectors to this approach: Russia and the United States. J ussia. was one of the major back ...ers 9.f +be VP2 treaty. Yet , in 4992, , it admitted that it had kept its own bio weapons program running all along. Indeed, it may still exist. Russia also rejects every kind of inspection but the kind forced on Iraq. Russia wields little moral force in the negotiations. The U.S. position, however, is crucial to an agreement. But President Clinton wants inspec tions under the treaty only when there is already obvious cause for suspicion, say, an odd disease outbreak. Such clumsiness is rare, and when it occurs things have already gone too far. Russia suffered one such incident back in 1979 with an outbreak of an thrax downwind of its closed military facilities in Sverdlovsk, now called Yekaterinburg. The world learned last month, from Russian defector Kanatjan Alibekov, just how immense Russia's germ warfare program was, and possibly still is, yet the anthrax incident was the only time the outside She seemed to like me, but said it wouldn't work out because she was a Communist, I reminded her the Ber lin Wall fell about 9 years earlier. Days later we "tooled" through Spain in a Mercedes Benz 20 passen ger van, with ABS, video, VCR, among other things. My favorite ar eas were: Jaen, Toledo, Escanuela and Malaga. We had a big family fiesta in Dr. Fernandez's hometown of Escanuela. With the traditional dish of paella, fresh shrimp and other tapas. There was song, dance and the women of southern Spain, Primo! Hats off and kudos to Dr. Fernandez, who did the work of 100 men. And one of my favorites was the cathedrals and castles. Buenos (Has amigas. Michael J. Coursey, 08, Political Sci- Editorial liminary stages, and may not neces sarily be added to the fees we already pay. Also, since it is still just a pro posal at this point, the amount of the fee has not been set. The recreation fee is a perfect ex ample of a proposal made just to ben- This is just another example of how Behrend is often forced to follow decisions that are made for the benefit of students at University Park. efit students at University Park. If they want to improve their intramural pro gram, let them pay for it. If this fee were adopted, the money paid by Be hrend students would most likely stay at Behrend. Even so, the fact that we might be forced to add another fee to our bill, one that may not even be nec essary, is extremely unfair to students not at University Park. A college cannot make decisions with their students' best interests in mind when they are under the author ity of an institution that does not nec essarily have these students' interests in mind. This is not to say that Penn State as a whole completely disre gards the interests of students at cam puses other than University Park. It does seem to, however, think mainly of those students. Behrend needs to have more au thority over itself. Why should Be hrend students pay a fee created for world had an obvious cause for sus picion. And what about prospective bio warriors messing with disease& ?now common than anthrax—severe, food poisoning, for instance; would an es cape of those germs raise anyone's suspicions? Even Iraq would not have attracted a suspicion-based inspection in the 1980 s, when its bio-weapons program might have been nipped in the bud, President Clinton argues on behalf of the U.S. pharmaceuticals and biotech industries that random inspec tions are unacceptable because they will expose trade secrets. But there are straightforward technical means of allowing inspectors to look for in criminating evidence without reveal ing a confidential gene sequence or production process. Some negotiators in Geneva are privately questioning whether the United States isn't hid ing behind the worries of its biotech companies to avoid inspections that might reveal more biological weap ons research than Washington would like to admit. A highly speculative, and in any case avoidable threat to industrial profit should not be allowed to undermine the creation of an in spection regime that might actually prevent the next Saddam. As long as governments and would-be terrorists think they can get what they want by waving a bit of anthrax around, we desperately need a treaty with all the teeth it can get. MacKenzie is the Brussels correspon dent for New Scientist, a weekly in ternational science magazine. University Park facilities? We are all part of Penn State's Pepsi contract, but how much have we benefited from it? Students at University Park got the Bryce Jordan Center out of it, but how much does this enhance student life for Penn State students in Erie? We are under the same terms as students at University Park without the ben efit of the money. The fact that Behrend doesn't have the authority to decide what is best `Primary Colors' Seems Weightier Than Real Life By Barbara T. Roessner=(c) 1998, The Hartford Courant The local radio guy hosting a sneak preview of "Primary Colors" at the multiplex the other night had a ques tion for the packed house. "How many of you think Bill Clinton is a womanizer?" A few whoops, a couple of muted whistles, and the hands shot up. "And how many of you think that's a stupid question?" Another eruption of snickers and guffaws before the lights go down, the flick comes up, and the real-life joke gives way, to •Aeiily'serious fiction. On th 6 screen, a black man sellg out his race. A gravely disillusioned cam paign worker kills herself. A candidate's wife, betrayed by her husband's compulsive infidelities, dies inside. Characters cry. They throw up. They bleed. They anguish. They agonize. They suffer conse quences that alter their lives, and his tory. Meanwhile, back in the real world, The Bill and Gennifer and Paula and Monica and Linda and Kathleen Show feels no more weighty than a daily episode of "Montel." It's weird: We're all getting a titil lating kick out of the flood of sexual tales from the White House, and it takes John Travolta to interrupt the national gossip fest long enough to remind us just how profound are the issues at hand. That little matter of good and evil, for example. Right and wrong. And, ultimately, the real pain of real people who've nowhere to turn but their government for hope of a decent wage for their hard work, de cent medical care for their disabilities, a decent education for their kids. Medicare reform? Managed care? Tobacco regulation? Famine in Af rica? Hunger in America? Who cares when we can collectively fixate on Kathleen Willey's descriptions of his hands on her, and hers on him? I saw an old film clip on The His tory Channel recently in which a col- for itself only reinforces the "second class citizen" feeling that many Be hrend students feel. The fact that so many decisions are made with only University Park in mind does give this kind of feeling to Behrend. If it seems obvious to students that University Park is the main consideration in de cisions that affect all of Penn State, it would lead one to think that Behrend is a sort of second-class campus. Administration must work to bring more decision-making power to Be hrend. We are not simply a little spin off of University Park, we are a dis tinct college with our own advantages and disadvantages. However, when our administration does not have the authority to do what is best for us, we become little more than a satellite campus of University Park. lege professor explained to a reporter, circa 1968, that the definition of mo rality was fundamentally shifting. Being moral _ being "good" _ no longer hinged on whether you had sex outside marriage; the moral debate now focused on war, civil rights, in justices of class and race and gender. Well, the message I got from "Pri mary Colors" is something similar. The film version of Joe Klein's thinly fictionalized account of Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign serves up all the salacious sex scandal stuff now obsessing the White House and the media. The underlying theme, though, is that the real moral dilemma of American politics isn't sex at all. It's the way little people _ citizens, vot ers, fathers, daughters, the disabled guy who scratches out a living mak ing doughnuts _ get hurt, or at best overlooked, by a process that puts winning above all else. Is digging up sexual dirt on your opponent an unfortunate requirement of the game? Is it, however repugnant, just one of those things you've got to endure to get to where you can do some good for the masses? Does the end justify the means, or do the means corrupt the end? Do you even know, by the time you get elected, what's good for average folks when you've indulged in so much evil along the way? Jack Stanton, the Clinton character in "Primary Colors," shrouds his ev ery act of immorality in pathos for the little guy _ so much so that when he has sex with a librarian he meets at a campaign stop, he actually seems to think he's advanced the cause of lit eracy. And when the Hillary character whacks him across the face for sleep ing with her hairdresser, he just hangs his head and stares into space like a pathetic, chubby baby. "Primary Colors" is more than en tertainment. It's sobering. It's a cold shower on an audience so drunk with sexual rumor and graphic little tidbits about who pawed whom when that we've forgotten _ just as our candi dates have what really matters. Roessner is a Courant columnist.
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