The Behrend College Beacon. Thursday, September 24, 1998
page 4-
The Behrend College Beacon
published weekly by the students of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
News Editor
Will Jordan
Photography Editor
Andrea Zaffino
Associate Editor
Mark Greenbank
Business Manager
Jaime Davis
Advisors
Robert Speel
Jim O'Loughlin
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 view from the lighthouse
Parking a major problem for
students
Lately, the most commonly heard
complaint at Behrend has concerned
parking. The increased freshman en
rollment has brought with it a severe
parking shortage. Students used to
only worry about getting a parking
space close to their destination, but
now there is the possibility of not get
ting a space at all.
A new parking lot was scheduled
to be finished before the semester
started. However, this lot was not
completed in time, and is still under
construction. The problem has been
temporarily resolved by creating
parking spaces on the grass in the lot
behind the apartments and Almy Hall.
This solution will only last for so
long, however. When it starts snow
ing, parking on the grass will be im
possible.
Parking for the commuters is no
better of a situation. There are very
few spaces at times in the day, and
some students are forced to park in
lots, such as Reed, where they will
inevitably receive a ticket. TheTraf-
Are we a vulgar people?
By Richard Striner
Special to The Baltimore Sun
Several years ago, Wash
ington Post reporter Martha
Sherrill reflected on America’s
current love affair with the dis
gusting; from the vulgarity of
characters like Howard Stem and
Don Imus to the prevalence of
obscene violence to the avant
garde’s lust for the grotesque.
“We’re a little hungry,” she
enthused, "for violence and cru
elty and horrifying destruction, for
devourings, for crudity and
unsweet sex. For snot and vomit
and blown-up bits of skull. We
want our world unsocialized.”
Good taste, she proclaimed, “is
dead and was probably never alive
to begin with.”
The question is not whether
Sherrill and her subject are reflec
tive of an interlude in history. Of
course they are: The real question
is how much longer it will take for
this interlude to end. How much
longer will we have to wait for
these transient moods to get
flushed to the place where they
belong?
Is it possible, for instance,
that the dreary tawdriness of the
sex scandal dominating public life
at the moment will cause a wave
of revulsion against tawdriness in
general?
Such trends often flow in
cycles. “What pleased us 10 years
ago ... now seems to us extrava
gant and laughable,” wrote Rene
Descartes more than 350 years
ago, and we continue to prove his
point. Take an early 20th-century
example: the widespread pose of
disillusionment among the literary
“Lost Generation” of the 19205;
the generation “grown up to find
all Gods dead, all wars fought, all
faiths in man shaken,” as F. Scott
Fitzgerald summed it up.
This fad of despair was
largely swept away in the ’3os by
an earnest new mood of commit-
Editor in Chief
Anne Rajotte
Managing Editor
Ayodele Jones
Features Editor
Jon Stubbs
Sports Editor
Jason Snyder
Layout Editors
Mike Perkins
Rose Forrest
Advertising Managers
Erin Edinger
Care y Smith
tter P,
encourages letters to the editor.
Letters should include the address,
phone number, semester standing and
major of the writer. Writers can mail
their letters to behrcoll2@aol.com.
Letters must be received no later than
spm Tuesday for inclusion in that
week’s issue.
fic Appeals Board Meeting was
jammed last week due to so many stu
dents attempting to appeal their tick
ets. Many of the appeals dealt with
the problem of students having to
park where they weren’t permitted,
because there was no available spot
in their designated lots.
Something has to be done about
parking very soon. As soon as the
winter weather begins, the temporary
parking solution will become obso
lete. Students pay well over one hun
dred dollars a year to park on cam
pus, and deserve better facilities than
are provided.
ment. In Britain, George Orwell
compared the short-lived cliches
of the ’2os with the moods of the
’3os. “If the keynote of the writer
of the ’2os is ‘tragic sense of life,’
” he wrote in the aftermath of the
period, “the keynote of the new
writers is ‘serious purpose.’ ” The
change was so extreme that it was
funny: All of a sudden, Orwell ob
served in the mid-19305, “we have
got out of the twilight of the goods
into a sort of Boy Scout atmo
sphere of bare knees and commu
nity singing.”
So it is with the current
scene: The end-of-the-century de
tritus of the ’9os may yield to a
counterreaction. How ephemeral
the garbage of the ’9os is: the
manic hyperactivity of pushy elec
tronic music, the in-your-face ag
gressiveness of TV computer
graphics, the surreal TV advertise
ments that make no sense, the nox
iously spiced food, the kitschy
clothing fabrics with a harsh and
metallic-looking weave, the lu
pine smirk of Jack Nicholson, the
chuckle-headed strangeness of
David Letterman, the postage
stamps bearing likenesses of rock
stars and cartoon characters.
And, not least of all, the
gross-out fare that appeals to the
bratlike side of human nature. All
of this; so oppressive while it lasts;
is merely symptomatic of an age
that is profoundly unsure of itself.
It is all just a fool’s compensation
for an emptiness in public life.
Look at any Astaire-and-
Rogers number on video and then
ask yourself what we have in our
contemporary culture that com
pares with such elegance. And,
with all due respect for the An
drew Lloyd Webber generation of
composers; what do we have in
our popular music that can stand
the comparison with the age that
produced Cole Porter, George and
Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin,
Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern and
The Behrend Review
Does the death penalty work?
“It is a phony issue. To pretend
the death penalty is going to end crime
in the United States is to fool people,
to promote public ignorance;” New
York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
In 1972, the United States Su
preme Court ruled in Furman v. Geor
gia that the death penalty was uncon
stitutional because there were few
state and/or federal government
guidelines on which types of crimes
merited a death sentence. The deci
sion of when and where to impose the
death penalty was left solely up to
judges and juries. However four years
later in 1976, the Supreme Court re
versed its previous decision by ruling
in Gregg v. Georgia that since the state
of Georgia had since set guidelines on
which types of crimes merited a death
sentence, the death penalty could once
again be imposed. And since that rul
ing nearly 500 people have been put
to death in the United States.
Beacon
Is the death penalty really working?
Has serious crime fallen in the United
States as a result of the death pen
alty? Does the death penalty in fact
really prevent crime? To determine
this I made three comparisons. I com
pared Virginia, which does have the
death penalty, to West Virginia, which
doesn’t; Illinois, which does have the
death penalty, to Michigan, which
doesn’t; and Texas, which in recent
years has executed a substantial num
ber of people, to Oklahoma, which in
recent years has executed very few
people.
Virginia/West Virginia
In 1996, Virginia had a violent
crime rate of 341.3 per every 100,000
and murder rate of 7.5 per every
100,000 people. However West Vir
ginia had a crime rate of 210.1 per
every 100,000 people and a murder
rate of only 3.8 per every 100,000
people. When you compare these
numbers you can see that there is a
difference of 131.2 in violent crime
rates and a difference of 3.7 in the
murder rates of both of these states.
West Virginia, which does not have
the death penalty, had a lower crime
and murder rate than Virginia, which
does have the death penalty.
One Flew
Despite complaints, Police and Safety does its job
Undoubtedly, the most popular part
of The Beacon is the weekly police
report. The incidents that are reported
to Police and Safety are usually quite
trivial and often funny. There is rarely
a serious crime in the report.
Because of this, it may seem that
Police and Safety doesn’t do its job
or isn’t a very competent force. How
ever, the fact that there are so very
few serious crimes on campus proves
that Police and Safety does a good job
keeping our campus safe.
There are many complaints about
Police and Safety, and many of them
are warranted. They are zealous ticket
writers, and there have been past ac
cusations of officers overstepping
their bounds confiscating items from
dorm rooms. They do annoying things
like bust parties in the dorms and
apartments and on occasion can be
Richard Rodgers
Please avoid the mistake of
associating these sorts of observa
tions with a single political
agenda, such as cultural conser
vation. Most people seem to feel
a salutary longing for an element
(if only an element) of inspiration
at the center of their lives.
So is an age of elegance and
uplift over our horizon? Maybe,
but the pace of the transition might
not be refreshingly swift. Consider
the case of Jerry Hirshberg, auto
motive designer and creator of one
of the most elegant cars of the
’9os, the Infiniti J3O. Crafted to
recall the great age of classic cars,
the J3O featured an exquisitely
sculpted form.
Discussing the creation of
this car in his new book, “The Cre
ative Priority,” Hirshberg affirmed
that his intent had been to design
a car that was “simple and grace
ful.” But then, in recounting the
brainstorming sessions that devel-
Editorial
Illinois/Michigan
In 1996, Illinois had a violent 100,000 people. However Oklahoma
crime rate of 886.2 per every 100,000 had a violent crime rate of only 597.1
people and a murder rate of 10.0 per per every 100,000 people and a mur
every 100,000 people. However der rate of only 6.8 per every 100,000
If the death penalty does not deter crime, but
increases it, why then does it exist at all in the United
States?
Michigan had a violent crime rate of
only 635.3 per every 100,000 people
and a murder rate of 7.5 per every
100,000 people. When you compare
these numbers you can see that there
is a difference of 250.9 in the violent
crime rates and a difference of 2.5 in
the murder rates of both of these
states. Michigan, which does not have
the death penalty, had a lower crime
and murder rate than Illinois, which
does have the death penalty.
Texas/Oklahoma
In 1996, Texas had a violent crime
rate of 644.4 per every 100,000 people
the Albatross ’ Nest
ver
amazingly unhelpful if one is having car, safe
Complaints about Police and Safety will always exist,
and often for good reason. However, students should
not forget who gives them their sense of security.
car troubles in the parking lot.
Despite this, they do their best to
give students a secure feeling on this
campus. Recently, my car was bro
ken into off campus, and the driver
side window was smashed. The car
had to sit in the parking lot at Behrend
for two days, basically unlocked and
unsecured. During this time, my car
was not bothered, nor was anything
stolen from it. Police and Safety of
ficers patrol the parking lots all night,
and their vigilance kept, at least my
oped the J3O concept, Hirshberg
could not resist adding this trendy
confession: “At an early mind
map session for the Infiniti J3O
luxury car, we were trying to
enunciate the kind of identity we
wanted the
car to have, as well as imagine the
people we wanted to attract. ...
This particular pow-wow began
with an off-color story I no longer
recall, but I do remember the toi
let bowl someone sketched to re
mind us of its punch line.
“Only later did we realize
that it was the abstract form of the
bowl itself, its voluminous, fully
rounded, stable and organic shape
that brought the joke to mind in
the first place. ... For shorthand,
we labeled the quintessential J3O
buyer “the perfect —hole.”
Thanks, Jerry, for
encapsulizing the dysfunctional
’9os: elegance apologizing for it
self at the shrine of vulgarity.
and a murder rate of 7.7 per every
people. When you compare these
numbers you can see that there is a
difference of 47.3 in the violent crime
rates and a difference of 0.9 in the
murder rates of both of these states.
Oklahoma, which does not execute
nearly as many people as Texas does,
had a lower crime and murder rate
than Texas, which executes a substan
tial number of people.
After making these three compari
sons I concluded that the death pen
alty does not prevent crime. In every
single one of my comparisons the
states which did not have the death
CUNToN HATERS,INC.
While Erie certainly isn’t the crime
capital of America, it isn’t exactly the
safest city either. Behrend is sur
rounded by woods, and is easily ac
cessed from Station Road, Jordan
Road and the Gorge. Still, students
feel relatively safe walking from the
library and computer labs to the dorms
at midnight. Students often sit outside
of their dorms until all hours of the
night without the fear of being the
victim of a crime.
The statistics show the crime rate
etters to the Editor
ehrco!l2 @ AOL.com
penalty, or in the case of Oklahoma
which does not administer it that of
ten, had lower crime and murder rates
than their neighboring states with the
death penalty. So now this brings the
question: Does the death penalty ac
tually increase violent crime instead
of deterring it?
One recent study done in Califor
nia found that the average increase in
murders was twice as high in years in
which the death penalty was enforced
compared to years in which it wasn’t.
“The study compared the homicide
rates during 1952-1967, when an ex
ecution occurred on an average of
every two months, with the homicide
rates between 1968-1991, a period
during which no executions oc
curred.” So if the death penalty does
not deter crime, but increases it, why
then does it exist at all in the United
States?
Testrake is a junior majoring in po
litical science. The Behrend Review
appears every three weeks in The Bea
con.
at Behrend to be virtually zero, with
only a handful of serious crimes re
ported over the last three years. Many
students even feel safe not locking
their doors at night.
When a serious incident does oc
cur, such as the hiker falling into the
Wintergreen Gorge, Police and Safety
was equipped to handle the situation
until paramedics could arrive.
Complaints about Police and Safety
will always exist, and often for good
reason. However, students should not
forget who gives them the sense of
security when they are on campus late
at night, or decide to leave their doors
unlocked.
Rajotte is editor in chief of the Bea
con. One Flew Over the Albatross'
Nest appears every three weeks.
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