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The Behrend Beacon
THE BEHREND BEACON
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News Editor
Liz Haves
Sports Editor
Mike Bello
Asst. Sports Editors
Kate Levdanskv Petrikis
Editorial Page Editor
Abigail !Tong
Features Editor
Karl Benacei
Asst. Features Editor
Erin itle( 'arty
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Jeanine Noce
Wire Service Editor
Glir Reschenthaler
Health Page Editor
Sarah Orr
•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
CAUTION: Construction
ahead . . . for next five years
Welcome hack everyone! It's
another tall semester and that
means yet another_chance to tell
everyone how much we here at the
Beacon detest the construction
going on! Now that almost half of
the people on the staff are
commuters, the bitterness has only
increased with the onset of this
semester.
Let's start with the most obvious
part: the traffic. The lines to get
on and off campus at any given
time are enough to make even the
most mild-tempered commuter
develop a case of road rage that
would make a Bostonian proud!
Nothing is more frustrating than
sitting there while you watch a guy
in a pretty orange vest wave on
every row of traffic except the one
that you are sitting in.
We do have to thank them for
placing those wonderful heavy
machinery crossing signs up to
warn us that we are about to endure
another 20 minutes of bad radio
before we get to park out cars. And
since we are on the subject of
parking...
Let us, for a moment, pretend
that construction of this great new
highway is going to finish
sometime this decade. OK, since
we are using our imaginations,
let's pretend that the
administrators finally get wise to
the fact that we need a stinking
parking garage!
It is chaos in the commuter
parking lots at any given time.
There are cars everywhere and no
one is safe! Sure, it keeps Police
and Safety putting up all those cute
little 'Full' signs at the entrance of
every lot on campus, but really,
don't they have enough to do?
Now we know why they need to
carry weapons: to keep all the
commuters from breaking out into
Jerry Springer-like behavior while
fighting over a spot somewhere in
a five-mile radius of campus! The
answer seems so simple: just build
up (i.e., a garage), instead of
around the trees! And since we are
on the subject of trees...
Where did all the trees go? Oh
yeah, that's right, into the gigantic
chipper/shredder thing that turned
them into a big huge pile of mulch!
If you had the pleasure of visiting
Behrend during the summer, you
would have witnessed the
homicide of about an acre of trees.
We don't want to alarm anyone,
Editor-in-Chief
Robert li.•line
Managing Editor
Jeffrey Miller
Assistant Managing Editor
Paige AliieA
Professional Publication Mgr
I)are Richards
Advisor
Afr 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. Sunday for inclusion in that
but the squirrels might be running
out of places to dwell. And since
we are on the subject of huge
eyesores
Oh wait, we weren't on that
subject yet. But we are now! It has
been rumored in the past that the
college won't construct any
buildings over four stories high so
as not to take away from the natural
beauty of the campus. But they will
build a new four-lane highway
right through the entrance of
campus. Not that the tremendous
pile of dirt and dead trees doesn't
look great right there behind the
Penn State Erie brick wall, but
honestly, it looks a heck of a lot
worse than a four-story building!
And since we were on the subject
of not being able to get from one
side of the campus to the other
without encountering an
obstruction...
Has anyone tried to get to Logan
House lately (you know, that
building independent of the
campus that you pass while driving
to Buffalo Road)? It's probably a
good thing you don't have a reason
to go to Logan House, because the
one path (aside from busy, heavy
machinery-laden Station Road) to
get there from campus is blocked
off. You are denied! Let's just hope
they don't block off the Behrend
Fields...or plow them over for that
matter!
What do we hope to prove by
talking about all this in the paper?
The same as usual: not much. We
just thought there might be some
other students, faculty, and staff
out there that are as
inconvenienced as we are. And
since we are all in this together for
the next five years (at the
minimum), let's band together to
make sure that the construction
doesn't get out of hand and leave
not only the squirrels, but also us,
the Behrend community, without a
place to park!
Associate Editors
Josh Hilewick
Kelly Walsh
Photo Editors
Kristin Rodgers
Jeff Hankey
Advertising Manager
Ann Marie Havey
Public Relations Manager
Katie Galley
Office Manager
Jason Alward
Copy Editor
Becky Weindorf
Website Editor
Jon McLaughlin
Technical Support
Doug Butterworth
•Letter Policy.
week's issue
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Friday, August 31, 2001
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Need to get
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and negative,
to the editor!
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You could say I'm using this
editorial space to brag about the
fact that I was in Europe this
summer. And I guess you'd be
correct wouldn't you brag? But,
upon returning to the good ole U.S.
of A. after my first international
experience, I thought I should have
some incredible revelation to share
with everyone. And while I do have
various observations that I can
expound upon at your leisure (I do
have a word restriction here), I am
rather dismayed to admit the topic
I'd like to discuss most is American
behavior.
First, let me relate one fact about
Americans in Europe that I have
discovered. Everyone knows you
are American the minute they see
you. It doesn't seem to matter what
you are wearing even if you are
sporting European duds, the natives
can still pick you out. Before you
open your mouth you are known to
be an American. Even if you know
exactly what you are doing and
where you are going (which was
rather rare), something about us
stands out and exclaims to
everyone around: "I am an
American!" It was the same in
small cities (where there were few
tourists) as it was in London or
Paris (where you can hear a
different language spoken every
time you turn a corner). We even
stood out from the really foreign
behrcoll2@aol.com
Hayes
can just tell what kind of
personality some people have by
looking at them? Yeah, you aren't
supposed to make superficial
judgments like that, but
realistically, it can be done.
Theoretically, if Americans all had
a similar attitude, wouldn't it make
sense that we can be picked out of
a crowd?
And let's face it, we Americans
are all arrogant to some degree.
Don't even try to deny it. We sit at
home and judge every other
country by our standards. If a
country doesn't have our exact
model of democracy and
capitalism, it isn't a free society. If
the inhabitants don't have our
standard of living, our educational
standards, our healthcare system,
then they aren't nearly as refined.
If they don't drive on the same side
of the road, they are bass ackwards
not us. We are the perfect models
of everything, and everyone else
just needs to catch up. Isn't that
how we see ourselves?
But maybe that's natural to
think your society is the best.
Maybe those people we are
reducing to inferiority are doing to
the same to us, which is fine. But
the real mark of arrogance is when
you can go into another country and
determine everything wrong with
that country within a few days (or
even hours) by pulling out all the
facts that are different from home.
told by an idiot Ugly Americans
igners.
think it had something to do
ith attitude. Know how you
Abigail Long, Editorial Page Editor
something off
chest?
Not a good idea when you are on
someone else's turf!
And yet, people were doing it all
the time. Nothing was good
enough, modern enough, or fast
enough to make so many
Americans happy. In other words,
Europe wasn't America. Well, news
flash, America doesn't occupy the
whole globe ... yet. When you go
to another country, you are
supposedly going because it IS
different not because it is the
same. That's part of the
"international experience."
Another common complaint of
Americans was that Europeans
were so rude. Maybe because they
were sick of arrogant Americans
coming and bashing their country!
Do you hear foreigners coming to
America and openly insulting the
country the minute they step foot
on land? I haven't. And maybe
foreigners find Americans to be
really rude! Hey, there's a thought.
I mean, how nice are we really
to people coming from other
countries? Throughout history we
have blamed foreigners for all our
social and economic problems. We
shove them into little sections of
city ghettos, insult them because
they don't speak English well or at
all, and treat their children like
second-class citizens. And then we
get upset because the Parisians
don't respond well to our weak
attempts at French and our inability
to understand them. But do we
blame ourselves? Of course not -
it's not our fault!
It was rather frustrating to hear
people blaming their messed up
orders at restaurants on the waiter's
misunderstanding. Wouldn't it be
behrcoll2@aol.com
our misunderstanding? If someone
from Lithuania ordered food at our
restaurant and the waiter couldn't
understand Lithuanian, who would
you say was at fault? Certainly not
the American waiter. True, English
is more universal than Lithuanian
or even French. But if English isn't
the first language of the person you
are speaking to, it doesn't really
matter how many other people
understand it.
I guess my point is we need to
have a bit more tolerance for other
cultures. Yeah, our country is a
superpower right now. But the
Roman Empire once ruled the
world, and look where the Italians
are now. How many schools in the
world are requiring students to
know Latin so they can
communicate globally?
And don't forget, the United
States has only been around for a
couple hundred years. Half the
countries in Europe were world
powers for a short time span, just
like the U.S. I think someone needs
to come up and knock some of that
arrogance out of us. We are the
young, upstart whippersnappers.
We should have a bit more respect
for countries that have been around
for a couple millennia because
they've got a few years on us.
**And for those who are
confused about the headline of this
editorial, The Ugly American is a
book about failed American
diplomacy and arrogance in
Southeast Asia during the 19705.
Surprised you didn't know.
Hayes' column appears every
three weeks.