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The Behrend Beacon
THE BEHREND BEACON
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News Editor
Erin Al,l'artv
Asst. News Editor
A" et in Fallon
Sports Editor
Alike Hello
Asst. Sports Editor
Kate I erd vkv Pet riki
Editorial Page Editor
Rrn Ktiminum
Features Editor
Ka,/ Benac,
A& E Editor
Jeamue
Wire Service Editor
Guy Re‘, henthalcr
Health Page Editor
Sat Ili 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.
infamous comb-over
The
riODon't believe I could always
g opt for the
- everything you infamous comb
,. , over but I would
read
never humiliate
myself that
Kevin Fallon much. It is
*
called a
comb-over
As I enter my seventh semester
of college there is one thought that
I just can't shake: I am old. I am
22, so many people laugh at me
when I tell them I feel old. But I
insist that the days of wearing plaid
pants and going to bingo night are
not too far away for me.
The first sign that I was getting
old was when I could use the pick
up line, "Hey, I can buy you beer."
Since then my transformation from
perverted college kid to old fogie
has progressed. The latest and by
far the most terrifying sign of my
old age is something I have
dreaded for a long time: I am going
bald.
During the past year or so I have
noticed my hair getting slowly
thinner and my forehead getting
slowly bigger (although not as
slow as I would like.) It doesn't
look that bad right now and if the
situation doesn't get much worse
then I will be okay. But that is just
wishful thinking; my hair is fading
faster then Mariah Carey's career.
What can I do about this? People
are always offering solutions to my
ailment. Medicines, wigs,
shampoos, and sprays have all been
proposed to me. One person told
me I should join a hair club. I am
not exactly sure what a hair club
is. I want to know: Why is it called
a hair club when none of the
members have hair? It's like a
book club for the illiterate.
/ '
, 1 0 "
11.
Editor-in-Chief
Robert Wynne
Managing Editor
Rebecca Wi'ind(Tf
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. Sunday for inclusion in that
for a reason:
your need for a comb is OVER.
The most popular advice I get is
to shave my head. I am sure this is
what I will do if it comes down to
it but I would prefer not to look like
a real life Charlie Brown.
But what I really want to know
is what effect this will have on my
love life or lack there of. I don't
date that much now and I am sure
looking like Mr. Clean with
anorexia won't help my cause. I
do have a plan though: I am going
to find a girl and get married before
all my hair is gone. Then she will
he stuck with me. I guess she will
just have to love me for what is on
the inside. Sucker.
Soon I will graduate from
college. I will get a job, have
children, then grandchildren. I will
retire one day and say, "Where did
all the time go? And where's my
Ben-Gay?" I know my youthful
looks will only continue to fade.
Wrinkles and false teeth are
probably also in my future. I
should just pack up, get a Cadillac,
move to Florida, and get it over
with.
As I head toward the white light,
one positive thing I can say I have
learned in my old age is: true
beauty is what someone has on the
inside. Or is that just something
ugly people say? What I do know
is we should all enjoy life the best
we can, hair or no hair, because
someday we will die. Good grief.
`~~
Public Relations
Kell Walsh .
Photographer
Jeff Flunkey
Advertising Manager
Llinson
Office Manager
Jason A hvani
Business Manager
Paige Miles
Website Editor
Jon McLoughlin
Technical Support
Doug Butterworth
Distribution Manager
Erie Kis r
•Letter Policy
week's issue
4
At t ., k t
I_7-4
• •,,
,
,
Friday, January 11, 2002
Hello my fellow Behrendonians
(if that is in fact what we are called;
truly, I have no idea). I would just
like to comment, if I could, on the
lovely article written in Nov. 30's pa
per. You know the one friends, the
deeply emotional and inspirational
article entitled "PDA's Link to S &
M" written by the highly talented
Mike Butala. Well first of all, I would
just like to say that it truly hit home.
No one should be a victim of acci
dental PDA sightings, especially of
the how should I say not so flat
tering variety. That sort of thing
should be saved for late night cable
programming. I cannot even recall
Maybe telemarketers could find bin Laden
By Jill Porter
(KRT)
Osama bin Laden may very well
be dead, despite the videotape of him
that was aired on Al-Jazeera
television last week. But -- dead or
alive -- he doesn't seem any closer
to being caught than he was when we
set out to find him two months ago.
His ability to keep his whereabouts
secret is a feat perhaps more mind
boggling than invading and attacking
impenetrable America. Sure, the
network of caves in the Afghanistan
Mountains is as intricate as the
pathways in hand-stitched lace. But
it still seems surreal that something
as primitive as a cave can offer
protection from our highly
sophisticated methods of
surveillance, much less from
U.S. students put spotlight on foreign sweatshops
By Ralph Nader
(KRT)
It is a long distance from student
consumers at college and university
campus stores in the United States to
the wretched overseas factories
indenturing sweatshop workers who
produce products for the U.S. market.
But the United Students Against
Sweatshops (USAS) has built a
network of students across our
country to bridge that distance with
organized consumer power and
citizen pressure.
The companies whose brand names
are on the items in the campus and
other stores do not generally put their
brand names on the grim factories
with serf-like labor in Central
America, Mexico, southeast Asia,
China and elsewhere. These and other
authoritarian regimes allow health and
safety conditions that jeopardize
workers daily.
Several dozen college and
university administrations, both
shaken by or admiring of the students
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
how many times I have been subject
to such a thing, even in my short first
semester here at Behrend. By the way,
does anyone know why the hell it
rains so much here?? Anyway, I
would just like to thank Mr. Butala
on bringing this touchy and contro
versial subject into the open. Perhaps
he should receive some sort of jour
nalist award for that. No, probably
not. Back to the point I believe I was
trying to make, good job Mike, you
made us proud. This sort of thing
should not continue to go 'hush hush'
forever. This issue for me, being now
a currently single coed (Hey Ladies!)
is now all the worse. About a month
hundreds of soldiers breathing down
your neck
Think about it. Bin Laden has
evaded detection in a world in which:
-Our every move is tracked by
databases, monitors, cameras,
microphones and paperwork trails,
and our every thought endures in the
e-mail afterlife
-Our
every identifiable
idiosyncrasy, from our choice of
video rentals to our medical profiles,
is afloat in the information ether, ripe
for exploiting by credit-card
companies, catalog distributors and
other commercial predators.
-We're so detectat):? that machines
can recognize us by voice, touch, heat
or our mother's maiden name (even
our telephone can tell another
telephone that we're on the line).
-We're such a part of the public
domain that not only can't we hide
but we can be stolen. Someone else
ethics-in-action have joined a
Workers Rights Consortium through
which visitations are conducted to
these factories in various nations.
Students return with far more than
facts and eyewitness accounts. They
return with the drive to change the
status quo. Some students even
arrange for workers to visit the United
States to provide firsthand testimony
about their oppressive overseas
factories.
Some of these manufacturing
facilities use child labor to make
products for international commerce
- a situation that is legal under the
World Trade Organization rules. You
cannot buy anything made by child
labor in this country, because such
labor is illegal in the United States;
but ironically our government cannot
ban such imports without violating the
WTO trade agreement and subjecting
the United States to monetary fines
or other trade penalties.
This is just one reason a growing
coalition of labor, church, human
rights, environmental, consumer and
student groups oppose corporate
globalization.
Ben Kundman, Editorial Page Editor
ago, for example, I was walking from
my mailbox in Reed to the stairs by
the bookstore when I happened to
catch a couple on a couch...let's just
say "getting to know each other."
Well, as one might expect, I unknow
ingly made a face of disgust. To my
surprise, a very cute girl had been
watching them also, and had caught
my facial expression. Yeah, I think I
lost my point again. Well the moral
of the story is that people like that
should be more considerate of those
of us with weaker stomachs. So hey
I hope you fine people of The Bea
con can print this, and way to go Mike
on a job well done. By the way, if
can steal our identity and have more
fun than we're having by buying
things we'd never buy for ourselves.
But bin Laden manages to evade
us still. Maybe we should be more
creative in our mission. Maybe we
should put telemarketers on bin
Laden's trail. I'm sure they'd find
him the minute he sat down to dinner.
Or maybe we could hire little
children, who'd burst in on him the
minute he decided to have sex with
his spouse.
Sure, other heinous criminals have
avoided capture and arrest over the
years. Everyone on the FBl's Most
Wanted list, for instance, is the object
of an intense manhunt. One fugitive
has been on the list for 20 years,
another for almost that long.
But most long-sought fugitives are
known only to their would-be
captors. They could live next door to
us for years without having their
Over the last three years, USAS has
been doing more than arousing the
campuses, holding training
conferences and enlisting faculty to
their cause. They are pressing U.S.
companies to insist that their
contracting companies in foreign
countries upgrade their miserable
working conditions and demonstrate.
proof of that result. For example,
USAS reports a recent victory
following its coordinated effort with
organizing efforts of workers at the
large Kukdong factory in Puebla,
Mexico, that makes collegiate apparel
for Nike and Reebok. The laborers
now have their own independent trade
union.
In the United States, USAS is active
as well. Presently, students are
mobilizing behind factory workers at
the New Era cap factory in Derby,
N.Y. a facility that makes baseball
caps for more than 400 universities
and is the exclusive supplier for Major
League Baseball. Workers have been
on strike to oppose a 30 percent pay
cut, an increase in workload and
unsafe working conditions.
Consumer leaders for decades have
behrcoll2@aol.com
there are any fine women out there
that happen to read and like this, they
can feel free to come see me at the
library where I work and have time
to enjoy this fine paper (wow, way to
promote two things at once;) or make
a trek up to Almy Hall. If you are
lucky, maybe we can pass each other
notes. I would just like to say to The
Beacon thank you for your time, and
if anyone out there reads this, that'll
make two of us.
Sincerely,
Matt Thomas
01 Computer Engineering
cover blown. And they could be
anywhere in the world at any time,
making an intense manhunt
problematic.
But Osama bin Laden? He's tall,
bearded and ignominious. He
couldn't disguise himself without the
help of a plastic surgeon. He certainly
couldn't live among us without
detection. And at least we know in
which corner of the world he's
hiding. We've tracked his radio
transmissions and traced his trail to
the area of Tora Bora. We've
narrowed our search to the caves in
the nearby hills.
But still no bin Laden.
The videotape bin Laden released
last week is no doubt meant to
reassure the terrorist faithful that he's
still alive. But it's also meant as a
taunt to us, a reminder that he's
outsmarted us once again - so far
anyway.
dreamed of organized consumer
power -whether by boycotts or
promises of one through more
intricate networks and corporate
campaigns - to reshape company
misbehavior along more decent
pathways. These students are
pioneering new territory in turning
such dreams into reality.
There are many workers, sweating
under terrible bosses, devoid of any
rights or legal protections, unable to
feed their families and exposed to the
arbitrary actions of tyrants and their
business partners in these third world
countries. It is their plight and their
needs that keep these students
expanding their mission of justice.
USAS has its offices in
Washington, where Rachel Edelman,
Amber Gallup and Bhumika
Muchhala run a beehive of activity.
Readers who want more information
or who wish to support this committed
organization with tax-deductible
contributions should contact USAS at
Suite 303, 888 16th Street NW,
Washington, D.C. 20006