Paige Miles, Editorial Page Editor
The Behrend Beacon
/uihli'.ln il weckh in the i>l Pam Stale I. ne. /he liehraul ( allege
News Editor
Erin McCarty
Sports Editors
Scott Soltis
Zoe Rose
Editorial Page Editor
Paige Miles
Features Editor
Karl Benacci
Staff Photographers
Jeff Hankey
Heather Myers
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 secret to holiday cheer
My brother and I had a huge argument
about a holiday song on the radio. On
our commute home from classes one
day, the male singer started crooning
about a young boy that walks into his
shop and asks for a pair of shoes for his
dying mother. Of course, the boy only
has some pocket change for the
shoes, but as we learn from t
song, it is the spirit of giving ani
charity that makes the holidays
not who makes the most
money.
I was angered by the fact
that this singer’s story was
sad and sappy, just like all
the other Christmas Hall
mark specials that are R . VVeindorf
shown on TV. My PCtKy WemUOn
brother was angry with
me because I missed the point of
the song
This might be true. I’m not one to
bash someone trying to do a good deed
or deliver a profound message to others
about the holidays, but please. What’s
the singer doing with the money he's
making from that song? Is it going into
his own pocket or to the Make-A-Wish
Foundation? Given that it was playing
on the local Christian station, I’d assume
that this singer had decent intentions for
creating that song - perhaps his publi
cist really didn’t recommend that song
in order to boost his ratings or improve
his image.
Here’s the thing: We complain that
Christmas is marketed, sold, reduced 50
percent off, and based on the crazy rush
Is disestablishmentarianism dead in college newspapers?
by Jonathan Zimmerman
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Twenty years ago, I served as editor-in
chief of my college newspaper. My co-edi
tors and I stayed up until six or seven in
the morning, five nights a week, We drank
stale coffee, smoked cheap cigarettes, and
banged away on manual typewriters, try
ing to affect a grizzled, hard-boiled image.
Most of us were privileged kids from the
suburbs, not working-class gumshoes. But
the tough-guy image we cultivated in
cluded a deep skepticism of authority-es
pecially of the authorities who ran our uni
versity.
So we made it our job to make them
miserable. Every day, our newspaper at
tacked the university. It wasn't providing
enough financial aid; it wasn't hiring
enough minority professors; it wasn't as
sisting the nearby community. Whatever
the university did or didn't do, we de
nounced it.
Open up a college paper today, and you'll
find a very different sensibility. Today's
editors embrace the cool vibe of popular
culture. Their stories focus less on univer
sity politics and more on music, film, fash
ion and sex.
Especially sex. College newspapers can't
get enough. Many papers now feature regu
lar sex columnists, almost all of them fe
male. At the University of California at
Berkeley, Teresa Chin dispenses frank ad
Editor-in-Chief
Kevin Fallon
Managing Editors
Rebecca Weindorf
Robert Wynne
£
THE BEHREND
Beacon
“ A newspaper by the Technica , support
students for the students ” Doug Butterworth
Professional Publication Mgr.
Dave Richards
Advisor
Cathy Roan
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
to get the perfect toy or gift for loved
ones. We complain that every year, we
lose the spirit of the holiday and expect
people like Britney Spears to get us in
the mood again with a pop-culture ver
sion of "Jingle Bells." We expect our
frustrated trip to the mall on Black Fri
day will officially jump-start that
spirit of charity that hibernates
deep in our hones for the other
11 months of the year.
Please. Try again and
really THINK what Christ
mas means. For Catholics
and other Christians
worldwide, it is the cel
ebration of the birth of
Christ (for some, it’s
to attend church).
But that's only the beginning. For ev
eryone. it should be a time to celebrate
charity and giving to SIR ANGERS, not
just your boss or your Kris Kringle ex
change. Not everyone has the family to
share a meal with, and not everyone can
afford gifts, even for their own children.
How would you like it if you knew Santa
was about to come on Christmas Eve and
you woke with no presents under the
tree? IT IS HAPPENING IN THIS
COUNTRY, perhaps even down the
street from where vou live!
Don't waste your money on purchas
ing the newest holiday albums or waste
your time watching Hallmark specials.
Get up and go do some charity work.
Buy a present lor someone who has to
vice in her "Sex on Tuesdays" column; at
my own institution. New' York University,
Yvonne Fulbright serves as our paper's resi
dent "Sexpert"; and at Yale. Natalie Krinsky
authors the popular "Sex and the (Elm)
City"
Like the show whose name it borrows,
Krinsky's column combines snappy writ
ing with a strong postfeminist slant. Rather
than seeking to change the world, Krinsky
urges girls--always "girls"— to, well, get
theirs.
To be fair, some papers continue to criti
cize university policies. Over the last tew
years, for example, the Yale Daily News has
blasted Yale's efforts to block graduate stu
dents from unionizing. But generally,
today's student journalists give administra
tors a free pass—or, at the most, a light touch.
That's why you rarely read a letter or com
ment from an irate school official condemn
ing the school paper. Twenty years ago.
administrators routinely called us to
scream—yes, scream—about our attacks on
skyrocketing tuition costs, school disciplin
ary procedures, or poor dormitory security.
These folks must celebrate when the col
lege daily turns to more urgent matters, like
stress-induced impotence or the politics of
lovemaking.
What's going on here? Some papers
might temper their coverage of university
politics for fear of reprisals. Last year, offi
cials at Governors State University in Illi
nois suspended publication of a student
Advertising Managers
Melissa Powell
Christine Kleck
Calendar Page Editor
Erinn Hansen
Humor Page Editor
Ross Lockwood
Associate Editor
Jen Henderson
Distribution Manager
Scott Soltis
that week's issue
the one time out of the
year that they have
Friday, December 13, 2002
DeSTROY/NG
DEATH RAY
READY!
Send Letters to the Editor!
Include your name, major, and semester
visit the soup kitchen for their daily
meal. Donate an awesome gift - some
thing that every little kid wants for
Christmas - to Toys for Tots (which you
can drop off at the Peach Street
Wegmans, by the way.)
Short on cash? Try baking cookies
and delivering them wrapped in red and
green ribbon to the homebound and the
bedridden. Ask your local parish/wor
ship space about visiting members of
your church who are in the hospital.
Seek out the lonely, the sick, the dying,
anyone who needs some love (yes,
people lose their loved ones even over
the holidays). Drop that last dollar in
your wallet in the Salvation Army's red
bucket outside the Millcreek Mall.
I don’t mean tell you that you’re bad
citizens. But there is so much more char
ity inside when you actually give it out
to others. I don’t care if you all are
broke, you have the advantage of being
at a college and getting your education.
That’s privilege enough that others can
not fathom. But charity does not have
to equal monetary donations; it’s the giv
ing of time and love and caring to some
one who doesn’t receive it very often.
To borrow a quote from the Diocese of
Erie (and this is slightly modified to fit
in my editorial): If you’re waiting for a
sign to start some charity work, this is
it.
Weindorf’s column
appears every three weeks.
newspaper after it attacked the teaching
performance of two professors. The edi
tors sued the university, which has claimed
the same powers to censor student papers
as high school principals possess.
The Governors State case will be heard
in January by a federal appeals court in
Chicago. Even if the court rules in favor
of students' press freedom, though, the de
cision won't do any good if students don't
take advantage of it.
Most of all, universities won't be called
to account without a strong and indepen
dent student paper. The only other campus
news comes from "public information"
offices, which put a cheery gloss on ev
erything the school does. If student jour
nalists don't present another side of the
story, nobody will.
Two decades ago, I'll admit, we should
have gathered more information- and done
more thinking—before we embraced the
other side. We were too quick to malign
the university, too assured of our own
moral righteousness. We were kids, after
all.
But if kids must err, as apparently they
must, let them err on the side of excessive
criticism rather than of cool detachment.
Sure, there's a place for light entertainment
including sex columns— in the college
press. When heavy breathing dominates
school newspapers, however, school offi
cials breathe a sigh of relief. And that's bad
news for all of us.
standing.
Behrcoll2@aol.com
I think Christmas
stupid
I cun remember when 1 was a little kid
on Christmas Day. 1 was so excited
I couldn't sleep and I always opened
what was in my stocking before ev
eryone else in my family. I remem
ber one year it was four or five
in the morning. This sucked
because I had to wait numer
ous hours before anyone
else woke up. I can remem
ber the occasion like it was Karl Benacci
yesterday: my older
brother Ray screaming at
me when I tried to shake him awake, his
permed hair matted to his lace like an oil
slick engulfing a small Caribbean island.
How I miss the I dBos.
However, awaking everyone was well
worth it. In fact, it was nutcracker sw'ect.
I remember mounds of toys: Transform
ers, Cil Joe figures, sports cards and Teen
age Mutant Ninja Turtle figures, all for
me. I was a gnarly dude.
Nothing could ruin the day. Not even
gifts of clothes. One Christmas, when 1
was in middle school, my grandma gave
me am Olympics sweatshirt with an ice
skater on the front. To make matters
worse, the skater was outlined in glitter
so I went to the store my grandma bought
it at and exchanged it for a Karl Malone
T-shirt (which fell apart and is now a used
as a cleaning rag. which sucks ).
Oh, yes, nothing was better than pre
sents. However, as the years went by, 1
became a Christmas-disliker. At first I
wasn’t sure why, but now I have tons of
reasons why Christmas bites.
First off. I think it’s stupid people buy
presents for one another. I don’t want
presents from my family members be
cause I love them and don’t want them
buying me things. If anything, all the
people who I dislike should buy me
things in order to kiss my butt and get
back on my good side. My parents do
enough for me and I don’t think they have
to buy me presents to show me they love
me or to let me know I’m their special
playa. 1 don’t mind buying things for
people, but I hate getting an influx of
presents all in one day. Bake me a cake
and surprise me one random afternoon.
Stores and manufacturers are the ones
who want Christmas and they've already
The Beacon
for Editorial columnists
for Spring 2003. Send a
500 word editorial to
Behrcoll2@aol.com for
The Behrend Beacon
screwed the world up. The true meaning
of Christmas is to help people who are
less fortunate and show appreciation to
ward those an individual holds dear by
spending time with them, not
by buying them things. Re
member (those of you who are
Christian/Catholic/etc), Jesus
was bom on this day and that’s
what Christmas is all about.
me are the people
who only go to church twice a year—
Christmas and Easter. Why does this ir
ritate me? Two reasons. First off, I can’t
stand the people who rarely go to church
and then act like they’re more sacred than
the blessed holy water. These people
sicken me. Another reason these people
make me mad is because they come early
with their family and take all the good
seats, forcing those who go to church
every week to sit in folding chairs in a
hallway outside the church and listen to
the service through speakers. Punks.
What else sucks? Peach Street, or, the
land of hate. If anyone has been reading
the Beacon for a few years, he or she may
remember my Christmas editorial (two
years ago) where I mention the guy who
llicked my friends and I off —yet the guy
had a car with a Christmas wreath on it.
Way to spread the holiday cheer, Mr.
Natural Selection Gone Bad.
Now the typical Christmas consists of
me being the last person in the house to
wake up after my mother has knocked
on my door for a while. After a long
shower and a lot of food, I join my fam
ily for presents. By that time, they’re
pissed for waiting, but oh well. The tables
have turned, as they say.
However, Christmas will be different
this year. I’ll lock my door, stick in a few
earplugs and dream of Britney Spears
under the tree, waiting for Uncle Karl.
Hmm...now there’s a gift that would
keep on giving all year round...
Have an awesome Christmas!
BenaccVs column
appears every three weeks ,
is looking
review.
Page
we could
JUST SiT
BACK AND
ueTTHe
RePoBU«nS
TAKe cARe
OF
Honoring our main man.
However, most peqple
celebrate presepts qq
Christmas.
Another
thing that annoys