Eileen Falkenberg, Editorial Page Editor
The Behrend Beacon
l i f lll t i 111 II (Nit( 111 I(
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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.
Contact The Beacon at:
Telephone: (814) 898-6488
Fax: (814) 898-6019
ISSN 1071-9288.
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The rise and fall
nation's greatest
ERIE, Pa. (Oct. 28, 2003) Ryan
Russell, 21, of Sugar Grove, PA, an
nounced yesterday to 15 people sitting on
the Reed Union Building couches that he
is running for President of the United
States.
The announcement
shockwaves through
tablishment in Wai
D.C. "This could be
gest Presidential upsi
Marsha Brady beat
out for student
council president
in high school,"
said former Ver
mont Gov.
Howard Dean, an
early 2004 presi
dential front-run
ner. "If only he
was eligible to run
before the 2020 election.-
Even former President Bill Clinton
weighed in on Russell's announcement.
"Good luck to the kid, I hope he wins.
Better not have inhaled, though. Where
did I put my Oreos?"
Since he can't officially run, Russell
will be campaigning on the independent
write-in ticket. He held a press conference
in the bookstore earlier this week, about
45 minutes after he announced his candi
dacy. At the press conference, Russell laid
the foundation for his campaign issues,
and took questions from stunned students
and Bruno's management as well.
Russell's main plans are to connect with
today's disengaged youth, piggybacking
their support into the biggest keg party/
inaugural ball the White House has ever
seen. "Today's youth don't care about
politics, and neither do I," said the sur
prisingly charismatic Russell. "All we care
about is what Jessica Simpson is going to
say next, or when Ashton Kutcher is go
ing to show Demi the cameras. Seriously,
is she that dumb?"
ERIE, Pa (Nov. 1, 2003) 2004 presi
dential nominee Ryan Russell announced
more of his political agenda today amid
allegations of his checkered past.
"Ok, we were up all night drinking
Pabst Blue Ribbon, and we decided on a
rally song for the campaign. Ready for
this? It's "Any Way You Want It," by Jour
ney," said the man who also announced
his cat, Peaches, as the ambassador to
Police and Safety. "We wanted a song with
a good beat to it, one that today's youth
can enjoy without any of the sexual over
tones so prevalent in rap music."
Russell then fielded questions from re
porters, who didn't hesitate to ask how he
felt about various hot-button issues that
will undoubtedly shape the 2004 election.
When asked how he thinks the war on
drugs is going, Russell was quick to an
swer. "You know, it's funny, I've done
some drugs in my day, and I don't know
how they keep this program going.
"Basically, the government is engaged
Editor in Chief
Lauren Packer
Managing Editor
Robert Wynne
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01E1
Calendar Page Editor
Amy Wilczynski
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THE BEHREND
Adviser
Beacon Cathy L. Roan, Ph.D
"A newspaper by the
students for the students"
Ryan Russell
Advertising Manager
Ryan Russell
A&E Editor
Daniel J. Stasiewski
Copy Editors
Carolyn M. Tellers
Kristin Bowers
of our
leader
in a war against drug dealers and drug us
ers. It has been since Reagan was Presi
dent," said Russell. "So what that means
is, the government of the United States,
the most powerful nation in the world,
hasn't been able to win a war against
who get high and
School" is the best
Snoop Dog movie about a naked man run
ning down the road I have ever seen. I can't
believe it didn't win a People's Choice
Award."
ERIE, Pa. (Nov. 7, 2003) 2004 presi
dential candidate Ryan Russell tearfully
dropped out of the election race today.
He cited the rumors of his dislike of the
movie "Old School," a growing addiction
to the country bar Papa George's and a
heavy dependency on Pabst Blue Ribbon
beer as the main reasons for ending his
campaign run, which was well into its 11th
day.
Russell made his announcement to a
group of stunned faculty members in the
Kochel Building MISC lounge, breaking
down into tears on the podium, spilling
his PBR all over a discarded "Intro To
Thermoform Design" textbook that had
somehow ended up on the humanities side
of campus.
"It's just become too hard in these last
few days to focus on the real issues,"
sobbed a despondent Russell. "How was I
supposed to know that being president
would have been a full-time job? All I ever
hear about G.W. is that he's on vacation
in Texas, or had to quit his job as a foot
ball commentator because he was hooked
on OxyContin. I thought the job would
give me a cool place to drink PBR and
watch `Judge Joe Brown.'"
With Russell dropping out, the race for
the 2004 Presidency seems wide open, and
the remaining candidates know it. "Thank
God he got hooked on the PBR," said some
Canadian guy who might run for President.
"It's the most highly addictive substance
in Canada outside of bacon. I hope he
makes a full recovery."
"It's too bad," bemoaned Russell's cam
paign manager, Jim of "Camp Jim" fame.
"He could have done some serious dam
age to the leftist political elite high on
Capitol Hill in Washington. We would
have gotten to see Ryan being real. Cam
eras on or cameras off, it would have been
Ryan being real."
DITORIAL
Friday, November 7, 2003
Our view: It's about time
Earlier this week President George
W. Bush signed a bill into law that
made partial-birth abortions illegal. It
is important to remember that this is
only the end of one form of abortion
and is no way an overturning of Roe v.
Wade.
All views expressed hereafter are
strictly about the brutal procedure that
was just outlawed. If there was one
type of abortion that needed to be
stopped, it was this type. This was a
long-overdue ban on a horrible and
now criminal procedure.
For those of you unfamiliar with the
procedure of late-term abortion, it is
the abortion of an almost fully devel
oped baby. (Any reader with a very
weak stomach should skip over the
next few lines.) What used to happen
during the procedure was that the baby
was almost fully delivered through the
birth canal and near the end of the "de
livery," the doctor would puncture the
child's skull and suck out their brain.
Remember, this is not just an egg and
sperm that just hooked up, or some
little thing that looks more like an alien,
:a or four. Some
here, and I'm just
Free
m it up."
discussion turned
Len a reporter
up the rumor that
ell had recently
itched "Old
School" and told
a close confident
that he found it
"stupid." Russell
steadfastly dis
agreed with the
enslaved
Fresh from his failed California guber
natorial campaign, pornographer Larry
Flynt recently lectured at college cam
puses around the country as part of an
effort by the American Civil Liberties
Union to recruit students to join their le
thal cause. In the past few weeks, Flynt
has made celebrity appearances at
Harvard University, the University of
Miami and the University of California
at Berkeley.
"Freedom of speech is not for the
thought you love but for the thought you
hate the most," Flynt declared to one au
dience. Hate speech is the appropriate
label for the "musical" talents who joined
Flynt on the ACLU's 2003 "College Free
dom Tour."
rumor
Singers included the rapper Mystic,
pop underground artists Phantom Planet,
and black supremacist rappers Dead Prez
whose top-40 lyrics include such un-edi
fying lines as "Turn this m_f ing sh-up,"
"F_ the Bible," and "The only good cop
is a dead cop ... Every police is a punk a_
b_." No wonder in the midst of the ACLU
tour, members of Dead Prez were arrested
for disorderly conduct and refusing to
comply with New York police officers.
College Freedom Tour organizer and
ACLU executive director Anthony
Romero explained to the Christian Sci
ence Monitor, "this is an investment in
future generations." Besides Harvard,
Berkeley and Miami, campus tour stops
included the University of Maryland,
City University of New York, New
School University, University of Massa
chusetts, University of Wisconsin and
University of Washington.
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in the flesh and nearly
by Hans Zeiger
The Seattle Times
show your parents and
your future
employer you did
something in college...
this is a child, who was almost fully
developed, until this brutal procedure
killed them.
The banning of this abomination
came with bipartisan support from both
houses of Congress. It's good to see
that Washington can actually accom
plish good things when they can put
aside their partisan politics. This was
a clear cut case of right and wrong, and
the right decision was made.
Unfortunately for most people in this
country, who do not want to see this
violent procedure take place, there is
still a chance that the bill may be over
turned. Shortly after President Bush
finished comments about the signing
of the bill into law, a federal judge in
Nebraska challenged its Constitution
ality.
We hope, the challenge will not make
it as far as the Supreme Court, but right
now the bill's future is unclear. Un
fortunately, it has become easier and
easier to play games with the Consti
tution in recent years and apply it to
situations like this.
It is highly unlikely that when the
... '..'... a ....- --...''''
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in the spirit Tour
At each campus, the ACLU displayed
an MTV-style documentary glorifying
the history of the ACLU and giving
prideful attention to the ACLU's infa
mous 1978 defense of Nazi parade or
ganizers in Skokie, Illinois.
According to Romero, ACLU men-
bership has grown by one third to
400,000 since 2001. Due to the ACLU's
renewed focus on reaching out to Gen
eration Y, an increasing number of mem
bers are young people whose zeal for
leftist causes is cultivated by their pro
fessors and the anti-traditional culture.
In addition to the cultural influences
that are working in a thousand directions
to dissuade young people from the pres
ervation of American order, the ACLU
is doing everything it can to nurture the
roots of a budding generation of radi
cals. "Freedom is why we're here," de
clares the College Freedom Tour Web
site. Of course, for the ACLU, freedom
is defined as the ability to do whatever
one chooses. And as Larry Flynt would
define freedom, it is the ability to do
whatever one chooses that traditional
civil society will "hate the most."
If freedom is . in jeopardy, it is not the
freedom to express the "thought you hate
the most," that finds itself at risk. In
stead, we are losing the freedom of the
lovely and beautiful things whose great
est expression is not of the flesh, but of
the spirit.
Both left and right warn of a general
slackening of freedom. But I am not so
concerned about a declension of free
dom as I am worried about the dearth of
moral duty that plagues the souls of a
generation of Americans. I am not so
despondent about the hyperbolized
warnings about civil liberties and the
Letter to the
editor:
I just wanted the Beacon staff to
know that I LOVED the Halloween
page in the Oct. 31 edition of the Bea
con. It was nice to see something fes
tive and also something different. It
was really informative and interesting.
Really, who knew that we consume that
much candy in a three day period? I
just want to thank the editor and editor
in chief for running that page, and I
hope to see more festive pages, with
more fun tidbits of information.
_
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4Pe'e l* ladile
I -111-,
Charity Marsh,
Management 05
right to choose and the right to a job and
the right to education and the right to
health care and so on; I am decidedly
outraged by the culture of irresponsibil
ity whose highest expressions are found
in the vile raps of Dead Prez, the filthy
smut of Larry Flynt, the noisome new
doctrines of higher education and the
quietly communistic agenda of the
ACLU.
Only a people that is free in a perverted
way can give such glory to the things of
the flesh while neglecting the spiritual
responsibility upon which true freedom
depends. If it were true freedom for
which we strived in our music, our edu
cation, our press and our courts, we
would speak more freely of the things of
the spirit.
We find ourselves free in the flesh and
nearly enslaved in the spirit because we
have failed to recognize both the source
of our freedom and the imperative of our
obligations. We have arrogantly assumed
that we can forget God while receiving
an infinite selection of blessings from
some unknown source.
America's college campuses are al
ready awash in the false faith of ethical
neutrality. The ACLU is exploiting the
fields ripe for its harvest. Sadly, those of
us who've been called to labor in the
spiritual harvest are neglecting our duty,
and a generation of Americans is grow
ing up without a conscience, without the
courage to fight the rampage of the left.
Where are the preachers and teachers
of honor and character on our college and
university campuses to stand against the
purveyors of hate who rule the culture?
Clearly, it is time for a counter-revolu
tion to revive our culture, to renew free
dom in the spirit where it really matters.
Join The Beacon!
contact The Beacon
editors at
behrcoll@aol.com
The Behrend Beacon
Founding Fathers wrote the frame
work for this great nation, that they
wanted it to give people license to kill
babies. Every time the Constitution
is twisted for obscene purposes, it
weakens the foundation of the United
States. If this bill is somehow de
clared unconstitutional, it will be a sad
day to be an American.
Fortunately, for now, it is illegal to
commit the atrocity known as partial
birth abortion. This is a move that was
long overdue, but nevertheless crucial.
It is sad to think of the babies that this
ban came too late for, as well as the
women who had the procedure done
to them.
The moratorium on partial-birth
abortions will benefit those of today
as well as future generations. The
Beacon staff applauds Congress and
the president for taking this step to
protect the nation and her children.
Beacon's editorial opinion is
detemined by majority view of the edi
torial staff
Page