I The Behrend Beacon Random Ramblings: Trees By Michelle Vera Suroviec photography editor (nis i 2 1 p,,u.edu Nobody lived by me so I had to play by myself. I liked to go into the woods and get dead cow parts. But then my dog ate them, so I had no toys anymore. My neigh bor killed my dog. His girlfriend had no teeth. She called our house when they finally got a telephone and said she didn't want me hanging out with their son. He was gay, and I told him that was ok, so they thought I was a had influence. One time our neighbor took his lawn mower and mowed down all our trees; we had a nursery. Around Christmas time people would steal trees. None of the good trees were by the road though. My dad prom ised me a treehouse and a pony. I didn't get either, hut one time he brought this horse home with him. Some Amish guy let him borrow it. He said I could have it if I cleaned up its mess, but I didn't. QUOTE OF THE WEEK "NyQuil plus coffee does not equal DayQuil." -Zack Mentz I'M your By Dr. Zack Mentz cartoonist 'dm 104 psusedu Not too long ago, the Beacon pub lished a how-to article about students dating their professors. I was appalled at the way we professors were por trayed. We were depicted as gullible, lonely, chubby old hags. 1 decided to write this article in response to that let ter. Students have no idea of the levels of manipulation involved in a student/teacher relationship. When stu dents and teachers date, don't be fooled when you hear the ball is in the stu dent's court. We teachers are crafty folk and, for the most part, know exactly how to get what we want from you young-bloods. So, professors, this is a quick lesson in how to date your stu dents. And students, this is a quick note to tell you that "we're on to you." I found an article with the statistic that says the average full professor at Penn State (U.P.) earns $89,900. (http://www.pitt.edu/utimes/issues/32/0 (X)525/11 .html) I know I don't make nearly this much, but lets just say that the average salary of a Penn State pro fessor is no more than that. Just a frac tion of that sum would be more than the minimum amount of money needed to survive in this country. If we professors could save our money and spend less on our hybrid cars and dry-cleaning, we could live, at least, four years off of one year's salary. So what's the point of saying this? The point is, we don't need to take our jobs so seriously. If some hot piece of meat is hitting on us, don't resign your self to sticking to old creeds. You won't get fired. Even if you do, who cares? It's okay in the twenty-first century to have romantic relationships with your students. Go for it. God forbid the long arm of Penn State comes down to shake its finger. We are hard workers and deserve some college-aged love. If we aren't stopping to smell the roses now and again, then why were we born with noses? Get what I'm saying? The first thing a professor should do when a student shows romantic interest is weigh the pros and cons of going fur ther. Penn State should turn a blind eye to these relationships; however, you may find trouble bridging the emotional gap between your girlfriend/boyfriend and your spouse If you are not married, great! The world is your oyster. If you are married, con sider how old you are right now and how long that window of finding some- N 0 cksT • to date students one who is interested in you will stay open. If you're spending more than a minute considering the pros and cons, you don't have what it takes to deal with a new love. Forget it. Move on. Go back to your dry cleaning. If you are serious about pursuing a relationship with your student, the goal to making sure that the relationship doesn't end with messy strings attached is letting the student believe they have control. Students think if they have sex with you, they'll get a higher grade in your class. That's good. Encourage that line of thought. Nothing says dumped better than a failing grade. Let the relationship drag on until the end of the semester. Right before the student leaves for break, dump them. This will secure your superiority both inside and outside of the classroom. They'll have no one to blame for their poor grades but themselves. Point for you! Students may feel that they have some sort of "guilt" grip on you if you two are in a relationship. This illusion must be preserved. The more physical you are the more the student will think they have you in their pocket. Remember, the only reason you're in this relationship is for the loving. Milk it for what it's worth. Let the students think they have you in a web of guilt. Your freedom will be as sweet to you as it will be surprising to them. There are plenty of ways you can have a successful romantic relationship with your student. But beyond asking "how," remind yourself of the "why." Why are you interested in a student? Why are you reaching back through the years? Let me help you answer this question. Follow this exercise: Go to a mirror. Take a long look at yourself. Notice the lines growing out of the corners of your eyes. Look at the dark cuts dividing your forehead. Notice the loose skin collecting on the back of your upper arms. Notice the potbelly. This is you. You didn't always look like this. You were once vibrant and youthful. You were once happy. Now do something else. If you are a male, comb your hair, put on a tie. Ladies, pat your cheeks with some makeup. Put on a nice evening gown. Do your hair up nice. Now, return to the mirror and take another long look at yourself. Did all that makeup really hide those crow's feet? Do you really look like a new person? Would you be attracted to you? Take a final look and ask yourself, "Why should I date a stu dent who is only interested in me for grades?" I hope you can come to an answer by yourself. r r We have photographic evidence to suggest that the North Pole is building weapons of , mass destruction UM OR The )eo e who vunt gill 'e! it Letter from an editor Dear Humour Page, I'm disappointed. I really am. What happened ? When we parted ways, on good terms I might add, you had it going on. Somewhere between then and now you lost it. Together, we pushed boundaries. We got laughs. We were psuedo offensive. Didn't you learn any thing? You were something that "The Onion" could have been proud of. Nowadays' r see articles in you that could have been pushed further. They could have gone the extra mile to bring a smile to the face of a hardened audience that's been brought up on "Ren & Stimpy" and "South Park." Let's face it, you've got an adult readership, there's no reason you couldn't push further into taboos like sexuality and reli gion. When we were together, we did that, and it was great. It's not just that you've got an adult readership. It's that you've got a responsibility. Humor is a disci pline that evolves like any other (i.e science and technology.) It allows us to address the constantly chang ing world around us in an enjoyable and objective way. You might say that humor is the spoon full of sugar that makes the objectivity go down. Humor is another way of thinking that leads to profound ideas and allows the nasty things that go on to Do you know Christmas calculus? We've all done it, laid awake in our little beds try ing so hard to keep our ever so heavy eyelids open, waiting to catch a glimpse of "Santa." Nevertheless we all fell asleep waiting and wake the next morning to find what he has left. But Christmas is not all about what Santa left. Cookies; everyone leaves cookies for Santa and car rots for the reindeer and maybe some milk to wash it down. There about are two billion kids on earth (those under 18 years old). About 15 percent of these chil dren are of a faith that believes in Santa, thus leaving Santa to visit about 378 million children in roughly over one night. With about three and a half children in the average house, he would have to visit about 108 million houses on Christmas Eve. Each house might want to leave a plate with three cookies that weigh about a tenth of a pound per cookie and maybe an eight ounce glass of milk. Then the carrots; three carrots for eight reindeer sounds reasonable at about two-tenths of a pound each. Santa alone on Christmas Eve would ingest roughly 324 million cookies, weighing approximately 16.2 thousand tons. Santa would drink about 864 ounces of milk or about 54 million pounds. Most rein deer live on straw, grass, nuts and berries, but the eight flying reindeer would have to take down about By Dan Mitchell contributing writer dgm 137 Wiml.edu be exposed in a brighter light than "good" journalism or corporate journalism ever could. If you don't remain on the cutting edge in all aspects, including offensiveness, you're holding back all of mankind, like all those people who refuse to get touch-tone service because of the extra quarter it adds to their phone bill. Have you become out of touch? Are you afraid of making your read ers uncomfortable? Don `t be. People like abuse and discomfort. Take listening to 'emo music' for example. That's rather self-abusive and discomforting. So what if some readers might say that humor is purely for entertainment? Perhaps they should march themselves back to the kiddie table and pop in a `Smurfs' video. It's fine for them to be eternally mired in an unending sea of pointless slapstick and soph omoric inconsequentiality, but if they step to you, jingle some keys in their face and tell them you hid a cookie in their sock drawer. They're idiots and they'll run off. Problem solved. Perhaps you're confused, uncer tain about yourself. Maybe you don't know if humor should be offensive at all or only "so offen sive." Don't take a razor to your wrists. Be as offensive as you want. If you run into readers who tell you to soften your offensiveness, these 32 thousand tons of carrots. If each reindeer ate its share of the carrots, then each would be just about the size of a cruise liner. Now imagine eighty tiny cruise liners pulling a jolly fat Santa with a tummy like a bowl full of jelly, a bowl that is three times the size of a football arena full of jelly, through the sky; quite a site to see. We won't even mention the fact that a team of rein deer and a Santa that total in weight more than 75 thousand tons have to visit approximately 108 million houses. If houses were a measly half mile away from each other, then Santa and his fleet would have to travel 54 million miles. With the earth's spin and Santa traveling from east to west he would have to visit approximately 967.7 houses every second. If Santa had no acceleration or deceleration time (he could just go from stop to go instantly) at every house he would have to travel at 483.85 miles a second, or I .7e 6 miles an hour. The human body is not meant to withstand colli sions of more than 20 miles an hour. So the forces act ing on Santa when in flight would be so great that Santa would either catch on fire and burn up in less than a second from leaving the North Pole, or he would burst. That's right, burst; big balls of jiggly jelly everywhere. It would compare to Mt. St. Helens erupting, only we all would die from jelly suffocation. So if there was ever a Santa, there isn't now. But don't forget the next time you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you may just be eating Santa. Friday, December 9, 2005 readers are obviously oblivious to the social need of humor and are likely somewhat narrow minded prisoners of the status-quo. As the "Dilbert Principle" indicates, these readers are "Prime management material." As the cancellation and subse quent reinstatement of 'Family Guy" shows, they'd obviously be incapable and incompetent manage ment, These readers would best take a lesson from Rupert Murdoch, a rather successful businessman (you can google him if you don't believe me). Rupert Murdoch is a very, very conservative Australian that owns Fox. All of it. And he pays $BOO,OOO an episode so 'Family Guy' can air every week and attack his values on his own network, Why? Because people watch it, and he makes money off the ads. And the bottom line of any business is making money. You can thank me later for the crash MBA course. Lastly, you might run into people who are offended by offensiveness. Tell them to either save up and buy themselves a sense of humor or just not read it. Frickin' babies. Br , ce Sa er, Love, Chris fivizdtdc opinion editor
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers