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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the '
I right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
The Behrend Beacon
Published weekly by the students of Penn State Behrend
11141 \I)
Deacon
News Editor
Lenny Smith
Student Lite Editors
Scott Mo,ka
an Gal' idler
Penn State Erie,
The Behrend College
First Floor, The J• Elmer Reed Union Building
Don't stay together for the kids
By Jeff Deßello
stuff tiv iter
11(1:1114: , (' , psu cdu
one of the stories most
talked about in current
celebrity gossip is the cus
tody battle between Britney Spears
and Key in Federline over their two
children. This is one of the most
controversial topics being dis
cussed in modern celebrity politics
and it is quite obvious that there is
not going to he an easy solution.
Jayden James and Sean Preston
have been set up from birth to have
a life in the public eye. The eery
public battle over who is to he their
primary' guardian is certainly not
going to make it any less true.
After spending the better part of a
decade at the top of the charts and
on top of the world, Spears
appeared to lose control. After her
first attempt at marriage ended
after a mere 54 hours to childhood
friend Jason Alexander her life
seemed to spiral downward. Along
her way to the bottom Spears mar
ried former back-up dancer
Federline. who, until that time. had
remained under the public radar and
no one really knew him. During
their time together it was clear that
the once motivated Spears had
given up her throne as pop queen.
The two soon married and Spears'
antics seemed to get worse as time
passed. She was On the cover of
tabloids for what seemed like an
entire year
From walking into truck stop
bathrooms barefoot, to driving her
car with her baby on her lap un
restrained, Spears seemed to know
just what to do to lessen her credi
bility as a mother. As Spears and
Federlines' marriage began to
crumble, so too it seemed did her
last shreds of sanity. One of the
oddest things she did was, after a
long night of partying, she entered
a hair salon and proceeded to shave
Submission Guidelines
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and commentary pieces can be submitted by email to jan2l9@psu.edu or
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Letters should be limited to 350 words and commentaries should be limit
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sion.
All submissions must include the writer's year in school, major and name
as The Beacon does not publish anonymous letters. Deadline for any submis
sion is 5 p.m. Tuesday afternoon for inclusion in the Friday issue. All sub-,
missions are considered, but because of space limitations, some may not be
published.
The Behrend Beacon reserves the right to edit any submissions prior to
publication.
Christopher LaFuria, Editor in Chief
Patrick Webster, Managing Editor
Yvonne Folmer, Advertising Manager
Fit fany Flvnn, Assistant Advertising Manager
Kim Young, Adviser
Sports Editors
, \ndrew McLachlan
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Station Road, Erie, PA 16563
Contact the Beacon at:
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Off all of her hair. To explain t he
decision to go hairless Spears said
that she was donatiml the hair to
chant N,
Not long after the shaving, Spears
realized that her image had taken
enough of a hit, and she did s hat
was expected of celebrities, she
checked herself into rehab. She
spent a good amount of time in the
Promises rehab facility. but almost
immediately atter her release she
went right hack to the late-night
party lifestyle
After behaving hadly for the first
two years of her children's lives
how could she even think of getting
custody of them? I personally don't
know. but she apparently does.
Recently, Spears finally got the
charges of child abuse filed against
her to be dropped. but that definite
ly shouldn't be enough to get the
state to grant her custody of the
children. Federline's attorney has
recently petitioned to get 70-30
custody of the children and due to
his moderate behavior I don't see
why the court won't grant it to him.
Personally, I think this whole sit-
uation is a mess. if it weren't for
the off-the-wall behavior of Spears
there wouldn't even he a custody
battle, but she obviously doesn't
want custody that badly because
she is acting like she is losing her
mind. The fact that this whole
process has been held in the public
spotlight for such a long time all
but ensures that Jayden James and
Sean Preston will grow up haunted
by it.
Head Cop . ' Editor
Janet Niedenheawr
Photography Editor
Mike Sharke y
Opinion Editor
Chris Brown
To explain the deci
sion to go hairless
Spears said that
she was donating
the hair to charity.
P f I\l I ON
Shifting
By Chris Brown
opinion Minn
mh; ; I w ~,•u.r~lu
War costs money. War costs
lives. War requires sacrifice.
These are statements that
many previous generations, soldiers,
and their families and friends can
attest to personally. But, little is asked
of the American people to help support
the war el forts orts in Iraq and
Afghanistan. For the most part, unless
you served, or know someone person
ally in the armed forces, it is hard to
notice that a war is being waged, that
Ines are being lost. In an article pub
lished in Structure and Dynamics,
James Moody, Associate Professor of
Sociology at Duke University, esti
mates that, "about 5.7 million
Americans know a wounded soldier."
Using established methods to deter
mine the social impact of events, he
estimates that 25 percent of Americans
knew someone killed or wounded in
Vietnam and in order to reach that
level today another 25(1,000 soldiers
would need to die or he wounded.
Strictly by the numbers, the cost of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is
staggering. So far, over $7OO billion
has been spent for both. Neither have
ever been included in the early budget
and instead are considered off budget
emergency supplemental hills. The
true cost can never he known because
Figures do not express the costs of'
weapons procurement and moderniz
ing equipment; not to mention the
costs of providing health care for vet
erans in two War, that hav e seen an
unprecedented number of veterans
who will require life-long treatment
Have an opinion? Want to see something changed on campus?
Share it with the rest of the student body. The Behrend Beacon
is always
LaFuria,at cslsoos@psu.edu if you are interested in writing.
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- NFL Season starting
- Pudding
- Jim Gaffigan coming to Behrend
- Club Rush
Penn State tailgating
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M life as a freshman
By Rachel Reeves
contributing writer
r 0 .50570 p,,usedu
How many freshmen do we have?" inquires my pro
fessor. Timidly the 10 of us raise our hands, eyes
downcast. Upperclassmen groan and curse softly,
and the professor's face falls a little bit. Instead of taking
offense, we simply hang our heads in further shame.
We know. We know what lost, pathetic human beings we
are. We know. For the first two nights I ate salad, just
because I didn't know where the rest of the food was, and
anyways the lines were too long. I stood there layering on
chicken bits and croutons, trying desperately to make a
meal out of it. Every morning for a week I sat at breakfast
eyeing other people's orange juice. "People are drinking it,
there must be juice somewhere in this wretched place.
There just has to be," I thought to myself. I finally found
it, although this morning lemonade came out of the orange
juice tap.
I can never remember the step down coming out of the
Science building, and I have stumbled out the door every
single day this week. Far too many times I have stood on
the porch of my residence hall, slowly spinning on the
spot, trying to figure out which way my destination lays.
When I walk out of a building at night, the campus looks
so hopelessly different that I become thoroughly lost
again.
I blush when I pass strangers on the way to my shower,
covered only by my towel, and bathing with flip flops on
is just plain comical. It's hard getting used to treating my
ID card and room key like another appendage instead of
the costs of war
and rehabilitation. Already the health
system for veterans is at a breakpoint
and is struggling to meet the demands
being asked. Its costs will increase
over time as more and more veterans
make demands on the health system.
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in
economics, estimates that the war in
Iraq may end up costing $2 trillion,
(this figure includes projected health
care costs) but many place this esti
mate as a moderate projection because
it is assumed that the United States
will withdraw from Iraq by 2010.
These numbers are much larger than
the Bush Administration projected
before the war. The numbers them-
Americans know a
wounded soldier"
selves are nothing new. Some would
say the United States has been in cost
ly wars before and came out just fine.
This may be true, but the way the gov
ernment is paying for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan is fundamentally dif
ferent than the funding of all previous
wars. Essentially we are funding this
war on credit. This differs from previ
ous wars, where President's tradition
ally increased taxes to pay for war. For
instance, Lyndon Johnson increased
the income tax so everyone felt the
effect of the war. Everyone shared in
the hardships of the inflation spawned
from the increased tax.
Today. no one feels the financial
effects of the war except for soldiers
accepting articles for submission.
Thumbs Up Beacon
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"5.7 million
- James Moody
: 1 4.0r*
proCcolib
- Lack of pizza
- Lack of parking
- Parking tickets after 5 pm in the
Reed lot
- Broken computers
- Disney's version of Doug
just another thing to remember. Not as strange, however,
as going days at a time without exchanging any kind of
currency. I'm going to go home and hand my ID card to
some poor cashier at Wegman's, who will then have to ask
for real, actual money.
Writing and highlighting in my textbooks still feels like
a crime. I never have the courage to add to class discus
sions, and all of my questions are stupid ones. A syllabus
is a foreign concept to me; shouldn't the professors be
writing quiz dates and homework assignments on the
board?
Writing and highlighting in my
textbooks still feels like a
crime.
Before arrival, I got so caught up in the fact that I would
be living away from home and managing my own life, I
had forgotten that I was still going to school. Now I'm get
ting slammed with a couple hundred pages of reading a
night, a few papers a week, and constant exams. I recently
found myself sitting in the library, eyes bleary, mind
numb, dimly thinking, "this isn't so different, after all."
So please, give us time. We'll get there. Already we can
find some buildings without thinking too hard about it. We
know where to find the Chinese food and the ice cream.
We're beginning to scrawl through our textbooks with
more confidence. We're starting to think that maybe we
can survive here. And that makes us so much more bear
able.
and their families. But, inevitably.
someone will need to pay for these
wars and unfortunately payments will
start when we can least afford it.
Medicare, Medicaid and Social
Security costs are going to quickly
outstrip the government's ability to
pay for them. Bush is already threaten
ing to veto a children's health insur
ance bill citing budget constraints. If
this is a taste of what's to come then
the future already looks bleak.
Unfortunately, it will be people in the
middle and lower classes who end up
paying for these wars. A sad fact for
the people who already make up a dis
proportionate number of the soldiers.
They will be paying for it when the
social welfare programs they rely. on
most get cut, the schools they send
their children to lose more funding,
and the income taxes they pay go up.
They will be paying for it long after
our soldiers have come home.
Karl Rove wrote that, "President
Bush will be viewed as a far-sighted
leader who confronted the key test of
the 21st century," in an editorial
before he resigned from his post as
Advisor to the President. I disagree:
Bush has failed to put any thought to
the problem Americans will face in
paying for his war of choice in Iraq.
and unfortunately he and everyone in
politics today will he long gone before
they can be asked to account for their
lack of vision and wasteful spending.
This is the first of a two-part series
looking at the shifting costs of war and
its effect on American citizens. The
next part will focus on the human cost
of Ivor
E-mail
Thumbs Down:
w~ -
Chris