Friday, October 3, 2008 -j-'JThe Behrend Beacon Focnuki) in 1948 Penn State Erie, The Behrend College Reed Union Building 4701 College Drive, Erie PA 16563 RoomloH Telephone: (814) 898-6488 Fax: (814)898-6019 Executive Board Rachel Reeves, Editor-in-Chief Connor Sattely, Managing Editor Michelle Quail, Advertising Manager Kim Young, Faculty Adviser Editorial Staff Ryan P. Gallagher, News Editor M. Schwabenbauer, News Editor Jennifer Jurcosa, Perspectives Editor Connor Sattely, Sports Editor Nick Blake, Sports Editor Christine Newby, Sports Editor Evan Koser, Arts Editor Neil J. Peters, Asst. Arts Editor Emily Reichert, Copy Editor Marcus Yeagley, Copy Editor Jeremy Korwek, Website Editor Keegan McGregor, Photography Editor Daniel Smith, Senior Photographer Submission Guidelines: Letters should be limited to 350 words and commentaries 700 words. The more concise the submission, the less we will be forced to edit it for space concerns and the more likely we are to run it. 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Email submissions to jdjso6l@psu.edu or drop them off at the Beacon office. 1 1 The First Amendment to the U.S. ' Constitution 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 right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. k Beacon Thumbs Up -ft* -Pr # (P - Backyard football - Heat lamps by elevator - The Bee Gees - Poorly labeled bathrooms Beacon Thumbs Down - Grey's Anatomy premiere - Code Red on sheets - Harry Potter 5 postponed - Bad boys finishing first PEK3PE CTI V' Why I will vote for Obama By Christopher Brown contributing writer cmbs3l3@psu.edu Voters are a fickle breed, each sub jecting the candidates to their own cri teria, switching on a whim or deeply entrenched. I write this not expecting to necessarily sway many voters, realizing that the reason I support Obama may not translate very well to many others. However, I hope to highlight something overlooked in the main stream media. A president’s personality and decision making style is just as important as their policies. It affects how they make decisions and what those decisions will be. Over the length of this campaign we've seen McCain's inability to con trol his message or his advisors. And as noted by The Washington Post, his campaign is "now run largely by skilled operatives who learned their crafts in successive Bush campaigns and vari ous jobs across the Bush government over the past eight years." including seven former lobbyists. McCain has come across as irascible, testy and erratic in the debates and on the cam paign trail. In contrast, Obama has no former lobbyists on his payroll and has pledged to never hire a former regis tered lobbyist in his administration. His policy team includes a smattering of seasoned Democratic advisors, includ ing Tony Lake. Susan Rice and Samantha Sewall. co-author of The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual with General Petraeus, in addition to a num ber of outsiders including Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor from the University of Chicago, and retired Air Force general Scott Gration. Noam Scheiber, senior editor of The New Republic , described Obama's advisers in March "as decidedly non ideological...just as comfortable with ideological diversity as the candidate they advise." After the last eight years, 1 don’t think our country could withstand another president so driven and blinded by ideology. I want a president willing and able to listen to opposing views, assess their merits and then make a decision. So far. that president should be Barack Obama. Each candidate's reaction to the eco nomic crisis has reaffirmed my feelings on this subject. McCain seemed scat tered and flustered, lacking a coherent story about a subject that he admits to know little about. He injected himself into tenuous negotiations on the rescue bill in Congress, hoping to score politi cal points. Like a starfish, he was point ed in every direction, carried by cur rents out of his control. An outsider’s opinion By Jeff Kramer staff writer jsksl6l@psu.edu I'm a freshman at Penn State Behrend, but more importantly, I’m a Vermonter at Penn State Behrend. Ido “Vermont” things like hike, listen to music, eat Ben & Jerry’s, burn incense, support the political left and do assign ments an hour before the deadline. This column is here to inform you flat-lan ders how good us woodchucks have it back in the Green Mountain state. How long have you gone without, say, checking your Facebook? How long can you go without looking at your phone? What would you do if you had to do everything by candlelight? Here’s a story: I have a friend called Rick. He graduated from Middlebury College, a college so prestigious it turned down Ivy League status, with a degree in philosophy and religion. After he graduated, he had this thought: “ what can I do with a degree in philos ophy and religion? Nothing. 1 can’t In my Opinion: We need to get rawfy for winter. Tbday the heat Imps by the “glass elevator were on all day which means it Was cold enough...alt day. Also I saw my breath while walking to and from my dorm. If $ hesseeere. 4, i .. r - ~ riV'- Hasre an opinion? e*mail Jdjso6l ©psu.edu i ', Obama, on the other hand, stayed calm. He called his advisors, congres sional leaders, Treasury Secretary Paulson and others. He knew that the only way to come up with a good plan was to first figure out how we got into this mess, that assigning blame and injecting presidential politics into Washington at this time could only hurt the country. On Monday, Republicans in the House of Representatives rejected the economic rescue bill, despite McCain’s “best” efforts. Then, after the stock market dropped almost 800 points on the previous day, George W. Bush offered a meager speech to rally Congress and the nation. I have never seen a president look like Bush did dejected and glum: it looked as if a stiff breeze could send him tumbling from the podium when his nation needed him most. On Wednesday, when the bill came to the Senate floor. McCain couldn’t even muster a few words in support of a bill for which he “suspended” his cam paign. Bush and McCain couldn't rally their party, let alone the nation. As the Senate debated the economic rescue bill, Obama gave a speech. Channeling his inner FDR, Obama said, “let us unite in banishing fear. Together we cannot fail. We cannot fail, not now, not tomorrow, not next year. This is a nation that's faced down war and depression, great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet up these challenges, not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans, with resolve and with confidence, with that fundamental belief that, here in America, our destiny is not written for us, it's written by us." Some people say that these are only words. But if convincing the American people and Congress to pass a bill that may prevent, or at worst, lessen our impending economic doom, isn’t some thing, then I don’t know what is. The United States has been in crisis mode since 9/11. Declining income during an economic boom for the first time since World War 11, Hurricane Katrina, nuclear proliferation, econom ic collapse wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with no end in sight. Unfortunatley, the list could go on. Historians debate whether the times make a leader or a leader makes the time. Would Lincoln still be Lincoln without the Civil War? FDR without the Great Depression? Churchill with out WWH? I don’t know the answer to that, but if the United States has ever needed a president to rise to the occa sion, to inspire Americans to fulfill their greatness, it is now. I believe that President will be Barack Obama. hang a slate on my door that says ‘philosopher,’ so what can I do?” Here’s what Rick did. He purchased 23 acres in between Lincoln and Ritpon, literally the middle of nowhere, so he could be a lumberjack. As an aside, Ripton actually is in the middle of nowhere. It’s a four-mile drive over the treacherous Middlebury Gap. It’s a town lost in the moun tains. People make jokes hear about Ripton. They say, “oh friends and I went up there about twice you’re from Ripton? I’m so sorry!” a week overnight, just to hang out. The town consists of a convenience People here have their rooms, a certain store and a church that doubles as a cof- friend’s house, or what have you—a fee house. hangout place. We had the cabin. One Why I will not vote for Obama If elected. Obama plans to cut taxes, create and abolish government-funded programs and balance the budget, which would hopefully help to lower our $10.6 trillion debt. Obama wants to lower the unem ployment rate —honestly, who doesn't? The unemployment rate measures the proportion of the labor force 16 years or older currently seeking a means of employment. However, the rate can be overstated or understated due to dis couraged workers, part-time workers, and unreported legal or illegal employ ment. Even at 6.1 percent, the unem ployment statistic is relatively low. The census taken by the Bureau of Labor Statistics isn't necessarily pre cise nor is it wrong. With every statistic, there are dis crepancies. For example, take those who are simply laid off because their job is seasonal; or those who are in the midst of switching jobs- a process that can sometimes take much longer than necessary—though often not longer than the lasting duration of funds one receives from unemployment pas. Again, the numbers are skewed by those who live in America illegally and submit to the census anyway. There arc also those who do not report their employment status for the purpose of tax-evasion and CPF-evasion. Let's be serious though; Obama wants to create more jobs, but he wants to cut pork barrel spending (which sometimes includes the dismantling of a specific job market) and cut redun dant government programs—basically, "cut jobs." Even worse is his idea to bail out homeowners. While he's at it. should n’t the government also bail out the people who speculate on the stock mar ket and lose money? The government should provide an insurance policy to gamblers —if you lose all of your money, you can just gel it back through a little "bailout" (paid for by the gov ernment with funds provided by the American tax payers). Is he prepared to spend $5O billion a day to make up for losses in the housing market? Universal healthcare.’ Really? Under a system like Canada's, just an example of a universal plan, people are often stuck in a waiting process. Do you have any idea the implications that could have for someone who might need a cat scan ASAP, in the case of a brain tumor that may or may not he malignant? That's bad. People die con stantly due to their unfortunate lack of haste. Yes. they get the best coverage Anyway, Rick purchased 23 acres seven miles outside of Ripton so he could become a lumberjack. On that land he built a cabin, sauna, forge (for layering steel, which he can do), a place to bathe in a Satellite image of the cabin r.i i linO By Evan Koser ails editor emksllo (s'psu.edu river and a other things. The thing about this land is that you can be as loud as you anything and nobody will hear it. After all. there's no electricity or phone service The Behrend Beacon I possible ami no one gels anything bet ter. Yes. they're equal. But what does it matter when equality lor all does not ensure quality lor all'.’ If you have the money to pay into our eapilalistie med ical industry, then why shouldn't you'.’ You know how people get in debt from medical insurance ’ They buy into plans the\ know thev cannot afford. Sure, it's bad that 47 million people are uninsured. But let's take a look at those numbers. figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that around 45 percent id' those without insurance will, within four months of being uninsured, once again have insurance after job transitions. The census also includes 9.57 million peo ple w ho aren't ev en legal citizens of the United States: since when did they qualifv tor anything the government can provide (even if we did have a socialistic healthcare policy) I .’ Nine million of those uninsured are also chil dren. most of whom are eligible for Medicaid. Anil according to Cheryl Hill Lee. co-author of the Census Bureau studs, the census ''underreport ed the number of people actually cov ered" hv Medicaid. Medicare and pri vati/ed health care. According to the same census, roughly 17 million of these people make more than Ss()k a year, which experts suggest is more than enough for even the simplest of coverage. It's not that we can't proside, on the contrary, those who actually want some type of insurance get it. Some don't even want it. Some make enough money and just choose not to bother svith it: some are children who arc eligible for Medicaid hut svhose patents refuse or don’t care to sign them up. It’s not the system that’s dssfunctional- it’s the people ssho use it. That is the problem that needs to be fixed. So how do we fix our problem'.’ One answer is to make generic drugs cheap er. How .’ Allow U.S. citizens to buy drugs from overseas. Obama's plan to sociali/e healthcare will cause the bankruptcy of the pharmaceutical industry, which is bad. You can’t take a free market, capitalistic system, sociali/e it. and expect it to be just as siood. How can we keep the industry a free market, capitalist industry if it doesn't remain privatized'.’ Answer: we can't, because what Obama’s talking about is socialism. 1 don't know about you but I don't want our next president to believe in the "redistribution of wealth." or the socialization of government programs. This is America, and when I w ork hard to earn something. I expect those around me to do the same if they want to experience a quality of life. of my buddies wrote a poem about it: iweilh the jorest is a place oj yreat winder it holds many fond memories oj yod. huddha. and jesus all colliding to make the forest alive to the three of us by lire liyht ire liyht tiny fires on slicks and ire drink a special secret holy liquid, and stumble round the forest floor and other such lliinys and such (The "special hols secret liquid" he refers to is Coca-Cola. I The cabin was (and is) our getaway place. Crappy day at work? Oh well, we're going to the cabin tonight. There’s a party next Thursday? Oh. sorry. Jim. Seth and 1 arc taking Noah up to the cabin (that was a bad idea. Noah wasted so much Jesus and he was always wanting more of Seth’s Buddha). The cabin is our getaway place where we didn't have to deal with the real world, our parents, girlfriends, jobs, or anything else. After all. there's no cell phone reception.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers