CAMPUS LIFE
New SGA president Antonios Avramidis shares inter
ests inside and outside the office ... see page 9.
Volume 48 No. 1
FDNY Captain Jay Jonas recalls firefighters' response at WTC
BY MATTHEW BIRX
FOR THE CAPITIAL TIMES
MEB3SI@PSU.EDU
The Morrison Gallery at Penn
State Harrisburg was full to
standing room only. Waiting was
a montage of students, faculty,
members of the community,
police officers, and firefighters
from local areas and beyond. No
one knew what to expect.
Jay Jonas, captain of New
York City's Ladder Co. 6 in
September 2001, spoke Tuesday,
Sept. 9 at PSH about responding
to the Sept. 11 attacks at the
World Trade Center (WTC),
Please see JONAS
on page 3
Tackling high textbook prices
By PHIL NARSH
STAFF WRITER
PSNSOOI @PSU.EDU
The average American college
student will spend between $7OO
and $l,OOO a year on textbooks
alone, according to a June 2007
report by the Advisory Committee
on Student Financial Assistance
(ACSFA). Add in tuition costs,
dorm or apartment bills, and all
the other little things that make
university life expensive, and you
probably owe your parents a hug.
The cost of higher education
is rising all over the country,
increasing at almost twice the
rate of inflation. Many students
are finding it difficult to meet
the financial requirements to
graduate, and the percentage of
college drops-outs increases as
a result. Public and government
officials alike have taken notice
of this and are slowly but surely
working to "roll back prices."
Here at Penn State Harrisburg,
INDEX:
The
A fight never
the Student Government
Association is on the job. SGA
passed a resolution last semester
(Resolution No. 2008-1) which
expressed the absurdity of new
textbook prices and attempted
to convince professors to re-use
older books instead of requiring
new editions for their classes. The
idea behind the resolution was that
certain subjects, such as calculus
or geography, never change in
what can be learned about them,
so a year-old edition of the book
would be just as useful as a brand
new edition.
Sophomore Russell Bewer
was happy to report that his
Introduction to Digital Design
class this semester uses a textbook
published in 1995, but the effects
of Resolution No. 2008-1 have
yet to be widely seen on campus.
SGA can persuade and cohere
Please see TEXTBOOKS
on page 3
OPINION
ENTERTAINMENT
Defying norms, "Sock Baby" gains online attention
from viewers as well as Hollywood ... see page 13.
Capital Ti
The Student Voice of Penn State Harrisburg
3-5 CAMPUS LIFE ...
.6-8 ENTERTAINMENT
forgotten
Photo by PHIL NARSH/ The Capital Times
Councilman Timothy Scott discusses textbook prices with
students at Dickinson College.
Photo by DIANA LE / The Capital Times
..9-12 SPORTS
13-15 POLICE, CALENDAR
SPORTS
Flag football creating friendly competition at Penn
State Harrisburg ... see page 16.
7 years on,
Sept. 11 is so
far and yet so
close
It is not a tidy anniversary this
year. Seven years between that
awful day and this Sept. 11, the
terrorist attacks linger somewhere
between the immediate, a
conscious part of our days, and
the comfortable remove of the
distant past. No longer yesterday
and not yet history.
What happened seven years ago
colors American life today. There
are the two wars, of course. But in
smaller ways, too: We sing "God
Bless America" at the ballpark.
We weigh "evil" as a campaign
issue. We slip off our shoes at
airport security, buy the zip-top
1 6- 1 8 COMICS
19 GAMES
Sept. 10, 2008
By ERIN McCLAM
AP NATIONAL WRITER
hag for liquids and gels.
And yet there is an unmistakable
distance now. No one speaks of
the "new normal" anymore. All
of those things are
. just normal.
This Thursday Sept. 11, 2008
will be nothing like the first
anniversary, when people were
allowed, even encouraged, to take
the day off work to reflect, when
airports were eerily empty, when
silence settled over cities.
But it will also be nothing like
what life in America was on Sept.
10, 2001, the day before.
What does 9 / 1 1 mean, seven
years on? What do we make of it
now?
Seven years means we are far
enough away that Sen. Joe Biden
can joke in a Democratic debate
that former New York Mayor
Rudy Giuliani only mentions
three things in a sentence, "a noun
and a verb and 9 / 1 1," and bring
down the house.
Yet we are close enough that
Please see SEPT. ii
on page 6