Editorial comments Death of a ding-a-ling It is indeed a sad state of affairs when, in a public building, one cannot make use of a public telephone. No, it's not the lack of service on the part of the telephone company (not this time, anyway). It is the result of either a very successful kleptomaniac, a habitual destructive weird-u or possibly, one of our i 7 104:164t5 . with an egression complex stemming from an unpleasant experience with the telephone company. The dastardly villain has struck not once, mind you, but on four separate occasions; each necessitating the calling (from another phone) of a repairman. Yes, it is a shame that someone is making a collector's item out of the common telephone dial. What will happen when push-button service is installed? These incidents have not gone unnoticed. The business manager is fed up, the Dean of Student Affairs is fed up ("The story of my life"), and students who have been forced to make their calls from some less than convinient location are MORE than fed up. It would really be unfortunate to lose our phones once again (perhaps for the rest of the year) to a person with an obvious communication "hang-up." o.llr. Eigilarns.9 (foltrgiatt The Collegian office is located in the Memorial Building Office hours are Monday thru Friday, 1-4 p.m. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Alan Leininger Paul Pianovich Kris Karchner. Ed Pietroski.... Torn Heppe Richard Campbell Assistant to the Editor: .Vancy Kent. .'VEIL'S: John Roslerich, editor: Celine Student, .Margie Grega, Anne McKinstry, Alice Bright, Susan Kisthart. SPORTS: Tom Caccese, editor; Mark Brashly. CREDIT: Susan Kistha•t. CIRO' '1...1170.V: Eileen Stacelauki. DI'EIiTISING: Betsy Switaj, Lorraine Drake, Mark Brachie. COMPOSITION: Joan Mente, Bright. PHOTOGRAPHY: lion trojnar. ART: Paul Pianocich, l'uehrer. EDITORIAL WRITERS: ,John Hancock, John Martonick, Richard Rockman. .11EMBER: The Press Association of Commonwealth campuses, Association Press Services, Newspaper Conncil of the Press .Issociation, Intercollegiate Press. Letter. Policy Opinions expressed in The HIGHACRES COLLEGIAN are those of individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of The COLLEGIAN. Unsigned editorials represent the official opinions of The COLLEGIAN. Responsible comment to material published in The COLLEGIAN is invited. All letters must be type-written and signed. Faculty members are students are invited to submit articles to be published in a special section of The COLLEGIAN entitled 'lmpact.' Articles and other material (poems included) should be no longer than 400 words and must be typed. - AGAIN! Editor-in-chief Executive Editor Managing Editor Business Nlanager Production Manager Faculty Adviser SI 11 I Hawks, Doves and Blackbirds There's been a lot of talk recently about the decline of the peace movement. The line goes that people have given up on marching; that the government and the Pentagon seem to be immune to mass demonstrations; that President Nixon has noticed the absence of marchers in the streets and was thereby encouraged to authorize American air support in expanding the war into Laos. Would be peace marchers take note: it IS possible to lodge protests which will force the Pentagon to stop plans for killing. A recent dramatic example comes not from the jungles of Southeast Asia but rather from the woods of Tennessee. Milan, Tennessee, to he more precise. It seems that there is a 15 acre section of pines in the 50,000 acre Milan Army Ammunition Plant, which over the past few years has become the favored roost of millions of blackbirds. Their presence has become bothersome to the hog and dairy farmers in the area, to say nothing of Army personnel. Cows have an aversion to eating food that the birds have messed in, so the farmers report. Hogs seem not so particular, but it makes them sick. Other farmers in the area report that their field crops have been destroyed. The ever-resourceful Department of the Interior, in the person of Mr. Paul Le Febvre, came up with an ingenious plan to kill off the birds, a plan worthy of any chemical warfare strategy employed in Indochina. A World War H B-17 bomber would be brought in to spray some 2,000 gallons of a special solution over the pine roost. The solution would neutralize the birds' body oils so that in freezing weather, they would quickly freeze to death. The Chamber of Commerce and the city board of Milan approved the plan and everyone sat back to await a freezing cold spell. But the national news media got wind of the idea before the birds did; stories appeared all over the country; and network camera crews converged upon Milan. Storms of protest began to roll in, primarily, it seems from East coast sources. The Department of Interior strategy was referred back into the Army change of command where it is predicted the plan will be forgotten until the birds migrate North in a few weeks. There you have it. The Pentagon was stopped dead in its tracks and the lives of three million to nine million birds have probably been saved. Pentagon operations abroad, however, are still in effect. While the protests were rolling in concerning the lives of blackbirds and starlings, the death rate of American soldiers killed in Indochina reached a three-month high. While the Art* reports that only one of the fifty-one solfliers killed that week was actually inside Laox, the Laotian operation was considered responsible for the rise in killings. Some 9000 American troops operating in the northwest corner of South Vietnam to back up South Vietnamese troops crossing the border of Laos have come under strong North Vietnamese attack. Of course, the President assures us that Americans are not invading Laos. Invasion, according to such reasoning, occurs only when a border is crossed with ground combat troops. If that assessment is correct, it seems America owes Japan a retroactive apology. I recall that the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor was definitely considered an invasion--and Hawaii wasn't even a state! Maybe the Pentagon is now more consistent. After all, the offending birds cross the Tennessee border by air. Perhaps rampaging hordes of wild boars or grasshoppers launching their attack on the ground would have been dealt with summarily. But the Pentagon response to protest is really the heart of the matter. Some seventypercent of the American populace express the opinion, when asked, that they would like to see American troops out of the war in Southeast Asia. The President and the Pentagon have yet to clearly hear and respond to that desire. Perhaps the peace movement should learn from the Tennessee experience and lobby for legislation to draft household pets, including the feathered varieties—parakeets, parrots, myna birds and canaries—sending them to Vietnam to face certain death. Storms of protest would surely ensue. There seems to be an emotional attachment to domesticated members of the animal kingdom which does not carry over as strongly when human lives are concerned. Pet protestors might bring the war to a halt. . AM of which is another way of saying once again that war is for the birds Parting Shot Paul Scirrulous, B.M. (business manager), earlier today announced the results of P.I.S. on U's 1970-71 fiscal iear. Huge profits were recorded from the SSD, Secret Scourge Division, mostly from parking fines and parking lot land speculation. In addition the library, with its outrageous absent-mindedness fine (perhaps it should be termed rent), added to the dividends of wealthy stockholders. The Company Store, selling wares necessary for academic hie. continued to show progress, especially in the Historic XXI hook sales. and ping-pong balls bounced monetary gain upward. Today's market human interest story concerns a campus radical-nut-freak-effete- and-impudent snob who dared approach Scirrulous and inform him that, after paying the heavy fines, which were turned over to the rich who redistributed them to the lazy rich (i.e., those having time to snow-sculpt), that the poverty stricken students had no tuna for supper. Said Scirrulous in reply, "Then let them eat lobster." Dick Gregory the light side the dark side by John Hancock For our own sake... It is a cliche that talk is cheap. It is also a fact that most cliches are true. A case in point is the reform of the American system of justice. Years of debate have brought us minor reforms. But instead of basking in our glory, we must continue to push forward in this area which is vital to all Americans. It is a sad fact, but although we possess a myriad of proposals for reform we don't seem to be able to find a solution (or even begin to) for the problem. The problem is a plague spreading like the Black Death. The longer we go without finding a cure, the more people will be afflicted; the disease will continue to spread. There is no excuse for this laxity on the part of most of our elected government officials. But where are the areas where reform must be made and what within these areas can be done to correct the injustices which exist in the American system as it now stands? The first area is police. It is important to note that this branch of the American system of justice is the most efficient and therefore demands the least number of reforms. But there are police organizations in many cities which are corrupt. What is needed? A new department of the Attorney General's office to oversee the selection of all men who are to serve on a police force. Perhaps a double check by the state Attorney General and maybe even a triple check by the individual city governments, with the Federal Government givingthe final unbiased opinion would be practical. Secondly, the courts are in dire need of assistance. The basic problem here is that they are hopelessly overcrowded. This causes hastened trials which are less fair to the defendant. A new practice which is becoming increasingly common is "plea bargaining." This is where a defendant pleads guilty in return for a lenient sentence. Surprised? Annoyed? Is this the American system of justice which provides, theoretically at least, a fair trial for all? The positions are being held by judges who are incompetent. On most state and local levels throughout the nation judges are not even required to be versed in the law. Again, political corruption ensues. An important question should be asked. Does this arouse you to any great degree? Maybe so and maybe not, but at any rate, the third area of needed reform is the shocker which should stir you to action. It is prison reform. In the United States today our jails and prisons are cages for animals and not the detention centers for human life which they are supposed to be. The overcrowding due to the inefficiency of our judicial system has bred beatings, rackets and homosexuality inside the prison walls. These in turn lead to frustation on the part of the convicts, leading to riots. But the system has even greater drawbacks. How can we justify putting a forgerer, embezzler or drug addict in a prison cell with a murderer or rapist? This only succeeds in making our prisons graduate schools for crime. They are in effect machines which manufacture crime. All of these problems can be solved and, surprisingly enough, quite easily. We can institute conjugal visits to deter the homosexuality which exists. We can institute reforms where people who forge, embezzle or are drug addicts can pay a restitution to society or obtain the medical assistance they so desperately need. Rehabilitation, theoretically, is the goal of our prison system. This has .sadly , failed—and, the time has come to bring the goal back into -in prdOr. perspective. Prison psychiatrists, doctors and w - orktei:'4o4l'd all combine to make the prisons a better place for the inmates and make the inmates more adaptive to the society they will someday return to. What can be done? There are mnay possibilities. We as students can do a great deal. We now can vote. Surveys have shown that officials who favor reform of the justice system also favor an end to the war. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Other countries in the world have already instituted massive reforms in their justice systems. Why should the United States lag behind? What good excuse can there be? If anything is to be accomplished, it must start with each of us. In this issue of Newsweek, a poll shows that the American public has only a 58% show of faith in Ronald Reagan's views. That is the greatest percentage and he is ultra-conservative! Only 54% support the President, only 42% support the Attorney General and only 40% support the views of liberal Edward Kennedy. So we must try ourselves and realize that years of neglect of all but the police have bred a degree of apathy that will be easily overcome Revolution: Ballots versus bullets by Richard Rockman There are two methods which can be used to stimulate change. These methods are non-violence (voting) and violence. Before either of these methods can be used, the first step in attempting to change the attitude of people must be to draw attention to your cause. No one is going to help you if they do not know what you are fighting for. Protest is one method of making people aware of what you believe are the wrongs being perpetrated against you. Once this has been done, you and your followers must attempt to overcome your opposition. As I mentioned previously, the two methods of doing this are: (1) by non-violent means, which includes voting to elect those who are sympathetic to your cause, and (2) by violent means. Taking the latter course of action into account first, it is found that it is usually used by people who are frustrated due to either not being listened to, or by people listening but not reacting or reacting negatively. But violence almost always involves the destruction of both life and property. To say that you are for violence no matter what the consequences would be a rash statement to make in light of the fact that violence can cause untold destruction and in the end might even be the factor which could destroy all that you hope to accomplish. On the other hand there is the less radical method of revolution, gradual non-violent change, of which the vanguard is voting. In this manner change can be accomplished by the utilization of the principle of democracy. It can, if used correctly, be an even more formidable force than violence. It is apparent that by working through a system to attain a goal instead of working against it and perhaps destroying it, more may be accomplished with less strain. If your cause is one in which you believe that violence is the only recourse, then you are taking the weak man's way out, for if you cannot convince people of the merits of your cause by non-violent means, then perhpas your cause is not worthy of much consideration. by John Martonick STA TS 1 AO OF S ) IT 0 T, - : Y F ----A I .
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers