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The Fourth Wall
“I was shocked when I found
out Joe Paterno was fired, but I
hope Bill O’Brien’s coaching
skills lead to a great season for
Penn state’s football team,”
said Victoria Rohrer, a fresh-
man at Penn State Mont Alto.
“I was devastated, be-
cause he was more than a foot-
ball coach,” said Chad Jacoby,
a sophomore. “He contributed
a lot to Penn State, and gave
more to the school and the stu-
dents than anyone else. Joe Pa
had a way of making Penn
State a better place for every-
one and that’s something Ill
O’Brien I think that it’s going
to be a tough job to fulfill what
Joe Pa did, but he has to real-
continued Jacoby
The hiring of Bill
O’Brien was one of the first
steps. needed after the
Sandusky scandal and Pater-
no’s death, so we as a school
can start to rebuild. There’s
light at the end of the tunnel
for Penn State.
Collegian Photo by: Kelsey Morris
PR TER
Candles spell out Joe Paterno’s
name on the steps of Old Main at
University Park.
JOHN SHAFFER
“Believe deep down in
your heart that you're destined
to do great things.”
It was inspirational
sentiments like this that made
to Penn State students. One
hundred or more Penn State
Mont Alto students gathered
Sunday, January 22nd for a
candlelight vigil to honor this
coach and legend.
The vigil held Sunday
was put together in under ten
hours by Penn State Mont Alto
sophomores Yale Williams and
Chelsea Pittman. Candle light-
ing began outside the Wiestling
Student Center. Students were
led by Resident Life Director
Kim Hoover in the singing of
Amazing Grace. Yale Williams
shared Paterno’s impressive
career statistics. Chelsea and
Yale invited students to share
their thoughts and sentiments.
Howard Poole, a fresh-
man, described Paterno as “A
great leader, and an extraordi-
nary man.”
Students processed to
the Lion Shrine to pay their
final respects to Joe and to join
in singing our alma mater.
“We're all one family,” said
Chelsea. “We wanted to be up
there (Main Campus) but with
classes we couldn’t.”
The vigil at Mont Alto
was held in conjunction with a
similar vigil being held on the
steps of Old Main at the Uni-
versity Park Campus.
CARESSA RICE
SOPA. (Stop Online
Piracy Act) is a bill that was
introduced to Congress in Oc-
tober of 2011, with the inten-
tion of stopping the trafficking
of copyrighted material on the
internet. If passed, SOPA
would allow the U.S. Attorney
General to get a court order
against any site that hosts cop-
yrighted materials, putting
being shut down.
Section 201 of the bill
says that after being served
with a removal order “a service
provider shall take technically
feasible and reasonable
measures designed to prevent
access by its subscribers locat-
ed within the United States to
You are a sweet, handsome
young man. I like that you
make me smile.
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Mahdiyyah Dennis
the foreign in-
fringing site (or
portion thereof) that is subject
to the order.”
Some of the websites
in danger from this bill are pi-
racy sites that sell or offer free
downloads of music, movies;
and other copyrighted material.
The bill also will affect sites
like Tumblr, Facebook, and
Twitter because these websites
allow their users to post almost
anything, such as songs and
other copyrighted content. The
head of these and other social
networking sites oppose the
bill, fearing their websites will
get shut aown.
One of the largest
popular companies that oppos-
es SOPA is Google. On Janu-
ary 18" Google had a black
censor bar over its logo, which,
if clicked, led to an invitation
to petition Congress, saying
“End piracy, not liberty.”
Wikipedia had a simi-
lar protest. Wikipedia's site
appeared normal at first but
said, “Imagine a world without
free knowledge.” There was
gressman and petition against
the bill.
Other centers of inter-
net culture, such as popular
websites and forums, often had
similar anti-SOPA messages
on the day of Google’s protest.
Randall Munroe,
webcomic “xkcd”, said on his
site: “I make my living draw-
ing xkcd, which wouldn’t have
been possible if people hadn’t
been able to freely share my
comics with each other all over
the internet... I oppose
SOPA.”
4chan, home of inter-
net group Anonymous, also
placed censor bars over the
logo of their site and linked
users to SOPA petitions, simi-
lar to Google.
Twenty-four members
of the House support SOPA,
one hundred and seventeen are
opposed to it, and over two
hundred and forty are undecid-
ed. Nevada Senator Harry
Reid, who supports the bill,
said, “We must take action to
stop these illegal practices. We
live in a country where people
rightfully expect to be fairly
compensated for a day’s work,
whether that person is a miner
in the high desert of Nevada,
an independent band in New
York City, or a union worker
on the back lots of a California
movie studio.”
Louisiana Representa-
tive Rodney Alexander, who
opposes the bill, said, “In its
current form, I do not support
the Stop Online Piracy Act as
there is legitimate concern that
[don't censor the web.
this bill has the potential to
limit access to the Internet and
to expand the government’s
overarching reach on another
facet of daily life. I’ve always
said the government typically
has two responses for how it
deals with issues: Do nothing
at all or overact. SOPA is an
example of the latter. Intellec-
tual property should be protect-
ed and the sale of counterfeit
goods needs a solid crack-
down, however, this legislation
goes too far and gives faceless
bureaucrats too much authori-
ty.”
Congress met the third
week of January for another
session to discuss this bill.
The Stop Online Piracy Act is
still pending.
SO