Editorial opinion ' University trustees will be crossing the picket lines toda get to their closed commi Y ttlit meetings The University Coalition is picketing the closed meetings to protest their secrecy, to ask for greater student voting represen tation on the board and to ask for open University financial records. It's debatable how effective the picket will be. Other groups have tried to sway the Trustees with similar demonstrations. Last spring, several hundred students marched around campus to stop a tuition hike and that didn't work And then this fall, ,Students for PennPIRG tried to crash the com mittee meetings and that didn't work But the Coalition's cause is cer tarty lust Strong medicine for melancholy By KEVIN COTE Collegian Columnist Brought up in the traditional middle class fashion. I have always been told that as an American. I have a lot to be thankful for It wasn't until last week, when my father and I paid a short visit to Turkey that I appreciated the profound elements of truth in this frequently challenged but seldom disputed grade school philosophy In Turkey, as in America, young people have difficulty in finding a good lob Being presumptuous for the sake of illustration. I'll say that most kids in the United States consider a good Job one that pays at least $l5O weekly. Our guide from Istanbul to Izmir told me that his daughter works ten hours a day, five Jays a week in a bank and gets $lOO a month Contrary to my previous con ceptions. $lOO in Turkey goes no further than $lOO in the United States and there is no apparent rationalization for the disturbing wage. A $3O pair of shoes in Istanbul is a $3O pair of shoes in Philadelphia A bottle of Coke on the r_ , l her side of the world is 35 dents and a pack of Turkish cigarettes costs 50 cents In the United States you can buy a luxury car for $lO,OOO. In Turkey you can Luy a 1965 Chevy Impala, with over tt the Edt The Dail and of the Daily should rs Collegian on be of letters are major encourages comments on news coverage, editorial policy and campus and oft-ca m pus s an publication. Letters affairs. Letters should be typewritten, double spaced, signed by no more • than two Pe d ca n n o no lo t n b g e er re th tu a r n ne 3 d o . lines. Students' letters should include the name, Le ers to term the writer. Letters brought to the Collegian office, 126 Carnegie, in person so proper identification writer can be made, although names can be withheld on request. If received by mail, the Collegian will contact the signer for verification before Cry baby TO THE EDITOR: I am sick of PennPlßG's cr.y baby antics about funding. If they do in fact have 24,000 avid sup porters then why can't they collect dues like any other special interest student organization on campus? The rg o l cowards are not in the administration but in PennPIRG. Theust be afraid that those 24,000 supporters will vaporize when asked to put Their money where their mouths are. Assuming that all 24,000 f-lanatures are valid (which is one big assumption), I wonder he w many signed lust to keep from being harassed or did not realize that they would be asked to come up with $2. PennPIRG Nould have a much better case for a negative check-off if they first had 24,000 dues paying members. Rhetoric TO THE EDITOR: The five members of Students for PennPIRG ..vho offered Wednesday's column on alternative funding mechanisms claim that the University Board of Trustees uses a double standard" regarding voluntary versus involuntary contribution by students to student organizations. They support this contention by pointing out that the University allocates fundS to student activities without the explicit in dividual consent of each student, the inference being, I c r ne4 , - e 1 !\ 1 i 6 ..„, ~ _ , i No excuses If a governing body as in fluential as the U.S. Senate can open its committee meetings -- even when discussing money mat ters the Board of Trustees surely can. All the secrecy does is arouse suspicion. Not only for what goes on behind those closed doors, but for what actually happens at the public trustee meetings. Because everyone assumes, and some trustees even admit, that the real work is done in closed committee sessions. What the public sees at an open meeting is a rerun Closed financial records create the same suspicion. Any group that is so adamant about keeping some of its business hidden must have something to fear from scrutiny. So the public reasons, 100,000 miles on its engine. for lhe same amount While I scream illegal profit when the price of gas jumps to 60 cents a gallon. a Turk thinks nothing of paying one dollar In America we are quick to criticize the evils of corporate oligarchy. When I left State College my American instincts of justice were rattled because Bell of Pennsylvania insisted do charging a $l5 installation fee" for a phone that was already present in an apartment. In such situations, frustration finds fertile soil in the American psyche and manifests itself in the contemporary idiom They've got us by the balls." A strong contrast is afforded by the initial costs of phone installation in Turkey: $4OO - depending on whom you know. Invasion of the citizens right to privacy is the persistent crime of the American politico-administrative machinery. Daily we are flooded with accounts of federal monitoring and interference with the private lives of individuals. I could never condone this policy of regulation, but now that I have been "outside" the system I can at least appreciate some of its latent consequences. The govern ment here feels the pulse of its people, though sometimes through illegitimate means and is sensitive to its needs limitations. Having some idea of where the American public is going, the Daved L. Wahrenberger graduate-statistics suppose, that students are somehow coerced into funding the panoply of student groups on campus. They apparently fail to recognize that those groups which receive monies from Associated Student Activities must be registered with either the Undergraduate Student Government or the Graduate Student Association. Does PennPIRG intend to register with one of these two organizations, thereby placing itself under the same restrictions that University-funded groups operate under? If not, their reasoning is faulty and their objection is a pseudoissue. The proposed relation between PennPIRG and PSU is quite different from any other student organization. It is now months since the Board of Trustees voted down the mandatory-refundable method. When will PIRG move into other avenues of becoming an actuality and cut out the rhetoric? Disservice TO THE EDITOR: Florynce Kennedy spoke on the problems of women Monday night at Schwab and the Collegian covered it. Kennedy said one of woman's problems was that if the attempt by women to improve society or their role in it was covered by the.media at all, it was treated with less care and seriousness than coverage about, let's say, men. She also mentioned that women don't usually try to do anything about no coverage or less-than-fair coverage, and " .- )1 GOLLY, THE \AN, 1((:‘,IRE FZ \ GAT .1 5Rkl - 1 51sTER5 many times correctly. If the University is run efficiently and honestly then the trustees have nothing to fear from open financial records. And have no reason for not opening them. Greater student voting representation would also be nice. After all, we are a majority here and have only a token say in how the University works. But there are un derstandable Problems in increas ing student trustees. Students are transients, remember. It's risky to let a student decide an ongoing policy that he won't have to live with in a year. But there are no excuses for closed committee meetings and financial records. And we should be very unwilling to accept any ex cuses government seeks to provide for it. The word welfare or unemployment com pensation simply does not appear in the Turkish vocabulary. A Turk will never be able to understand what a pension is because he has absolutely nothing to relate the concept to. The Turkish government permits its people to proceed without the invasions of privacy that have become, so much a part of contemporary American life plagued by low wages and crippled by high prices, the people of Turkey pay a steep price. We have all been told that our country has one of the highest stanlards of living Economic textbooks show us the figures and politicians break their arms patting themselves on the back for creating it. For me, a high standard of living has always been a nebulous assertion and this trip to Turkey crystalized its true meaning. Yes, taxes are high in the United States, but we must realize that we have something to show for it. There are no highways in Turkey, at least not the kind we have come to take for granted. I saw no firehouses or fire hydrants in the heavily populated cities of Istanbul, Bursa or Izmir. Although not everybody can afford the luxury, the only drinkable water by our standards is bottled. From what little of the world that I have seen, in comparison America is the land of opportunity. As long as my friends can collect more from the American welfare system in one week than most Turks can earn by the sweat of their brows in one month, no one will be able to convince me otherwise. And for all those who are sick of the petty in justices that confront us daily in America, I suggest a brief stay in Turkey it's a strong medicine for the melancholy. Deborah Griffiths graduate-psychology Violence coming home Howard Cosell nearly bust a gut the morning after the Rams trounced the Eagles. According to Howard, Eagles fans shouted "obscenities of the foulest kind" at their team's owner Leonard Tose. They jostled Tose's wife and tried to capsize his car. Somebody even threatened to kill him. Howard's worried about this outburst of violence. He thinks it's evidence that the violence epidemic is spreading from its traditional habitats shopping malls, classrooms, parks and picnic areas to the tranquil world of sports. But couldn't it be just the opposite? Violence could at last be coming home home to our football stadiums, boxing rings and baseball parks where it rightfully belongs. So what if the Eagles owner gets a little roughed up? That's the name of the game. As they say in English soccer: "You win a few, you lose a few." Take Harry Catterick, former manager of one of Britain's top soccer sides. One season ended with champagne and championship medals, the next his team came in second finished up with him being kicked within an inch of his life by fans on his own doorstep. God dammit, in Italy they shoot soccer failures. Last Monday's happenings at Veterans Stadium are a healthy sign. You see, for every foul word expended on Tose, a fan's wife, kids and cat back home are spared a punch, slap and a kick. Americans, or at least Eagles fans, are beginning to realize sport's potential as a laxative. No other single activity affords fans the same opportunity to purge themselves of pressure, tension and pent up nervous energy. They've known all about this in Europe for quite a while now. Every Saturday throughout England, young and old alike arise and dress like fearless gladiators The purpose of this ritual? To do Saturday afternoon battle with rival soccer fans. Being a soccer yahoo is relatively cheap and easy and ex traordinarily rewarding. There are of course, as in every hobby, a few necessary prerequisites. Size 12 feet or above is useful, though not essential, to house the massive pair of steel toe-capped army boots. Boots like this can be purchased at any army surplus store for a few dollars. A long expressive finger and a sense of gesture are essential for pointing threateningly and in unison across the stadium at rival fenced-off fans. Pointing is usually accompanied with blood curdling chants, so here it's helpful to have a loud voice that is one of the reasons there is really no women's movement in this country, but only a stirring of recognition that perhaps albs not really right with the woman's world. Well, maybe she's right on both counts. On the front page of the Collegian, the caption under the picture says that Kennedy invited members of the audience on stage to "recite a mock prayer." No one recited anything. People were invited to sing and did sing, In the page 5 story Kennedy's "Australian garrison hat and other bizarre garb" is mentioned. Admittedly, that hat was weird, but since bizarre means odd, eccentric, grotesque, to call her navy blue jeans jacket and slacks "bizarre" is to ignore the fact that except for the hat she was dressed about like half the women in the audience. It was mentioned she was not the "type you'd see squeezing tomatoes" in the supermarket. Was there ever a male speaker on this campus described as not the type you'd see kicking tires in a used car lot? "Dollar power' was described as the "power of women to contribute to the feminist cause." Kennedy's emphasis was actually on the effective use of purchasing power. Nothing in the sense of "contribution" was even mentioned. There were several mistakes in the quotes from the mock prayer, which must be construed as carelessness since a printed song sheet was available. The most interesting error was in the last line which actually reads "For there is the power and the glory and the money forever. The Collegian reported "body" for "money."ls Florynce Kennedy a unique woman or an odd broad? The words used to describe her and women in general can influence how we think, and I think the media may be doing women an unconscious disservice. Progressive? TO THE EDITOR: I have one good thing to say about the University Concert Committee, they are progressive progressively bad. Again they have put together a disheart ening show. The current miscarriage is the All-University Day concert, which boasts Jesse Colin Young and Cheech and Chong. Sure Cheech and Chong are good comedians and Jesse Cohn Young is a good musician, but a concert is one thing and a .comedy show another. The two cannot be one. An audiophile wishing to hear one of his favorite musicians will not be pacified sitting through a comedy act. Music is feeling, for playing and listening. Proper considerations should be taken in presenting a concert. Acts should be sequentially arranged to provide for maximum enjoyment, not thrown together without concern to audience mood. Concerts show artists' genuine musical talents, no studio repertoire. So why hinder the musicians attempt to capture the audience by putting them in an apprehenshie mood with an opening act that does not coincide with the other? r3=l Putting together two acts with different styles of music, i.e., John McLaughlin and Orleans, is bad enough, let alone two By NICK BRETT Collegian Columnist Rosalie Kota graduate-academic curriculum and instruction Folk. Tlla GUYS Tim HANDS:ma MlacHeD Rizect l ßS. ► 'Pt/VINO ANDEdenie CAI "1, THe FINeSTNAMe t . tul ' _..,' _~i and a cursory knowledge at least of timing and delivery. The lyrics as in the old favorite "You're going to get your fucking heads kicked in" to the tune of "Bless this House" and addressed to rival fans are complex, so a good memory helps. The beauty of soccer violence is that it happens only once a week. Rioting, looting, stabbing, bottling and train gutting are restricted to Saturday afternoons in the vicinity of soccer stadiums. For the rest of the week life in Britain is peaceful and pleasantly devoid of muggers and street violence. The attitude of Britain's politicians towards societal violence is refreshingly progressive. They realize that it has become institutionalized in soccer and that's where they want it to remain. 9ne Member of Parliament even recommended that clubs fire their players, open the stadiums free on Saturdays, give the fans a ball and let them kill themselves. So can we apply the lessons of British soccer violence to Happy Valley'? Can we wipe out muggings, street crimes, wife beating and battered babies in Centre County? I think we can if we start thinking aggressively about Penn State football. Doing this would require minimal changes in the fans' attitudes and the rules of the game. First off, those Nancys in frilly skirts and armed with fluffy sticks must go. Fans have got to realize that this is war, not the time "to oartv." Fighting spirit in the crowd could better be aroused by showing pre-game movies of Rosie Casals shadow boxing. All softy comforts cushions, flasks of drinking chocolate, cookies and blankets must be banned. The only way to aggressively watch organized violence is to stand 100 deep in the rain, crushed by 60,000 other fans. No self respecting British soccer fan would have been caught dead throwing paper cups at the Army game if there'd been any cans and bottles around. The chances of a crowd riot will be further helped if the game itself is pepped up a little. This could easily be done by in troducing studded boots and removing helmets. In Welsh rugby, for instance at, lease one ear per season is bitten off to encourage the crowd PSU fans are being ripped off. Give up mugging and street crime, come to Beaver stadium this Saturday and help the Lions tear North Carolina apart literally. But should we by mischance lose, who do we get? You got it, Joe Paterno. Nick Brett is a graduate student in journalism from England with different styles of entertainment. Come on UCC, get it together, like the song says. Underhanded TO THE EDITOR: To whoever planned the International Dinner menu; I must take issue with your dish Palestinian rice. As far as I know, (and I am considered a man of finer foods) the so-called Palestinian people had no special rice dish unique from other Arab nations. Why was it not called Arabic rice? I think I can answer that question myself. This is another underhanded attack on the legitimacy of the State of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism. We have no choice but to listen to this abhorrent rhetoric in such places as the United Nations, International Women's Conference (Mexico) and the Arab Conference (sic) in Rabat, Morocco. Has this sickness seeped into American Universities such as Penn State? Any historian of modero'e intelligence can easily see that 1) there never was a truly so.ereign state of Palestine, 2) there's certainly no 'Palestinian nation now (with the possible exception of Jordan) and-3) barring the occurrence of a third world war, there is no chance of a Palestinian nation arising. So, in conclusion, I would like to ask the leaders of the International Students Union, to please not insult the in telligencia of Penn State with this cheap propaganda. Stick to the uneducated masses of Africa, Asia and the Third World. They don't know differently there yet. dzCollegian JERRY SCHWARTZ Editor Editorial policy is determined by the Editor Opinions expressed by the editors and staff of The Daily Collegian are not necessarily those of the University administration, faculty or students BOARD OF EDITORS: EDITORIAL EDITOR, Sheila McCauley; EDI TORIAL ASSISTANT, Karen Fischer: NEWS EDITOR, Robin Moore: ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR, Glenda Gephart; WIRE EDITOR, Paula Gochnour; FEATURES EDITOR, Cathy Cipolla; COPY EDITORS, Jean LaPenna, Diane Nottle, Leon Pollom; SPORTS EDITOR, Jeff Young, ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR, Dave Morris; PHOTO EDITOR, Eric Felack: ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS, Ira Joffe, Tom Peters; EDI TORIAL CARTOONIST, Tom Gibb; WEATHER REPORTER, Tom Ross ~. I Domenic Laurenzi 7th-economics B. David Schwartz Ist-international politics ROBERT A. MOFFETT Business Manager
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