Editorial opinion Natural selection When you choose a puppy from the litter, it’s not standard proce dure to close your eyes, reach down, and take what you get. Even if you had to select something in this arbitrary manner, human na ture wouldn’t let you keep from seeing what you might have had. J. Doyle Corman left Centre Countians in such a dilemma of choice last month when he was voted into the state legislature from his job as a county commis sioner. The process which recom mended the new county commis sioner at no time let county resi dents know who was being con sidered for the job, and once the new commissioner was picked, ollegian Forum Clearing the road to Singapore By NAVTEJ SINGH graduate-journalism The plague of the modern big city is the automobile. The scourge everywhere is traffic congestion and air pollution, and as city planners wrestle with this menacing problem, no solution seems to be in sight to cope with the growing Inumber of cars on the road. | But the small city-state of Singapore Ihas come up with some radical [measures which may well provide the jmodel to some of the other big cities of [the world. ) Only 586.8 square kilometers in size, [this highly-developed metropolis has [some 150,000 cars, or one for every 15 •persons. By 1992 city planners estimate [the number of cars to soar to 400,000. [Something had to be done to contain the lauto glut and to prevent cars from [choking Singapore’s streets. * First a few painless, or so-it seemed, [measures were tried. Office hours were •staggered and taxes on vehicles were [raised. But it did not work. The'affluent [Singapore society was undeterred. - [ Then came the ALS (Area Licensing [Scheme), a drastic measure that in- MAKE'? \ FUBBEPjrGiea ' n v joes n~ say a VfeTE?WJ9 \ JOMTW TO POdSE. MY PATRIA OTtcaeNSE.IYCUMUSrTWj \ n * From the editor Facts: fragile, handle with care Several student organizers at Temple are giving serious thought to proposing a Harrisburg rally of students from Temple, Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and other colleges throughout the .state who depend on considerable state support to keep tuition to a minimum. One of the Temple protestors came to Penn State last week to find out how receptive this school would be to joining with other state-related schools in a massive rally In Harrisburg. His quest brought him to the Collegian office to solicit the paper’s support. He intimated that it would be a great boost to the cause if the paper printed numerous stories and editorials about the proposed rally. He also suggested that the paper should help organize the rally since it is the one vehicle capable of reaching much of the student body. in effect, he thought it desirable for a newspaper run by students to crusade for student causes even if it meant that the paper would have to sacrifice its objectivity. His rationalization is that if the cause is noble then the paper crusading for the the names of others in contention were never announced. The new commissioner, Russell O. Spicher, a gas station operator in Pleasant Gap and owner of four farms in the area, was reported to have been the unanimous choice of a special committee selected by a single man the county GOP chairman. Spicher was selected by a com mittee of Republicans who met behind closed doors. It is up to Centre County Court of Common Pleas justice R. Paul Campbell to make the decision to fill the vacant commissioner’s seat, but no doubt he will agree with the GOP’s recommendation. Politics is a clandestine enough business without a single man eludes restrictions on most private vehicles entering the city area during a specified hours. As a result, Singapore now appears to be one of the first major cities to have brought the car under control. Under the ALS, now in its second year, private cars can enter Singapore’s central business district between 7:30 and 10:15 in the morning only if they have a minimum of four passengers or a special license costing $1.60 for each entry into the restricted zone. This special license is available on a monthly basis and costs $32 (it is double for company cars). Unlike Emergency vehicles, school and public buses, and delivery vehicles, taxis are not exempted from the ALS requirements. Police officers man 22 entry points into the restricted zone to check licenses and to issue fines to offenders who slip through the net. Since the introduction of the ALS offending motorists have paid fines totalling more than $560,000. For motorists who are unable to pool their cars and cannot afford the cost of the special license, the government has attempted to upgrade the public tran- cause is doing a noble deed. However, history shows otherwise The New York Journal on February 17, 1898 devoted its entire front page to declaring that the sinking of the Maine in Havana harbor two days earlier in which more than 266 American Sailors were killed was the work of Spanish imperialists trying to suppress the Cuban insurrection. ©Jeff hawkes A banner headline declared without attribution “Destruction of the war ship Maine was the work of an enemy." The newspaper offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could furnish the Journal with exclusive information that would' lead to the conviction of the perpetrator of the explosion. And to top everything the so-called newspaper’s lead story was by U.S. naval captain E. L. Zalinskl who also pointed the finger at Spain for H\ VES MR-GIBS piM RECORDS SHOvjJ VaJERE TVkJeNT/ minuses lme with -yoor jUrriONl P/WMEKT. THERE, is A $25 LWE. FEE WHICH MOST Be ?AlD> \MME£>IATEL>A gut's OUST THCXJ&W YOU'D UNET& X OuJtf A ( OjrFOF\SOcJX'Li_ MftKE. ANQiCEHPRI selecting the committee to recom mend a commiissioner, and then never letting the public know who was in contention for the job. For all Centre Countians know, a man or women much more eligi ble to hold the post might have been in the running and was not chosen for arbitrary reasons that might embarrass the committee if they were made public. One of the persons in conten tion said there was little doubt in his mind that the way the panel was selected indicated the panel’s choice was made before the inter viewing of the candidates. Obviously that person might just be chewing his sour grapes, but such a blind selection process lends credibility to a cry of foul. sport system in order to serve their . needs. Shuttle buses carry commuters into the city center from fifteen parking lots built along the rim of the restricted zone, and special express buses make regular runs from major housing areas outside the city. Not surprisingly, the new system has not made converts from the diehards. Singaporeans who are determined to drive to work in their empty cars rise up before dawn to beat the 7:30 lockout. Other incorrigible drivers idle their engines on the edge of the restricted zone until the 10:15 limit has passed, a practice that has produced a noticeable slowdown in the start of Singapore’s business day. Nonetheless, the net result has been a drastic drop in the number of cars en tering the city during the morning rush period. Before the ALS was introduced about 55,000 cars packed into central Singapore jn the workday rush hours. Now about half-as many private cars enter the city. The crunch for any big city is whether it is built for cars or for people. Singapore has decided on the latter. TVfehTCY KIuJUrES, NTE.V? 7 blowing-up the Maine. Ironically, Zalinski seemed to be in line to make a considerable profit if the United States went to war with Spain because he was the inventor of a gun that was to be the principle weapon used in such a war. The result was that President McKinley eventually entered into war with Spain, something he had hoped to avoid, probably because of strong public opinion mirrored in the yellow advocacy press of the time. The Journal threw all caution and objectivity to the wind to champion the noble cause of liberating op pressed Cuba. 5,660 Americans died in a four month war that freed Cuba from Spanish control. The cause of the Maine explosion remains unclear. But it does seem unlikely that the Spanish would have committed such a suicidal act because they . realized the foolhar diness of provoking the United States to intervene in the Cuban mess. The Journal with its shaky con clusions probably upped Its cir culation but it also may have gotten us into an unnecessary conflict. This historical precedent indicates the need for a newspaper to avoid RICA A W WITHTWO PRESireNfIAL AiPES ANP AN ATTOW GENERAL.,., Letters to the Editor Frightening signs TO THE EDITOR: Anita Bryant’s victory in Dade County, Florida (she successfully campaigned to repeal a human fights ordinance for homosexuals) is a frightening sign that all in telligent people should be alerted to. It reflects the perspective of a singular experience, a singular way of viewing the world that is beginning to dominate the law and morality of a populous. This perspective catagorizes anything which is not ex perienced within a particular personal realm as wrong. Surely we have learned the fallacies of linking catagories of people to any one label, be it Communist, black, Semitic, female, homosexual, Puerto Rican, Chinese, poor, Illiterate, mystical and so on. No label, no matter how accurately applied, can catagorize a human being as more or less valuable. The destruction caused by this kind of distorted thinking has been clearly illustrated in the journals of Solzhenitsyn, Anne Frank or Thoreau. We learn from them and countless others that those with a sense of human goodness, no matter where it is rooted, in mythology or religion, in romanticism or skep ticism, must be on guard for the violation of human rights. The issue in Dade County, Florida is not gay rights or even the dominance of Christian doctrine on public morality. It is the most basic question addressing the right of a person to respond humanly and compassionately to his or her own self, It glitters, but doesn't sparkle “All That Glitters" is not gold, ac cording to Time magazine. But Time is hot just repeating the old cliche when it says this. It is criticizing Normal Lear’s latest satire on American culture, “All That Glitters,” a half-hour, nightly, syndicated TV show starring women as v men and men as women. “All That Glitters,” (hereafter referred to as ATG) Is a soap opera with a bizarre twist. Men are househusbands and women are the breadwinners in this socially upside-down world. The two worlds of men and women understand each other no more in this satire than they do in the more conventional daytime shows. ATG is confusing, yet refreshing. Role-reversal is difficult enough to grasp when it is on a one-to-one scale, and when it is presented here in such a massive dose, it is nearly beyond the imagination’s reach. Every sense of social habit screams “Wrong!” when the woman drinks down her coffee and kisses her husband goodbye and goes off to work while he stays home and dreams about having a career of his own. This is not to say ATG presents are wrong. There is no more wrong with a woman going .out to lunch with her lover and giving the attractively costumed waiter • the once-over than there is with a man doing the same. ATG can show that equality between the sexes should take second place to common courtesy to both sexes. What makes ATG so valuable in the losing its objectivity and to beware of crusading for a seemingly noble cause. I deplore Penn State’s 9.9 per cent tuition increase just as much as last week’s small band of Temple University protestors opposed their state-related school’s 11 per cent hike. And it seems that a well-planned, non-violent and legal massive rally in Harrisburg for more state aid to state related institutions Is a good idea. But it is not the place of a newspaper to the rally more than it deserves. Right now it is just an Idea in the minds of a handful of students across the state. Once concrete plans for the rally are drawn up by student leaders and once It draws student . support, this newspaper will give It thp coverage the event deserves. The rally’s success depends on the efforts of the student leaders. I en courage them to explore the idea. But it is up to them to make the rally work. Don’t ask the newspapers to sacrifice news objectivity to insure the rally's success. Journalist's must remember the Maine. world of TV is that it is socially useful. When the crude and rude attitudes of one social group are brought to the attention of America’s TV viewers by the usual means, most viewers accept them instead of studying them. Indeed, these typical, rude attitudes are often mimicked and upheld as the social norm. But ATG shows TV fans what these actions look like when they are not surrounded by subtle societal applause. When a man in a typical soap opera leaves his wife to roam after younger, more interesting women, it is obvious why. She is dull, they are interesting. She is uneducated, they are not. She is old, they are young. She offers him a mundane, if warm, bed at night. They are exciting sexual adventures. When Christina the executive leaves her husband Bert, he is depressed inconsolable. He doesn’t know what went wrong. He does all the things soap opera women do when their men leave them. He desperately wants Christina to comeback to him. f ioitkw row on«ATcn New vonh. j . _* - ~ - ' -•—: !|§|glj NEW YORK JOURNAL !g|§] | va ua « »■»■»«« rout, farm.ii. rauv*Mt w, wnawMW‘ , ax.?fcy*i<w at OEBTBIIBTIONOLTHE W IPfl MS IWOBKBFAB EHM 1 1 $50,0001 l;Assistant Secretary Rooseveltjj $50,0001 Vv $50,000 REWARDI j Convinced the Explosion of ■; $50,000 REWARD § • roe the Detection of tin f the War Ship Was Not i I Perpetrator of . \ ' Perpetrator of 5* the Maine OuUegel an Accident. j the Oufregel ' SSSSiSaSrSSyS~ The Journal Offers Sjo.ooo Reward lor the S I Conviction o( the Criminals Who Sent j 1 Naval Officers Unammous’That ' : -SSS , S w ;Sfr~"iri 5 tmunwirsa I Ship Was Destroyed *oaa«nu^ioVrHi* - eurMMScr .33 1 on Purpose. .. —,- Hidden Mme or a sunken Torpedo Believed to Have Been the Weapon Used Ag.wut the American Man-of-War—Officer: f and Men Teß Thnllm? btones of Being Blown fnto the Air Amid a Mass r>l Stuttered Steel and Exploding IZ Shells—Survivors Bronchi to Kev West Scout the Idea of Accident—Spanish Officials Pro- - g lest Ton Much—Ocr Cabinet Orders a Searclwng likjiltv— Journal Sends , 13 Dims to Havana to Report Upon the Conditionof the Wreik. "• Was the Vessel Anchored Over a Miner M csrTsiN'r 1- /\t isstu. 1 w. e § \ul.iant w<iciir« o/ihr «»,.» rkiadHf Romot'i >m k« »• <vn«iact4 >bH t'k« dainmiwa •< tb« Mi'ftf in !(•«»«* Huboi «tt aet t« icodn Ibi |wninal «rf«H t Ui itilwl that vul <ob.kl i* p«>Mia, p«r*»t»r (lattrnaial triMiaill; it>»»*abi« te( ika 4 Mni(i «a Mt \n,nM •<• t>ai<lr ib't* tad ike deaik »l »l* ■»* l, » *e** **• IH. 4.|n,h>« t'uf ik« Mm« U««n jio«. <»«/» k»»* N*t t »>»itU Jmi i* ib«<o«utit l«< Um po*d**.4 , ( apuis hi i'k Mtiat, >a I C»-ii«,.C,0«i.1 t«« kaik tk»l paUic optima be ta»paa«td •»"! iktj btv* v»«i pitted tWett t*«w b»* in in«j the laaiM *| iiiilal art aka are utuMcJ ik»l tkff* lak* '"ikarj WaJuagiaa upoan %%ij |n» ihti CtfWw kykw W * -d **” »*kW4*»ia«, * HT«t Mfall W C*MM< (m—i qf The Maine and the Yellow Press regardless of social, economic, physical or psychological differences. I hope intelligent, caring people will object to this nonsense strongly, and not permit the simplistic perspective of an Anita Bryant dominate our public human consciousness. sCdlegian JEFFREY HAWKES Editor BOARD OF EDITORS: EDITORIAL EDITOR, Bob Frick; NEWS EDITOR, Dave Skidmore; COPY EDITORS, Ivy Goldberg, David Colborn; SPORTS EDITOR, JoyceTomana; ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR, Don Hopey; PHOTO EDITOR, Randy Woodbury; WIRE EDITOR, Laura Shemick; FEATURES EDITOR, Diana Younken; GRAPHICS EDITOR, Mark C. Van Dine; OFFICE MANAGER, Anita McKelvey BOARD OF MANAGERS: Sales Coordinator, Alex N. Barenblitt; Olllce Coordinator, Judy'Stimson, National Ad Manager, Judi Rodrick; Layout Coordinator, Terry Dolinar AND AOVCMTtmtn. SCOTT R.SESLER Business Manager But Bert, because he is of the op posite sex than we are accustomed to seeing in this situation, throws a new light on separation. He is being stepped on, he is being taken advantage of, he is being treated like dirt. Christina, it. must be admitted, is bored with Bert! She has control of the situation and decides it is time to take a vacation from home life and takes off to live with her sexy and submissive secretary; Dan. She is selfish and egotistical. Nothing was' wrong with Bert and Christina’s marriage. The only trouble is that Bert is wont, as are most of the women in the United States, to take whatever the socially superior partner dishes out. She does whatever she wants and poor Bert will get her back when she feels like coming back. She is the playgiri and he is the dutiful househusband. So, this is what the United States and many related countries would look like to a visitor from space. One sex is in ferior for no reason, except that in pre historic times it was that way for economic reasons. “All That Glitters" is not gold, in spite of its great value as social comment. Its dialogue is poor and its acting is equally poor, according to Time. But Norman Lear deserves at least a silver star and a brownie point for ingenuity and courage in starting off this new series. It’ll make people think, something which few television shows do. . William Castle graduate-theatre
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers