r Editorial Opinion
The HUB is no Watergate
complex, and Jeff Glazier and
Steve Matt bear no resem
blance to Richard Nixon.
After all the .allegations
have been made, the abuses
that president and vice
president of the Association of
Residence Hall Students,
Glazier and Matt, were
supposed to have committed,
though regrettable, are not
impeachable offenses.
Glazier’s and Matt’s
records could never be
considered unblemished.
Their records have been
marred with misuse of
privileges and responsibilities
which were entrusted to them
by the students living in
University residence halls.
But although it would be
easy to condemn Glazier and
Matt as the University’s own
William Calley, in the end,
nothing would be ac
complished.
Because like Calley, who
was by no means blameless,
Glazier and Matt would
become scapegoats when the
i
t
Newsworthiness
An open letter to
Mike Mentrek
News Editor
The Daily Collegian
I am curious as to the Daily Collegian’s policy in selecting
newsworthy stories. It pleases me to find that a philanthropy is
received as a newsworthy item in your paper. I am referring to
the picture of the Beta Theta Pi “Rock-a-Thon.” The Betas,
Tri-Delts, and Chi-O’s are exemplary of the great efforts put
forth by the entire Greek system'.
Back in early September, Mike, if you will recall, I
requested news coverage of the Sigma Phi Epsilon “Plan
thropy.’’ ,At this .time you toiid.me it would be impossible to
cover it because it would set a precedent for the Collegian to
cover every organization’s fund raising affairs. I was told that
the only philanthropy projects given coverage are those with
competition and pageantry. Although the “Rock-a-Thon” is
truly a great effort for an equally great cause, I fail to see the
competition and pageantry you stated was needed for
Collegian coverage.
•Our “Planthropy” raised over $6OO for the American Heart
Association. Moreover, every member of Sigma Phi Epsilon
devoted a large amount of time and effort toward helping the
Heart Association. It is this spirit that is present in the entire
Greek system, and it is this spirit that should be rewarded by
the media. News coverage is a pat on the back to every
organization, and each group deserves it for their efforts
Mike, I think you have set your precedent
No beauties
On page 9 of the Oct. 3 edition of The Daily Collegian, there
was an article entitled, “Agriculture Queen to be elected Oct.
7.” Roy Prescott, Ag Hill Festival chairman, explains that
“the evening’s highlight will be the College of Agriculture’s
queen contest. Unfortunately, Roy is still holding onto past
tradition. The contest to be held this coming Saturday is not a
beauty contest or.a queen contest or even a princess contest.
Officially, this contest is called the Ms. College of
Agriculture Contest. There are representatives from 13 Ag Hill
organizations in the contest. The qualifications considered are
the contestant’s effective representation of her sponsor club,
her knowledge of general agriculture and the College of
Agriculture, her involvement in activities at the University,
her leadership qualities and her communication abilities.
Although the contest is very traditional, changes are being
made to update it this year, unlike past years, there won’t be
I USED TO 86 In! "THE MEvUSRbREK GAME MvtSEL F...! *
Lay off
essence of guilt lies in the
system in which they are
involved.
Glazier and Matt should not
have issued the floating meal
tickets nor should movie co-op
money have been
mismanaged as it was. But if
the potential for abuse is
inherent to the ARHS system,
as it seems to be, censuring
these two would be as useful
as removing a spot from a
house painter’s overalls.
It was evident that
Tuesday’s and Sunday’s
ARHS meetings were some of
the most productive meetings
the organization has ever had.
The call for their
resignations, seen by Glazier
and Matt as a vote of no
confidence, should be taken
no further.
The point has been made
the two have been
reprimanded. Now it is up to
ARHS and its officers to put
aside any ill feelings and work
effectively with Glazier and
Matt at the helm.
The next step should be a
Larry M. Shrager
Sigma Phi Epsilon, President
12th-premedicine and psychology
Letters to the Editor
long gowns, crowns and walking down the aisle. Hopefully,
next year the contest will be for both females and males, and
the winner will carry the title of Representative of the College
of Agriculture.
Options
It is encouraging to learn that the Centre Regional Council of
Governments will be involved with a study on rental housing
problems in State College. , , 5 .,,
As a new graduate student, this issue is fresh in my mind
since I encountered a number of misfortunes in my housing
search. The initial outlook for my housing preferance was
dim; the University’s information indicated apartments were
available to registered full-time married graduate students
living with a spouse and-or a preschool child; residence halls
were for single graduate students.
As a single professional person, I looked on these housing
options as being discriminatory. Did I not have the right to
choose or decide on my own housing needs in a specific en
vironment? Instead, I was limited to one of these options since
I am single. Hasn’t the University recognized as yet that life
styles have changed and that individual differences do exist in
making housing choices?
This dilemma is complex, I am sure, for'both the community
and the student body at large. Therefore, I highly encourage
and support the development of a task force that will study the
rental housing situation from a variety of perspectives.
Perhaps the day will come when students will be free to choose
from an assortment of options when deciding upon a place to
live.
Male restraint
I am amazed at Joan Volker’s letter of October 3 . . .
“Citizens are ruled ... by the majority.” I, too, can come up
with statistics to support any side I’m on. Supposedly, adoption
is a preferred alternative to abortion, and we’ve all heard
about the long waiting lists. What we do not hear about are the
even-longer lists of non-white babies, babies that will be
waiting for a very long time because no one wants them.
Where is the consistency in the rhetoric of right-to-lifers who
take the stance of a threatened church hierarchy and its right
wing supporters, including those who oppose all kinds of social
programs that would make abortion less frequent sex
more thorough investigation
of the allegations to find what
it was in the system which
allowed the abuses. Then
crack down on things like
poor bookkeeping policies and
lax enforcement of rules
requiring residence hall
association officers to submit
a yearly budget.
One suggestion to prevent
further abuse of the system
was to have an administrator
co-sign all purchase orders
for ARHS, to keep a check on
the use and amount of money
spent. This would solve
nothing. Such a requirement
would say, in effect, that
student government can’t
work without having the
administration constantly
looking over its shoulder.
A student organization with
a past which proves its
potential for the future like
ARHS should not be scrapped
out of frustration with abuses
which, if any lesson has been
learned, will soon become
nothing more than an un
pleasant memory.
Betty Brockett
lOth-agricultural engineering
Ms. College of Agriculture ’7B
Oct. 3
Mary Kalymun
graduate-home economics education
Oct. 1
Rock reflects Seventies' blandness
Pete Townsend, guitarist for the Who
and elder statesman of rock music,
lamented in an interview last spring that
rock no longer holds the significance it
once did. Rock, he argued, had always
been something outside the mainstream
of society, a musical form which spoke
to a select few and was careful to remain
at least at the periphery of popular taste.
As Townsend saw it, rock had now been
integrated into society and, as such, had
little more to say.
It would thus seem that Townsend
misses the days when rock music served
to articulate the concerns of the late
sixties and early seventies. At the time
of his comments though, while America
wallowed in the apathetic backlash
which grips us to this day, much of what
had been counterculture in the unrest of
the sixties had been assimilated and was
now standard fare.
Pot smoking was as accepted a fact as
the three martini lunch, a new (if
somewhat nebulous) “free morality”
ruled the day, and rock had escaped the
countercultural closet. The only missing
ingredient was a grasp of the ideology
that had prompted such change, the
sense of which had vanished. The hard
rain had fallen, the storm passed, and
education, child care, and contraception? The same Penn
sylvania legislature that “echoes” the will of the majority,
voting to override Shapp’s veto of a bill to prohibit use of state
funds for abortion, “echoes” the will of that same majority
when it overrides a veto of a bill which would reinstitute the
death penalty.
The status of woman is insignificant, as usual, when she is
not even considered, and the real concern is the “right” of the
unborn fetus —which may be male (or gay!).
Capitalists have used the so-called sexual liberation to
further control women, and to increase their own profits,
manipulating fears of sexual inadequacy and desire for sexual
ecstacy to see items like cigarettes, cars, and airplane tickets.
Men have taken advantage of the sexual double standard of
old, to enforce sexuaj chastity; on women,.and now, they-Jake
advantage of the mythical single standard to pressure women
who will not go along with their demands.
The right-to-choose is not a duty to choose abortion, nor is it
a duty to choose pregnancy. Most pregnancies are unplanned
and unintended, but not necessarily unwanted.
The prime mover remains man, legislating, doing the
research that keeps women relying on dangerous lUD’s and
hormonal pills, if she would control her own body. Why hasn’t
something been developed to control the fertility of men? Men
can solve the abortion “problem” at the source, if they can
restrain themselves.
No action
Recently, a new girl in McKee Hall asked me why McKee
was not locked at night like most dorms on this and other
college campuses. I told her that a group of students in the
dorm who were interested in locking the doors could not get
any serious action taken. I also told her the residents voted last
Spring to have all doors locked after midnight while residents
would be issued keys. Although residents voted to lock the
doors over five months ago, action has yet to take place.
There are a number of reasons for locking dorm entrances at
night. Locked doors can aid in deterring rapes, vandalism,
theft and vagrancy. Locking doors will result in increased
dorm security and an increased feeling of safety among dorm
residents. For example, a girl living in McKee last year was so
frightened she refused to go to the bathroom at night without a
can of mace. Living in fear is unfair and unnecessary.
Will it take a vicious crime to lock the doors? Is it too much
to ask students to use a key after midnight?
Carol Byrd-Bredbenner
doctoral candidate
Oct. 4
rock’s role as standard bearer for an
angry generation disappeared.
In Townsend’s mind, the future of rock
music, having lost what he sees as its
underlying design is at best, uncertain.
There is indeed little doubt that over the
past several years rock has suffered a
sort of identity crisis, as it has sub
divided into more distinct categories
such as progressive rock, classical rock,
heavy metal, soft rock, jazz rock, album
oriented rock and pop rock. Through it
all, what stands out most clearly is the
constant mreging towards a central
point along the rock music continuum.
A.M. and F.M. are at a point where, in
just a short time, formats may be almost
indistinguishable. Long gone are the
days when success in one listening
audience precluded success in another.
Tom Butch
Such movement towards a central
ground in music reflects the continuous
reciprocal interplay between music and
society, for parallel to music merging to
an amorphous midpoint is the societal
movement towards the same. The in-
Jean C. Guertier
ex-president, Homophiles of Penn State
Oct. 4
dividualism that marked the sixties has
faded to the point where, once again,
anyone who falls outside a neatly
designed set of behavioral parameters is
seen as a threat to our homogeneity. The
death of such social dichotomies as
“freak” and “jock” has contributed to
our movement to that same cloudy point
towards which music is now traveling.
Rock, in the Townsend formula, has
little business here.
Enter disco, the first musical form
sufficiently decadent to adequately
reflect the sheer blankness of the late
seventies. It should surprise no one that
disco, initially seen as a passing fad, the
latest version of the Nehru jacket, has
not only survived, but gone on to per
meate American society. Disco, pure
musical saccharine that it is, is here to
stay —■ at least for the time being and
accepting this fact may yet become an
imperative to sociocultural survival as
disco more firmly establishes itself as a
social institution.
The music scene, with the increased
popularity of disco, was thus ripe for
revolt. Punk rock, aimed at taking rock
music back to the roots from which it
had strayed was, however, more
revolting than revolt. The roots of rock
4 licN£©
Priorities
This letter is in response to Debra Mohry (4th-liberal arts)
and those like her who feel they need to squawk about the in
door sports complex. You people are going to have to realize
that at Penn State we have our priorities.
The varsity teams are important here. It would be too much
to have them practice in the cold, when all that’s at stake is the
convenience of a few clubs, organizations and the general
student body.
As for the money, what’s a few hundred grand here and
there? By the time the bills come due, we'll all have forgotten
about the decisions and who made them.
t ,If you’re npt on a ,varsity team, I can see why, you feel>-
cheated, but come 1 ori, sacrifice a little, for the good of our
players and PSU’s image.
Keep in mind that we have competent, capable- ad 1
ministrators up there making these decisions for us. Let them
determine the priorities.
Nay!
Bob Ewing proclaims that he should “have the right to be
protected by an adequately equipped police force.” However, I
would like to ask him, who should protect us from this
adequately equipped imitation police force?
The thought of these characters carrying guns sends such
shivers down my spine, that I just want to get on my bicycle,
and leave this campus as fast as I can. But my bicycle is
unregistered, and I have a much lesser desire to get “blown
away” for this offense.
On the issue of “Should ’the Campus Police carry
weapons?,” I cast my vote nay!!!
-Collegian
Judy Stimson:
Judi Rodrickty
Business Managers
Letters should be brought to the Collegian office, 126 Carnegie, ;
in person, so proper identification of the writer can be made, -
although names will be withheld on request. I
Dave Skidmore
Editor
Even Keith Moon, before he died, had •
been worried about growing old. ...
Tom Butch is a 12th term social
fare major.
K-riikg.
\wg?>
Nick Mueller
State College resident
Oct. 4
Siward Ypma
lOth-political science
Oct. 4
were not, as punkers assumed, primal;
yelping and single-chord guitar
thrashing, and punk made it quite clear
that rock was and is severely ill.
In the end, the feeling expressed by.
Townsend reflects not so much a loss
purpose for rock. Rather, they address
trends which are parallel both in music
and in society as a whole. No single
movement has prompted the changes in
the role and status of rock which he,
addresses. It is simply the dynamic
nature of a dry-look society which, at"
present, seems content to stumble along 1
the road towards sheer blandness
it has constructed. *'
In a world where Travolta-esque disco’
dandies gyrate incessantly ta
prefabricated music and such sensitive
lyrics as “boogie oogie oogie” and .
“shake your booty,” where one cry df.
“Woody is a Pecker” muffles thev
collected shouts of every campus protest •
or activist movement of the last several -
years, rock as it once was must
take a back seat.
lie