Editorial opinion Wrong combination University wastes time and money removing USG's safe Choose your favorite cliche: “Cutting off your nose to spite your face” or “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Both sayings describe the University’s act Monday when it’ removed a floor safe from Sparks Building. The safe was installed last March in a closet in Sparks by the Un dergraduate Student Government. William Hetrick, director of physical plant administration, said the $9OO safe was removed because of its unauthorized installation and because of structural considerations. Director of Student Activities Melvyn S. Klein said the safe was removed because USG used it for storing money and “altered the space without permission. ” The closet had been alloted by the University for USG use, Andy Weintraub, USG vice president, said. According to Weintraub, USG paid the total cost of the safe and gave a full apology for its unauthorized installation. The safe, designed to store equipment and USG film money, has been returned to the USG office, Weintraub said. USG will pay for the safe’s removal and the cost of restoring the closet “to what it was Inside view of today from a page out of history Columnist’s Note: The negative feelings surrounding the current presidential campaign exemplify what has become a discouraging trend in America many voters have become turned off to politics. In part, this may be due to the fact that voters simply don’t understand enough about the office of the president or how it works. Last week, Daily Collegian staff writer Paul Sunyak traveled to Mount Ruslunore, South Dakota, where he interviewed former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt on the presidency, negative political apathy and the current state of world affairs. The following is a transcript of that interview, edited for more length and less clarity. COLLEGIAN: Whew! That was quite a climb. You guys got a beer? - WASHINGTON :.Sure. In the frig. Help yourself. .-COLLEGIAN: Now down to business. Let’s chip away at what you think are the biggest issues in America today. LINCOLN: Well, I.think gun control is the biggest issue. Senator Kennedy is unequivocably right in calling for gun control, and I favor it 100 percent. ‘ ROOSEVELT: Abe, you have the perception of a bull moose. Gun control was not intended in the Constitution. In Disappointment I am disappointed that you would use your paper to further so obvious a cult as Mormonism in your July 28 Collegian. The article is very misleading and can only benefit Mormonism and eventually harm those who accept it. Utah (more than 70 percent Mormon) has had a divorce rate that exceeds the national average every year but one for over 30 years. Polygamy though they say they do not practice it is widely practiced in Utah and is protected by state officials. Polygamy is as much a part of Mormonism’s teachings now as in Brigham Young’s days, but no article says that. fact, the Constitution was against gun control, right Tom? JEFFERSON: Hmmm. Let me see (shuffling papers). I think I’ve got it written down on a napkin someplace. .. . ROOSEVELT: What a filing system! Is that how you did the Declaration of Independence, too? You were there, can’t you even remember? JEFFERSON: I can’t recall much from the night we wrote that part. We were pretty drunk Pat Henry and John Hancock and the rest of the guys. All I can remember was Betsy Ross bitching about how we should include something called the ERA. We told her not to worry about it, equality for women was a passing fad. COLLEGIAN: But it wasn’t. It’s still a Please do not allow your newspaper to be used in such a manner. Everything you could say about Jim Jones could be said about Joseph Smith. Mormonism’s people are totally sub servient to him. John L. Smith, Utah Missions, Inc, Marlow, Oklahoma August 11 High ideals I read with considerable pleasure the story in the Collegian on the Mormons by Pam Medve. I beleive it is one of the best stories I have ever read in the Collegian. vV IUMICS v seNATDR, Fofc yoUR COtflfelpOTioM* before,” Klein said. Hetrick said he estimated a “pretty good ballpark figure” of between $3OO - for the job. Klein said it is routine for the office of physical plant to take care of matters like removing the safe and repairing the closet. But since USG paid for the safe’s installation and will have to bear the eventual cost of its removal, should not USG have been allowed to try to have the safe removed at a.lower cost? Moreover, the safe’s presence was not har ming anyone and was valuable to the student government. Weintraub said he was told that USG did not go through the proper channels. This is true. The safe’s installment by former JEM Productions Business Manager Ernie Hicks was a clear violation of University policy. Blit should a worthwhile item be removed simply as punishment? The University should not have deprived the present USG administration of the safe in Sparks because of the actions of a member of a previous administration. Student funds are now being wasted only because the University wants to prove a point. written Letters to the Editor big issue with a lot of people. However, the Republicans just scratched it from their platform and the Democrats haven’t taken a stand one way or the other. What about that? LINCOLN: It saddens my heart to think that the party I led to victory a party which demanded equality for all mankind could have backslid so much in such a short period of time. COLLEGIAN: Now it looks like we’re getting somewhere. But first, let me get a consensus from the others. Guys, do you or do you not think Abe looks like a young Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini? WASHINGTON: There’s a question we can get our teeth into. Yes, I think Abe looks a lot like the Ayatollah. But with different glasses, I think Teddy would look more like Bani-Sadr than Abe looks From stories I have read, what I have wit nessed, I have developed a picture of the average student as indiffernt to ideals and too sloppy in character. He is often pictured as having a liquor bottle in one hand, some pot in his pocket and a person of the opposite sex nearby. From what I have observed, the Mormons evidently have high ideals which they try to demonstrate by the way they walk, as well as by their talk. Too many persons claiming to be Christians, seem to be satisfied to go to church (most don’t go at all), mumble over some prayers, listen to a pleasing sermon, and because of their conduct, are undiscernable from those who claim to have very few high ideals. : irst> (i the x/ had ( news... Now the x <gsod hews.. like the Ayatollah. LINCOLN: You must be kidding! Teddy looks nothing like Bani-Sadr. . ROOSEVELT: Bully. Where have you been for the last nine months, at the theater? If you watch television, you know I bear a striking resemblance to Bani-Sadr. You, on the other hand, are twice as homely-looking as the Ayatollah.. . . LINCOLN: That may be true, but lam the most famous president named Lincoln. Can you say the same? COLLEGIAN: Mr. Jefferson, what do you say? JEFFERSON: When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to render a decision, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, abstain. WASHINGTON: I think the problem stems from a lack of respect for the presidency. When I started, the presidency was respected. Those chosen to fill the position were competent. The people had faith. And congress worked with me, instead of trying to compete. Special interests were not as influential; elected officials could vote their con- I salute the high ideals of the Mormons, and admire them for trying to live them. Your story was like a fresh, clean breeze coming from the vale of old Mt. Nittany. It reminded me of what I saw and experienced here more than 50 years ago. A.R. Mandeville, class of 1924 August 13 Poor alternative In response to Jean S. Guertler’s letter of August 8 concerning Rep. Gregg Cunningham’s efforts to restrict abortion'funding, I would like to comment on several points she made. Her discussion of the right to choose abortion within a pluralistic society shows a lack of un derstanding about the concepts of pluralism and choice. Pluralism is legitimate when it permits a choice among alternative goods. We have the choice to live where we want to live, buy what we want to buy, be what we want to be. With regards to abortion I ask, what are we choosing? Do we have the right to deny the lives of the youngest members of our race? Before 1865 we had the choice, limited by political jurisdiction, to own slaves. Certainly this was not a fair, moral choice, but pluralism sanctioned this in opposition to natural law. With respect to slavery this law holds that all people are free and automatic individuals. Human bondage,then, is not and issue where pluralism con be permitted. Similarly, abortion cannot be allowed under the aegis of pluralism, because it too entails a transgression of natural law. It violates man’s right to exist, and the unborn child has as much right a life to life as everyone else. Guertler’s statement, “Serious moral choice involves alternatives which offer no final happy resolution. . . .” warrants careful consideration. If we analyze the alternatives for their rightness or wrongness, then perhaps a clarification of the matter can be made. . Looking at abortion and the arguments raised supporting it, I ask, is an evil committed to obtain a good? Wishing that a woman pursue a career or that she not experience a pregnancy resulting from rape are good desires. However, letting these wishes take precedence over a pregnancy requires that a life be taken. Any goods proffered are contingent on this first act. Choice in this case interferes with the life imperative: “Thou shall not kill.” Thus we cannot choose abortion as a reasonable alter- COLLEGIAN: What do you view as the major contributors to political apathy in the United States? JEFFERSON: Ah, the “Who cares? Let’s party! ” syndrome. LINCOLN: You are right. People seem to be losing faith in the political system. I don’t know why this has oc curred, but I have noticed a decline in participation over the last four score and seven years. The economy is a mess...my foreign policy is ajoke and the country is going down the tube. I'm nominated again... sciences. Few officials owed their positions, and hence their alligiance, to financial contributors. JEFFERSON: That’s the way we intended it to be when we set the system up: government by the people. LINCOLN: And that’s why the system stayed solvent throughout my ad ministration. Even in the face of the biggest internal crisis in our history, the system survived, because the people cared enough to participate. ROOSEVELT: Exactly. No one rode roughshod over the voters in my day. We weren’t saddled with the large-scale negative apathy of today. People voted because they believed it could make a difference and it did. COLLEGIAN: But the fact remains that people don’t believe that anymore. The argument is that the system has grown too large, the world too complex, for them to make a difference. What do you see as possible consequences if this trend continues? WASHINGTON: Well, it’s like something Martha used to tell me when I waivered about using my powers while in office. COLLEGIAN: And that was? WASHINGTON: If you don’t use it, you lose it. Paul Sunyak is a 13th-term journalism major and staff writer for The Daily Collegian. native. There can be no choice when it comes to the life of an unborn human being. Larry Mueller, State College resident August 13 Now hear this Draft registration has divided many people in this country and on this campus. With Supreme Court Justice William Brennan Jr.’s stay of a Philadelphia court decision ruling the sign-up process unconstitutional, many young people will be anxiously waiting for the Supreme Court’s final ruling on the matter. The constitutionality of forcing persons to reveal their social security numbers has been questioned. Moreover, any registration plan excluding women may .be ruled as discriminatory against males. . Although The Daily Collegian has run op-ed pages in the past on women in the draft and on registration, the question still lingers of whether registration is right or wrong. On Tuesday, Sept. 9, The Daily Collegian will focus its first op-ed page of Fall Term on the continuing controversy surrounding the new military draft sign-up. If you have any comments on registration, please submit them to the Editorial Editor, 126 Carnegie. All letters must be typed, double-spaced and no longer than 30 lines. Deadline is Friday, August 22. Collegian Friday, Aug. 15, 1980—Page 2 Betsy Long Editor BOARD OF EDITORS: Managing Editor, P.J. Piatz; Editorial Editor, Andy Linker; News Editor, Rick Jackson; Sports Editor, Paul Boynton; Arts Editor, Paddy Patton; Photo Editor, Rick Graff; Graphics Editor, Randy Guseman; Copy Editors, Lynne Johnson, Bari Winemiller, Elyse Chiland, Calias Richardson; Weekly Collegian Editor, Martha Snyder McCoy; Assistant Weekly Collegian Editor, Wendy Trilling; Office Manager, Jackie Clifford. ' © 1980 Collegian Inc. Kathy Matheny Business Manager Working the court beat makes jesters of pros DOYLESTOWN, Pa. Officially, this group of about 15 reporters is called the Bucks County Courthouse Press Corps. Unoffically, it is a group of fun-loving journalists professionals, at that ’’which makes The Daily Collegian staff look normal. Well, at last normal for newspaper people. For five weeks this summer, I was a member of the courthouse press corps, representing Today’s Spirit, a small daily newspaper from Hatboro, a suburb of Philadelphia. I was nervous at first. The other reporters wrote for papers the Spirit competes with. I thought it might be a little cutthroat for stories. I hadn’t ex pected the press corps to be such a closeknit bunch; they were more than colleagues, they were friends. And they welcomed me into their circle and showed me what professional reporters are really like. For more than a month, it was like living in a Marx Brothers movie. The first two weeks I learned the s ropes. The entire courthouse was my ' beat and I had to be alert for any hearings or trials the Spirit should cover. Marty, who runs a news service for the local papers, took me under her wing and help me find the sources I needed for certain story information. Emilie, from the Doylestown Daily Intelligencer, was my model of the typical, young female reporter. Her huge handbag held notebooks, pens, change for the phone and vending machines, clips and press releases a portable press room of sorts. Jack, of the Bulletin, taught me to be ' skeptical of things I heard, and how to take better notes by using the system of abbreviations and symbols. Ed of the North Penn Reporter and Tom of the Allentown Morning Call usually teamed with Jack in a threesome the Scorpion presents TUESDAYS—Happy Hours All Nite WEDNESDAYS—“Scorpion All Stars”* THURSDAYS—“Tahoka Freeway” FRIDAYS—“Tiger Lilly” SATURDAYS—“Backseat Van Gogh” ' Band Schedule for Next 2 Weeks 'Jam with State College's finest—Musicians Welcome Sunday Tahoka Freeway & Blackout. No cover! Monday Men’s Gusto Nite 8:30 p.m.-l:30 a.m. Grab the gusto and Monday Nite Baseball! Tuesday Ladies Nite: featuring Tiger Lily, the Saloon’s original “Upside Down Margurita” and no cover! Wednesday The Original “Warren O. Fitting Oldies Nite” from 9:00 p.m.-l:00 a.m. and No Cover! Thursday Backseat Van Gogh “Sex, booze and rock ’n’ roll” with no cover! (and every Sunday thru Thursday it’s Happy Hours from 4:00p.m.-8:00p.m.) Friday (August 15) Glenn Kidder Saturday (August 16) Glenn Kidder and no cover! that made the Marx Brothers look dull. The last three weeks of my internship, the six of us covered an arson-murder trial. It was a long and often boring trial, and I learned what portions of testimony I could safely miss in order to cover a county commissioners meeting or political press conference elsewhere in the courthouse. But now that I’ve seen the so-called real world, I’m no longer afraid of graduating into this world. Reporters of all ages are a crazy bunch, looking for fun like everyone else, and they often have a sharp, wacky sense of humor. Their humor became very evident the last week of the trial. Tom brought in his portable video display terminal to type his story on. Jack wanted to know if he could program it to play Space Invaders. We needed something to relieve the boredom of waiting for the jury to return the verdict. Emilie, Marty and I played cards. Tom, Ed and Jack played hand ball against the 30-foot wall in the rotunda outside the courtroom. A bridge crossed the upper portion of the rotunda connecting sections of the next floor. They threw the ball over the bridge too. “Hey, haven’t you guys ever heard of the hallowed halls of justice?” Emilie asked as the ball narrowly missed her. • We argued over what kind of pizza to order for dinner and who would pick it up. We discussed each other’s papers and the stories we had written. And when the trial was over we all went back to our offices to type the stories. But I won’t be going back to the courthouse. I have one more year of school before I join the ranks of the professionals. In a way, going back to the books will be a disappointment after all the fun I’ve had. I’ve had a job I enjoy and coworkers I liked. We all got along, we teased each other and helped each other and we laughed together. Covering trials can be depressing. A reporter sees tragedy, cruelty and misfortunes every day in court. Perhaps that’s why the best corps reporters often seem to flippant their levity helps counteract the environment. “After this, Jan goes back to being a mild-mannered coed,” Tom said on my last day. “What are you going to give me for a going away present?" I asked. “We’re going to throw you in the Delaware Canal,” Jack said.“ Bring your bathing suit.” “So now that you’ve seen the real world, are you sure this is what your want?’’Torn asked. “There is still time to change your major,” added Jack. But I wouldn’t give up now. I’ve seen the big time and it’s what I want. Reality, here I come ready or not. But I think I’m ready. Jan Corwin is a lOth-term journalism major and copy editor for The Daily Collegian. Heister St. 234-0845 i • i “No wonder committees can never get anything done,” Ed said. Emilie solved our problem by finding a place that would deliver. We all rode down in the elevator to pick it up and had a pizza party in the lobby. And we waited. 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You’re right Leslie, it’s very bush. Not too long ago, it would have been valid to write a column on the effect media coverage has on national politics. But that’s not news any more. We know that convention planners schedule the meatier proceedings for prime time. Winners and also-rans mug for the photographers with upraised hands clasped together, arms wrapped around one another, binding them physically and symbolically. We’re into the age of media and the media. When “Doonesbury” dealt with the press coverage of the coverage earlier this week, I thought it was cute, typical Trudeau satire and social comment. When he ran another strip, I began to wonder. Sure enough, spread across the pages of “Time,” “Newsweek,” and "U.S. party conventions: down memory lane News and World Report” were articles on the electronic medium by the print medium. Then TV did a piece on radio coverage. Radio reported on the newspapers, and before you know it, it’s spread beyond the pen and ink people in “Doonesbury.” 1 . •-***£■(•; \ They went too far. Monday night, CBS presented a convention flashback on the coverage of the 1952 convention by you guessed it CBS. There was Walter Cronkite taking a break to flash back to clips of Walter Cronkite. I realize con ventions can get slow. They can get downright tedious, until the floor reporters and anchors and com mentators can do-nothing but “vamp until ready,” a term borrowed from vaudeville by Cronkite himself. But when the most trusted man in America resorts to showing home Very Conducive to friendliness & mashing »c mass f * Z:00m~~6.O0 w -.. &vmy Friday JUNCTION of COLLEGES GARNER state college . Flenty of fsrkfm behind The STATIONdaiIy. The Daily Collegian Friday, Aug. 15,1980 —3 movies in the name of press coverage, they’ve gone off the deep end. At the conclusion of one night of the Republican convention, Dan Rather commented on the legendary Ford/Bush switch. Headset and suspenders firmly in place, he let us know that this is what reporting is all about. This is what makes it all worthwhile. His colleagues agreed, mikes and headphones nodding in affirmation. But think about it. What if you turned to the front page, read a piece on the conventions, then at the end/ saw “Reporter’s note: stories like this make it all-worthwhile. This is what it’s all about. It’s moments like this that make me proud to be a journalist. Thank you, everyone.” The media are important. They in fluence us precisely because they communicate to us. But this sense of self-importance, like everything else, is inflated. The news media should cover the news, not the media. I’m sorry, Walter, but that’s the way it is - or should be. Back to you, Leslie. Scott Dugan is a 1979 graduate in the English writing option and columnist for The Daily Collegian. Tonite at (Fri. 8/16) The Phyrst 111 '/z E. Beaver Ave. DOUBLE FEATURE! BACKSEAT 'ian Happy Hours at 5 pm Second Show at 10 pm
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers