the
daily
collegian
editorial opinion
Students are about to lose their vote on the
Centre Area Transportation Authority board.
They deserve it.
When the Centre Regional Council of Gov
ernments meets this month, it will consider a
proposal that would eliminate the student seat
on the CATA board. Instead, students would
have two seats on an advisory board, along
with representatives from the senior citizens,
handicapped people and riders-at-large.
The advisory board would have no poli
cymaking power, but would suggest policy to
the new CATA board, which would contain
representatives from each of the municipali
ties served by the bus service.
Should students have their vote taken away?
In principle, the answer should be an em
phatic no. Students compose more than half of
Centre Line's ridership, and many off-campus
students depend on the buses td get them to and
from classes. Also, both off- and on-campus
students rely on CATA to get around to places
like the Nittany Mall.
But in reality, apathy has prevented students
from being effectively , represented on the
CATA board.
Linda Roosa, the student representative last
year, said last year that students never gave
her suggestions or criticisms.
Furthermore, the student CATA seat has
been empty for months while the Undergrad
uate Student Government tried to find students
Britain used Catholic Church against IRA
Last week, the IRA hunger strike went down
like a sinking ship. For some time the relatives of
hunger strikers had been throwing them life
preservers by asking prison officials to provide
intravenous feeding, and last week the Irish
National Liberation Army announced that it was
abandoning ship and would provide no -more
strikers. Finally the IRA put its last six protesters
in a life boat and bailed out too.
In the wake of the disaster, the prinie ministers
of, Biitain and Ireland were sitting high and dry
like two rescued lovers, while Irish Republican
spokesmen thrashed around in the water like
deranged Ahabs looking for a great white whale to
blame for the debacle. When they found their
prey, it was none other than that treacherous
spawn of Rome: the Catholic Church.
• lan Paisley could not have written a better
'cript. Meg Thatcher and Garrett Fitz slip grace
fully out of the picture, while the two most
powerful institutions in Ireland, nationalism and
Catholicism, prepare to do battle.
It was not always this way. At one time,
Catholic priests, trained in Europe because semi
haries were illegal in Ireland, served as the
nucleus of Irish nationalism. But after Father
John Murphy laid down his breviary in 1798 and
Dearly chased the English into the sea with an
army of peasants, the British government decid
ed it would be better to train Irish priests at home
Diffuse the bomb
By Vicki Markley-Sairs
Graduate -Spanish
• "Normally I'd spit in the face of anyone making
the arguments you're making. But you two are
very dear to me . . ."
• So ran a conversation that my husband and I
fiad with a good friend who'd just discovered
we're pro-life. He's a compassionate person and a
committed Marxist; we're Christians.
forum
We're obviously very different, and yet our love
and respect for each other as human beings
enabled us to sit in the diner for three hours and
discuss a topic that can bring normally sedate
people to blows.
What is it about abortion that arouses such
tension and hostility? Part of the reason must be
that people on opposite sides of the issue tend to
view each other as somewhat less than human.
Many leftists, feminists, peace activists and anti
nukers automatically link a pro-life position with
reactionary right-wing politics, and their idea of a
typical pro-lifer is someone who's suspiciously
clean-cut, has actively campaigned for Reagan,
has it in for the poor and the blacks and will only
make love with pajamas on.
,- On the other side of the fence we have many
'Pro-lifers who are convinced that pro-choice peo
ple are moral midgets, man-hating feminists and
other assorted misfits who are hell-bent on per
irerting the American way of life.
• Fortunately, real people are more complex
than the stereotype we insist on manufacturing
for them. A good friend of mine is a pillar of the
local pro-life movement. She also verges on being
a total pacifist, is a fervent Catholic, won't touch
meat, is anti-nuke and gets the National Review.
What category can we squeeze her into?
Another friend of mine is an original dumpster
rat, an old-time eco-freak and all-around counter-
opinions
Apparently students don't want CATA vote
No say
to fill it. Vicki Sandoe left the seat after Spring
Term 1980 and Roosa was not appointed to fill
the seat until Winter Term. Roosa graduated
last spring and the seat has remained vacant
since then. USG President Bill Cluck said he
has waited to fill the seat pending the CATA
reorganization.
In principle, students should have a vote. But
in reality, no one deserves a vote who doesn't
use it.
Now is not the time to berate students for
their apathy; however, this is a good example
of what happens to power when it isn't used.
A student representative of any type who
receives little input, and who only serves for
short, erratic terms, cannot be effective. Rep
resentation is a privilege that cannot be taken
for granted.
Provided that the CATA board is responsive
to the transit authority advisory committee,
students will still have an avenue to present
their problems and suggestions to CATA if
they choose to.
In principle, students should have a position
on the CATA board, where they can affect
policies with a vote. In reality, it just doesn't
work that way.
The Daily Collegian's editorial opinion is determined by its
Board of Opinion, with the editor-in-chief holding final
responsibility.
where they could keep an eye on them.
Shortly afterwoods, the British built the semi
nary at Maynooth, and the Irish clergy became
more complacent and less revolutionary. For
almost two hundred years the church and the
nationalists remained at odds and kept the coun
try devided for the British. Then Bobby Sands
changed everything.
With the death of Sands, Ireland had its first
popular martyr since the Lord Mayor of Cork,
Terence McSwiney, starved himself to death sixty
years ago. The status of the IRA soared; the
hunger strikers became folk heroes, the govern
ment collapsed, and two IRA prisoners surprised
everyone by getting elected to the Irish parlia
ment.
A wave of popular sentiment was threatening to
engulf the entire-country and unite it behind the
hunger strikers. If the Catholic clergy were
culture peacenik, and guess what? He doesn't
think abortion is cool
Yet stereotypes usually contain a little kernel of
truth. Not all pro-lifers are pro-bomb, but Many
are. Not all pro-choicers actively advocate abor
tion as a good solution to a problem pregnancy,
but many do. Pro-lifers often question how peace
people can oppose all forms of violence, and yet
allow suction curettes and salt poisoning to be
used on the unborn. Pro-choicers, on the other
hand, wonder why so many pro-lifers seem more
concerned about the lives of the unborn than
about those of us who are already out here in the
cold cruel world, i.e., how can people be pro-life
and yet support an administration that pours
In this case it's best to heed reality.
A-S l cer44.
cce rlorAo-
caught in the swelling tide of nationalism, the
British would be faced with a situation similar to
the one confronting the Russians in Poland. The
British needed a wedge to drive between, the
hunger strikers and the clergy, and they found it
in the families of the hunger strikers.
From the beginning, Margaret Thatcher's hard
line policy ruled out any attempt to prevent the
men from starving themselves to death. But
prison officials told the relatives of the dying men
that they would save the life of an unconscious
hunger striker only if his family requested them
to do so. This way when an inmate went into a
coma, his decision to die slipped through his
hands and fell into his mother's lap.
At first the families resisted this unnatural
pressure, but as time went on more and more
relatives succumbed and asked the officials to
take their sons off the strike involuntarily.
Commenting on this in Belfast, a Republican
spokesman, Richard McAuley, claimed that the
British never could have broken the strike without
the help of the Catholic clergy.
McAuley said that after an unsuccessful at
tempt to soften the Biitish authorities in July, the
Catholic hierarchy was faced with a choice of
either denouncing the British publicly or breaking
the strike, and they choose the easier of the two.
He claimed that pressure was then put on the
families by clergymen such as Bishop Daly of
but don't abort babies
billions into the war machine while cutting back
on health care for pregnant women and infants?
There seems to be some inconsistency on both
sides, but the fact remains that both groups are
made up of human beings who are, in their
diverse ways, trying to protect human life. They
have something in common, in spite of the incred
ibly hostile rhetoric that often flies back and forth
between them. They even have something to learn
from each other, if they will only drop the stereo
types long enough to see the human face of their
opponents.
In a sense, this dehumanization df the "enemy"
is symptomatic of the same disease that has
brought us to the point where one-half of our
national budget goes toward paying for war and
one-third of all pregnancies end in abortion.
Dehumanization is in part a result of the cheap
ening of the value of all life. All societies have
deenied some forms of life more or less valuable
than others. When one form of expendable life
also happens to be human, it's easier to dispose of
it if you blind yourself to its humanity.
This is what happened in Vietnam when we
heard about "body counts" instead of dead men,
women and children. This is what is happening
now when we hear about the "products of concep
tion" when what we're actually talking about is
an eight-week-old being with eyes, ears, nose,
mouth, fingers, toes, a heart that beats, a brain
that functions, and a body that can feel pain.
This is what is happening when an expert on
nuclear war such as Herman Kahn can say the
following without flinching: "Embryonic deaths
are of limited significapce. These are conceptions
which would have been successful had it not been
for radiation that damaged the germ cell. . . .
There will probably be 100 million of these in
future generations (after a limited nuclear war).
On the whole, the human race is so fecund that a
small reduction in fecundity should not be a
serious matter even to individuals."
In a society where 100 million deaths can be
considered to be of "limited significance," it's no
surprise that people have become adept at ignor-
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Derry and Father Denis Faul, the Long Kesh
prison chaplain who three times tried to persuade
the father of Irish MP Kieran Doherty to inter
vene on behalf of his son.
In order to emphasize the enormous power
which the Irish clergy has, McAuley pointed out
that when Mother Theresa of Calcutta tried to
open a convent in Belfast, an Irish bishop had it
closed because he objected to having a foreign
order of nuns in his diocese.
No doubt the clergy will soon come up with a
few rounds of rhetorical shrapnel of its own to fire
at the Republicans, and the fight will go on.
Both sides have their virtues: the Republicans
are addressing legitimate social grievances, and
priests must not council distraught mothers in the
same manner as they do freedom fighters who are
hell-bent on martyrdom.
On the other hand, driving a Nobel Peace Prize
winner out of Belfast is like driving a blood donor
from a hemophilia ward, and by blaming its „
defeat on the clergy, the IRA is diverting atten
tion from the real villain: the British government,
which once again exposed its moral bankruptcy
by adopting the ruthless tactics of a kidnapper
and holding the lives of children hostage before
their mothers rather than summoning up the
moral fortitude to seek a solution on its own.
Sean de Hora is a graduate student in history
ing the humanity of their opponents and are
willing to settle for shallow stereotypes.
However, a fairly recent and very happy phe
nomenon in the abortion controversy does offer
some hope for those who are sick of the name
calling and hysteria that have plagued the whole
discussion. Individuals from both camps are
starting to speak up and break down the old
barriers. Closet pro-lifers are emerging on the
left, and closet peaceniks are coming out in the
pro-life movement.
The Progressive ran a pro-life article by Mary
Meehan in September 1980. The editors expected
a flood of cancelled subscriptions, but what they
got instead was a mountain of mail split 50-50 on
the issue.
A longtime peace activist named Juli Loesch,
who came-to oppose abortion through , her work in
the anti-nuclear movement, is working to bring
people together - from both ends of the political
spectrum on the issues of abortion and nuclear
arms. Teaching about the effects of Plutonium 239
and X-ray and gamma radiation on the unborn led
her to the inevitable question, "How can it be
- wrong 'corporate crime' for little babies to
be hurt accidentally or collaterally, if it's OK to
poison them or tear them to pieces deliberately?"
So in 1979 she gathered together a small band of
like-minded oddballs who christened themselves
Pro-lifers for Survival (P.S:), and began working
.to promote dialogue between the peace and pro
life movements. P.S. does not, as a group, work to
change laws, but focuses instead on trying to
change people's minds.
I met Juli Loesch at the March 28 demonstra
tion in Harrisburg, and since then some friends
and I have started a local P.S. chapter. I was a
little scared at first ("Oh, no, everybody's going
to think I'm a fascist! ") but actually we're found
a great deal of positive response to what we're
saying. This forum is an invitation to discussion,
and a good place for the dialogue to start might be
Juli's talk tomorrow night in the HUB main
lounge. Everybody's welcome right, left, cen
ter and politically schizophrenic!
Vlig? (495/ SORRY,
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141144
=reader
=opinion
Channel energy
In response to the article in Tuesday's issue of
The Daily Collegian concerning the dissolving of
the Volunteer Service Center, I'd like to share
some thoughts and channel the students' positive
energy in a positive direction.
This fall, many students who are interested in
helping others returned to discover that the VSC
no longer existed. Even though the Center has
been dissolved, for whatever reason, it is still
possible to funnel your positive energy through a
"service to others" organization. Alpha Phi
Omega, a coed national service fraternity; Gam
ma Sigma Sigma, national service sorority; and
Circle K are the three main service organiza
tions on campus.
Our projects include many activities previous
ly sponsored by the VSC. These activities not
only involve service to the campus, but also to
State College and neighboring communities.
Whether it be sponsoring the Bloodmobile on
campus every term, or visiting the residents of
Centre Crest and other nursing homes, or even
helping out other campus organizations we're
involtred and there is no room for apathy. Our
goal is service to others and to pick up where the
VSC left off.
Presently, Alpha Phi Omega and Gamma
Sigma Sigma are located in 211 HUB, but at the
beginning of Winter Term the three service
organizations will be moving to a new office in
206 HUB. By sharing the office we feel that we
may better coordinate our services and more
effectively help others
So for those of you who appreciated the activ
ities of the VSC, it still exists but in a different
form of organizations. Anyone is welcome to join
us and use your excess energy productively
remember, you can only make someone happy.
Barbaia Gawronski, 10th-speech communica
tion
President, Alph'a Phi Omega national service
fraternity
Oct. 7
On giving
There has been a lot of talk about donations. I
don't donate, as a matter of belief, and so I do not
avoid people, but say no. The reason is that in
most cases the cause does not convince me. I
believe that this country is the last to need
donations for any cause and the money collected
from these donations insignificant.
Why don't people collect for the poor people in
other parts of the world, where they really need
support and where even a small amount can help
a lot, or do these people believe, to hell with the
world and its poor?
Name withheld by request
Oct. 9
zCollegiail
Monday Oct. 12, 1981—Page 2 C:)1981 Collegian Inc.
Paula Froke Debby Vinokur
Editor Business Manager
COMPLAINTS: News and editorial 'complaints should
be presented to the editor. Business and advertising
complaints should be presented to the business man
ager. If the complaint is not satisfactorily resolved,
grievances may be filed with the Accuracy and Fair
Play Committee of Collegian Inc. Information on filing
grievances is available from Gerry Lynn Hamilton,
executive secretary, Collegian Inc.
GSA task force
still 'hoped for'
Continued from Page 1.
"I thought it came across that we were
going to work with GSA to get a task
force formed, and that it is only a 'hoped
for' thing."
Gross said GSA is working on the
taxation problem and is "making recom
mendations to the appropriate places
and the administration." ,
"When we have something more con
crete and definite, we'd love for it to be
reported," Gross, said. "Everything is so
tenuous we don't think it's proper at this
time to report it.
"GSA may feel it may compromise our .
position it may be a violation of trust if
we report through the Collegian things
which are really in the proposal stages
with the administration."
Gross also said that it was incorrectly
reported in last week's article that the
annual GSA tax handbook would be is
sued this month.
The handbook, which provides grad
uate students with tax advice, will be
issued in January, he said. It is now in
rough draft form, he said.
However, Gross said there is an infor
mational note in the GSA newsletter this
month concerning the tax situation.
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Commoner objects
to Reagan's policy
Continued from Page 1.
"I think Watt is a kind of political
joke. He's a cartoon. (By the way,
Commoner said he reads "Doones
bury" about once a Week.) You think
of somebody who does everything
wrong and he manages to do it. He's
a good example of Reagan's subver
sive policy."
Mainstream American political
thought is having disastrous effects
on our country, Commoner said.
Even liberalism which is a lot
closer than conservatism to Com
moner's ideology has completely
failed, he said. As he puts it, liber
alism "gets to the root, but of the
wrong plant.
"We present solutions that make
sense, instead of cosmetic nonsense.
What we propose is a radical, work
able alternative to both the conser
vative and the liberal approach."
The problem, he said, is getting
people to realize this. Commoner
and his , running mate, LaDonna Har
Sy:7C/Prgg. 7 l
ris, received only .27 percent of the
nationwide vote in the 1980 presi
dential election.
In contrast, many candidates run
ning for local offices fared much
better, and the party now ha's seve
ral people in office, including the
mayor of Burlington, Vt.
Locally, Douglas Mason, 1980 U.S.
Congressional candidate for the 23rd
district, received over 5 percent of
the votes received by winner Wil
liam F. Clinger, R-central Pa., giv
ing the party official ballot status in
Centre County.
The party must, establish itself on
the grass roots level first, Common
er said. The only reason he ran for
president in 1980 was to publicize the
party, and if he runs in 1984, it would
be to publicize the party.
And why does he want to publicize
the party? Why is this so important
to Barry Commoner?
Chalk it up to radicalism.
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The Undergraduate Student Government is accepting
Applications for the following staffs and dept. heads:
* Minority Affairs director & staff
* Political Affairs director & staff
* USG Appeals Board
* CATA Board Student Representative Seat
* Business Dept. Board of Directors Chairman
Pick Up An Application in 203 HUB &Get Involved
in Your Student Government Today.
The only way it will work is if you get involved.
* Now that mid-terms are over there's no good reason why you can't!
Deadline: • Mon., Oct. 7 l9th 1981.
R-268
Commission to set priorities
Women's group will. serve as umbrella organization
Continued from Page 1.
"We will let people know of outstanding contributions women
are making at University Park and all over the University,"
McCormick said. "I expect we will be hearing from a lot of the
women and we will be reaching out to them." .
Commission member Kathryn Johnson, co-chairwoman of
the Undergraduate Student Government department of wom
en's services, said the commission will provide a sense of
organization between the different women's groups at the
University.
"The commission will serve as an umbrella over all the other
women's groups on campus and groups that deal with women's
concerns," she said. "We could have access to these groups and
serve as an informational board for them; we could give
students access to different information and programs."
McCormick said the commission has had one meeting so far
and is beginning to set priorities and decide what some of the
issues are.
Commission member Wendy Oakes, president of the Panhel
lenic Council, said it is important that both men and women
students contact the commission about information and ideas.
"The commission will provide a place for students to come,
and we can find out their concerns and we can try and come up
with viable , answers," she said,
Several commission members said the University' is behind
in women's services compared to other schools and that the
commission may help bring those services up to date.
A women's center could provide a central area to distribute
and collect information and ideas from women at the Universi
ty, Johnson said. '
The Daily Collegian Monday, Oct. 12, 1981-3
A concern for the job opportunities for both a husband and
wife at the University was expressed by commission member
Carol A. Cartwright, professor of education and acting asso
ciate dean of the Commonwealth Educational System.
"The University often loses people because the spouse of an
employee is not able to find a job," she said. "Because we are
seeing more and more two-career families we need to be more
sensitive and creative to this situation."
Members of the University Commission for Women are: .
Maureen A. Carr, professor and director of the school
music; Patricia Farrell, associate professor of the department
of parks and recreation; June Gamble, president of the Faculty
Women's Club; and Barbara Kautz, research associate and
technical editor of the computation center.
Also, Nancy Lyday, vice president of the Graduate Student
Association; McCormick; Melanie Miller, president of the
Society of Women Engineers; Kathryn M. Moore, associate
professor and research associate of the Center for the Study of
Higher Education; and Rosanel Oswald, director of the Univer-:
sity House.
Also, Audrey Rodgers, associate professor of English and
coordinator of the women's studies program; Louise Sandmeya
er, assistant director for career counseling and planning;.
Jacqueline L. Schoch, director of the Dußois campus; Rosei
mary Schraer, associate provost and professor of biochemis
try; Joan Thomson, assistant professor and coordinator of staff
development, Agricultural Extension Service; and Nancy.
Tisthler, professor of English and humanities at the Capitol
campus.