8 The Daily Collegian Editorial opinion. Don't be fooled by free stuff, be informed about credit cards Students beware: Credit card companies are on the prowl. From umbrellas to T-shirts to candy bars, these companies know college students love any thing free, and filling out a form is only a small inconvenience when free stuff is on the line. Around almost any turn on cam pus you can find the telltale signs that somebody is after your debt: A folding table stacked with clip boards and a box of goodies labeled "free!" These companies use flashy freebies to trick students into get ting high-interest credit cards they don't need. Just as bad, such companies recruit student groups to do their dirty work, letting them hawk credit cards for commission as fund-raising. Can these students provide informed answers to your ques tions about credit cards the way a banker could? Of course not. And while many students find credit cards a useful service, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Or a free T-shirt. People who have been sucked About the Board of Opinion: Editorials are written by The Daily Collegian Board of Opinion. The members of the Board of Opinion for Fall Semester are: Bridgette Blair, Patricia K. Cole, Stacey Confer, Carrie DeLeon, Aimee Harris, Daryl Lang, Khyber Oser, Emily Rehring, Brooke Sample, Cory Shindel and Tim Swift =Collegian Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1998 01998 Collegian Inc. Editor In Chief Bridgette Blair Business Manager Scott A. Fallgren The Daily Collegian's editorial opinion is deter mined by its Board of Opinion, with the editor holding final responsibility. Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not nec essarily those of The Daily Collegian, Colle gian Inc. or The Pennsylvania State University. Collegian Inc., publishers of The Daily Colle gian and related publications, is a separate corporate institution from Penn State. Board of Editors Managing Editor Krista Hawley Opinion Editor Carrie DeLeon Campus Editor Stacey Confer Metro Editor Aimee Harris News Editors Patricia K. Cole, Kelly Ruoff Copy/Wirs Editors Jennifer Eck, Brooke Sample Patricia Tisak Weekly Editors Jason Fagone, Darren Robertson 'ape survivor deals with memory that cannot be forgotten All of the statistics say the same thing one in four. Out of every four women, one will be the victim of rape or sexual assault in her lifetime. I remember looking at my three best friends my sophomore year and thinking that if it had to be one of the four of us, it was probably best that it was me. I am not so naive to believe that just because I was date raped during my freshman year at Penn State, it meant that they will never have to go through it. But sometimes you think things like that. At least for me, I had to try to find some kind of justification, some kind of pattern, something that made it make sense. It still makes no sense, even though it happened exactly three years ago today. It makes no sense that one night affects nisi life on such a regular basis. Nor does the realization that it will probably affect me for the rest of my life make any sense. I'vO kind of accepted this, but acceptance doesn't always make sense. Nor does it make sense that deciding to write this column with my name and pic ture attached to it was greeted with such surprise from everyone whom I told bOorehand and was a decision that I deliberated over for a month. 1 didn't do anything wrong. Why should I be the one who should feel guilty every time I tell someone or they find out? Why Watch out into the whirlpool of credit card debt are indirectly paying for freebies to lure more people in. There are a few common-sense way you can fight back. First, don't ever sign up for a credit card if you are being rushed. Take time to read the fine print to make informed choices about where your money belongs. Second, if you feel like you do not know enough to decide, ask questions. If the person with the clipboards can't answer them, take your business elsewhere. Finally, realize there aren't too many safeguards in place to pre vent you from completing the forms with a fake name. It would be pretty damaging to these credit card companies if students stopped providing their personal information and just used the tables to get free junk. Of course, we don't condone fraud. But until these companies begin providing adequate infor mation and dealing an honest hand, it's hard to argue against exploiting those who are trying to exploit you. Sports Managing Editor Andrew Krebs Day Sports Editor Jordan Hyman Night Sports Editors Craig Kackenmeister Michael Lello Arts Editor Molly K. Fellin Photo Editor Galen k Lentz Graphics Editor David Heasty Online Editor Daryl Lang Assistant Online Editor David Smith Board of Managers Advertising Manager Ryan J. Myers Accounting Manager Cindy Ng Office Manager Stacie L Coleman Sales Manager Natasha Montes de Oca Layout Manager Ben Jennings Complaints: News and editorial complaints should be presented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints should be presented to the business manager. If a complaint is not satisfactorily resolved, some grievances may be filed with the Accuracy and Fair Play Committee of Collegian Inc. Information on filing grievances is available from Gerry Lynn Hamil ton, executive secretary, Collegian Inc. Letters Policy: The Daily Collegian encourages comments on news coverage, editorial policy and University affairs. Letters must be typewritten, dou ble-spaced and no longer than 400 words. Forums must also be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 750 words. should I have to feel ashamed? Why should I wonder if there was something I could have done differently? Why should I live in the absolute certainty that had I reported it there is no way he would have been committed of doing anything illegal? I don't care what the laws are. I know the society in which we live. Legally, he would have been declared innocent although what he did falls under the legal definition of rape. The only illegal act I committed that night was that I was drinking underage a lot and I am the one who paid and is paying for it. Three years later, I know what he did was illegal and, worse, I know there is no way to fight it. Legal revenge isn't the answer and vigi- Opinions Every generation has its own struggle Things aren't the way they used to be. Have you ever heard that from grandma, grandpa, a teacher, a par ent of your roommate? They sit down and complain about how undisciplined kids are today and how much harder it was to live back in the 'SOs,'3os, 19th or 14th cen turies. It's true that things aren't the way they used to be. They've changed. They haven't always changed for the better, but they've changed. People since the beginning of history have been complaining about how bad things are in their current time and how they must have once been better. Let's take a few examples. 1. The Garden of Eden is probably the most powerful and well-known version of this idea. Long ago, there was a perfect place where man coexisted with God in perfect harmony with nature. But some thing happened, and now we live in this screwed up place. So let's get really upset about how we aren't in paradise anymore and construct some really draconian laws so that we can make ourselves good enough to get back to it. (I've oversimpli fied, but you catch the gist.) I don't mean to say that the Garden of Eden is a somehow pointless story in fact I think quite the opposite but it has this "back in the day" or "since the world I live in now sucks so much, it must have been better before" quality to it. Why must things have been so much better before? Life and history haven't ever taught us (unless you've been asleep) that at one time everything was perfect and now it's the pit of despair. No. There are good times and bad times, and we just have to live through them. 2. "Kids today have no worries." A man once told me that we kids don't try hard enough. We don't put in the elbow grease that his generation did and we sure aren't as smart. He said that all that kids are interested in were drugs and sex. We have lante revenge although embraced by my family and friends would not make anything better. Hurting him isn't going to make me hurt any less. So the only thing I can do is make myself better. One year ago, I did not think that was possible. One year ago, I was dealing with the rape and the issues that came with it for probably the first time. I found myself depressed, deferring grades and becoming a burden to my roommate and friends. I found myself wondering if I would always feel that way. It got to the point that I believed that there was no other way for me to feel. Then I wrote about it, put it all on paper and put it into perspective. One year ago, I wrote another column on this date about how I felt without my name and picture, of course. It was a big step for me in my healing process. I took a lot of little steps, too, with the help of my friends, whose support was invaluable and indescribable. And I found strength in the weirdest 4:: :::7 0 10.011"4, 0 0v4T-Ii ORE 60044:0 4 <lO --- • •••••••1! ~_- M_ _ _ E B 1 Letters to the editor can be sent via e- "It got to the point that I believed that there was no other way for me to feel. Then I wrote about it, put it all on paper and put it into perspective." •••NEW' THIS ' TIM, ~~_ " j ~i ti ~'~ ~ r~L no interest in personal integrity, commu nity value or morality. We haven't had a Great Depression or a World War to be drafted into. I agreed with him on those points. How could I not? But What he has failed to recognize is that we have had to grow up in the wreck age of his generation just as he had to grow up in the wreckage of his parents' generation. Has he had to grow up in a world with AIDS, terrorism and light speed technological progress? No. 3. An older gentlemen also told me that "The 'A' is not worth as much as it used to be." He said that children today aren't learning as much as much as they used to. "Really?" I said. Today we no longer learn Virgil, Homer and Plato. We aren't learn ing history as well as we used to. Our reading comprehension is lower than his generation's was. Is that our fault or the fault of our teachers? Neither. The state ment is bull. In a world of extraordinarily fast-paced progress, "The Odyssey," "The Aeneid" and "The Republic" are all very far away. We have to learn how to operate comput ers, take introductory classes in physics and astronomy that are more in-depth than our parents' classes were and watch the news so that we know what is happen ing in the world we live in. How many of our parents really read and understood these anyway? mail to crdl26@psu.edu places. A friend of mine responded to my column last year, thanking the author for sharing her story, not knowing that I had written it. When I spoke at the Take Back the Night Rally, two friends whom I did not realize were there came over, hugged me and thanked me for speaking. When I was covering the Undergradu ate Student Government Senate two years ago, one of the senators spoke strongly for the inclusion of information about rape in the freshmen seminar. "If you don't know anyone who has (been raped) then consider yourself lucky because I know too many of them," he said. He graduated and I doubt very much that he would even recognize that quote now, but I could never forget it. It's support like this whether direct or indirect that made coping just that much easier. It's support like this make it possible for me to write this column and to run my picture to raise awareness and make people talk. This column is also for the people I --- Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1998 "Life and history haven't ever taught us (unless you've been asleep) that at one time everything was perfect and now it's the pit of despair." As far as reading comprehension is con cerned, I couldn't disagree with this guy My father has been an English profes sor here for about 30 years, and he says that kids make the same mistakes now that they did in the '7os. He made the same mistakes in the 'sos and '6os too. So did his mother and her father. The "A" hasn't had to be devalued, we've just had to learn different things. So, for all of you people out there who are so convinced that we live in a world of educational and moral deficiency that has abandoned its history of paradise, think again. What mistakes did you make when you were young. Did you ever vandalize? Get drunk? Have pre-marital sex? Flunk a test? Disrespect an elder? I bet you did. Maybe you didn't use the means that we have today, but in essence you did the same things. Things are very much the same. We still struggle. The things that we struggle with today have different faces on the surface, but they are very much the same They are grief, pain, fear, anxiety and hopelessness. So don't go running around telling us that the world is so much easier than it was because you haven't grown up in this one. You've made it. And we'll make one too. Peter Buck (pdbllB@psu.edu) is a junior majoring in music and a Collegian colum nist. have met who have gone through a similar experience. This column is for the people who wonder if they will ever be normal again. This column is for the people who wonder when they will stop thinking about what happened every single day. This col umn is for the people who still don't even know that what was done to them was wrong. It's not easy to deal with this. I know that. It's easier to move on and forget it than to revisit that time and think about it what happened. If I knew then at 18 what I know now, if I could have seen the future, I wouldn't have drank, I wouldn't have been alone with him, I wouldn't have seen him again, I wouldn't have met him, etc. It's maddening to sit and think of the what-ifs. I cannot spend the rest of my life thinking that if only I could go back in time and change a few decisions, every thing would be all right. I can't go back in time and I can't think about changing the past. No one can and remain sane. I can only move forward. Patricia K. Cole (pkclol@psu.edu) is a senior majoring in journalism and is a Col legian news editor. Her column from last year can be found on the Collegian's World Wide Web site at www.collegian.psu.edu. _ . . , 111 Ifft
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers