FRIDAY, April 28, 2000 THE DAILY Editor in Chief About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are published by Collegian Inc., an independent, nonprofit corporation with a board of directors composed of students, faculty and profession als. Pennsylvania State University students write and edit both papers and solicit advertising for them. The Daily Collegian is published Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday during Summer Sessidn, and Mon day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters. It is distributed on the University Park Campus. The Weekly Collegian is EDITORIAL Study days allow time to prepare for finals It's the Friday before finals week What would you rather be doing instead of sitting in class? Maybe you'd like to get a head start on studying. Maybe you'd like to be catching up on some much-needed sleep. Or maybe you'd like to be doing s)solutely nothing, just enjoying the ample pleasure of taking time to *getate. Whatever your preference, there ce plenty of reasons for Penn State to join many other universities in providing a study day before finals leek. For many Penn State students, lite coming Monday begins a week Ain of tortuous and stressful two fiour finals that include difficult 4urse information taught from Sanuary right up to the very day of Ole exam. In other words, the material cov 'fired in today's classes is likely to So what? show up on the tests next week, So what if students actually right next to questions about infor- relaxed instead of burying their cation figginippr mont_hAag(l. heads in their Loks during a day , 11t 1 .5 , day?" Were- • A , : ww • 'ar that starts fo:al each other, b ;W use of the sjructure of finals week, multiple comprehensive tests could be, and often are, issued on the same day. So why not just give students a well deserved break right before the exhaustive battery of tests begin? That's the logic many other uni versities follow. And that's the rea soning Penn State should consider as well. Who we are Me Daily Collegian's editorial opinion is determined by its Board of Opinion, with the editor holding final regionsibilay. Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of The Daily Collegian, Colle gjan Inc. or The Pennsylvania State University. Collegian Inc., publishers of The Daily Collegian and related publi cations, is a separate corporate institution from Penn State. Editorials are written by The Daily Collegian Board of Opinion. :•The members of the board are: Chris Antonacci, Stacey Confer, David Edelson, Cheryl Frankenfield, Angela J. Gates, Allison Kessler, Brooke Sample, Don Stewart, Tim Swift, Patricia Tisak, Tracy Wilson, Matt Wunsche, Susie Xu and Debra Yemenifian. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MP3s will change industry, not hurt artists' incomes I have to disagree with some of the conclu sions in Thursday's editorial. The recording industry is not in a position to make money directly off of online music because MP3 files are not controllable commodities. There is nothing to stop CDs from being copied and distributed as MP3s. The problem with music piracy is actually part of a larger trend. The Internet was designed during the Cold War to be decen hiMized so that it would be less vulnerable to attack Now, the same design that originally had strategic military purposes has made users, wfio have never been subject to central con trill, accustomed to self-determination. A lot of Internet users have a mentality that any thing that comes through their Internet con nection ought to be free. Control is elusive for other reasons too. Eyen if we managed to wipe out every bit of undesirable content hosted on U.S. sites, there would be sites in other countries that *old ensure continued availability. No nation has sovereignty over the Internet. The people who are responsible for piracy at so numerous that it is nearly impossible popsecute them. $o the recording industry, which wants copplete control over music, goes after the purveyors of new technology. But most of the technology that facilitates online piracy was 33 designed with that purpose in mind. The algorithm simply compresses sound. NOpster is not really new technology. Its indi victual functions, those of file server and search engine, were around even before the MN format. 'They are no more responsible for this situ ation than is General Motors for making a car that a drunk driver uses to kill someone. But perhaps surprisingly, the same college Stacey Confer COLLEGIAN Laura Trovato Business Manager mailed to Commonwealth Campus students, parents of students, alumni and other subscribers who want to keep abreast of university news. Complaints: News and editorial complaints should be presented to the editor. Business and advertising com plaints should be presented to the business manager. If a complaint is not satisfactorily resolved, some griev ances may be filed with the Accuracy and Fair Play Committee of Collegian Inc. Information on filing griev ances is available from Gerry Lynn Hamilton, executive secretary, Collegian Inc. Moreover, Penn State already has a long school year that ignores holi days like Easter and Passover that many other schools choose to observe. Another state-related school, the University of Pittsburgh, began its school year a week later than Penn State did. Although Pitt's school cal endar does not include a study day, Pitt's Spring Semester ends today, meaning its a full week shorter. In addition, Pitt was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day another holiday we spent attending classes. Those who argue against study days claim that extra days without classes immediately before finals encourage slacking off and party ing. Students won't actually study, they argue, they will spend it doing just about anything else. It's a seri ous concern for some people. early, en, late and doesn't offer much time Off in between, the least Penn State could offer its students is a break right before the final push of semester-ending exams. Call it break day, party day, sleep day call it whatever you want. Regardless of what students do with that extra time, it's still a day many students want and need in preparation for a rigorous upcom ing week students who probably do the bulk of the pirating with this technology continue to be avid consumers of music. We still go to con certs and buy CDs of our favorite perform ers. As a group, we probably pump more money into the music industry than a lot of the people who paid for all of the recordings they possess. Record companies have to face the fact that we are entering a new era in which they will be less powerful. This isn't unprecedent ed; the railroads inevitably lost some busi ness when the interstate highway system was built. Music and musicians will still thrive, but I predict the record companies will play a smaller role in the years to come. Elian's abduction violated orders of American courts We have all seen the horrific pictures that have littered the news stations and maga zines around the country because of the events, which transpired on April 22. This was the day that Elian Gonzalez was kid napped by our government and taken to Andrews Airforce Base to be reunited with his father Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Whether you agree or disagree that Elian should be with his father, the fact remains that the events, which took place, were dis turbing and just downright bizarre. The government was just doing its job by returning Elian to his father, right? Wrong. The Miami family was given custody of the child after he was rescued at sea by a fisher man. There has been no court decision that has given Juan Miguel back the custody of his son. Here is a news flash; there was no law that our government was upholding when Matt Hanson sophomore-computer science Define year based on small successes By Stacey Confer This time last year, I was ready to kick off my senior year and my term as editor in chief of The Daily Collegian. Like most people gearing up for their last year at Penn State, I had it all planned out; I was going to do well in class (but not burn myself-out ove ei*y time • y • 4ny friends and fi t some way to leave a mark on this -plag9 fore I left. min*ditor in chief of the Col at's not a bad spot to be in if you want to affect something at Penn State. It's also not a bad spot to be in if you want every part of your work to be scrutinized by the general public. Nevertheless, I charged ahead with grand plans for the year. We were going to over haul the look of the paper, something that hadn't been done in decades. Think back and try to remember that old lowercase "the daily Collegian" and blue bar you were used to seeing, right up until the end of last semester. Yes, it's gone now, so I guess that little project worked out. But plenty of things along the way didn't unfold quite as imagined, as I'm sure has been the case with most everyone's last year here. But when something didn't go quite according to my plan, not only did I know about it, so did everyone else who was picking up or reading one of the 20,000 or so copies of the paper printed every day. Even though everything, every day, might not have gone as originally planned, I found that as the year went on, the smaller tri- Write a letter Wo Witte War your comments on our coverage MMOSJOicisions and the Penn State community -ii-rs@psu.edu marital nide. Ufa% Ilegian jj3.ll44owes St. Uldtersity Park, Pa. 16801-3882 a Ilak person: The Daily Collegian *IMO Building , Burrowes St. Wilts must be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 400 words. Students' letters should belt& semester standing, major and campus of 00 writer. Letters from alumni should include the major and year of graduation of the writer. All writ- OS should provide their address and phone num ber for verification of the letter. Letters should be signed by no more than two people. Names may be withheld on request. Members and officers of organizations must include their titles if the topic they write about is connected with the aim of their organization. The Collegian reserves the right to edit letters for length and to reject letters if they are libelous or do not conform to standards of good taste. Because of the number of letters received, the Col legian cannot guarantee publication of all letters it receives. Letters may also be selected for publica tion in The Weekly Collegian. All letters received becortie the property of Collegian Inc. storm troopers with machine guns snatched up Elian. Which leads me to the conspiracy part of this sttuxk. With all the power and money that our gov ernment possesses, was it really necessary to break down the door and run into a tiny lit- umphs and special moments were more than enough to keep me going. Nowhere in my game plan for an exciting, campus-changing senior year was the time I would devote every day to talking to some one who had just started "the most revolu tionary college Web site, with great auctions and that would make a great story." Also not on that list was an item about speaking to angry readers who were upset with something that ran in the paper. It cer tainly made its way onto my daily list, though. And nowhere on that list were things like dealing with the emotions and other issues surruunding a staff member becoming MY OPINION infected with meningitis and nearly losing his life in the process. Those types of moments were the more public, and more difficult, ones of my senior year that I was talking about earlier. But even in the midst of being screamed at on the phone, I'd look out my office door and see a new reporter picking up a copy of that day's paper and smiling when he saw his article had made the front page. Or other times I'd notice the look on editors' faces when one of their staff members final ly understood what went into a news story. Or the look on people's faces on the first day our staff member who had been infect ed with meningitis walked back into the newsroom No one sees those moments, and no one puts them on a list a year in advance so that they can be checked off and marked as milestones when they happen. But they matter. Just as much as getting rid of that terrible blue bar across the top of the paper. Just like printing more of our sports pages in color. Just like all those more public things you might have noticed while watching my senior year unfold in the pages of this paper. tle house with machine guns to snatch up a child over a custody battle? I would hope that as Americans we ques tion these events and are not so stupid that we believe the Clinton administration response that the government was upholding the rule of law. It's pretty hard to uphold a law when there was no law being broken, and better yet, bypass some rulings that were already made by judges in U.S. courts. Here are the main facts of this case since Juan Miguel entered the U.S. a few weeks ago. President Clinton's personal attorney, Greg Craig, represents Juan Miguel in his fight to regain the custody of his son. The court rules against the family in Miami, giving Juan Miguel more leeway in getting his son back. The U.S. court of appeals rules in favor of Elian and states that he may have the right to apply for political asylum, and a court date is set for May. Janet Reno and some House Democrats petition for a court order to seize Elian and return him to his father. They are denied the order. The Miami relatives negotiate all night on Friday the 21st and into the morning. The phones go dead around 5 a.m. and federal agents storm the house and seize Elian. Did Clinton make a deal with Castro? If Janet Reno was only trying to uphold the law, why did she disregard the court's deci sion? Who is paying Clinton's personal attorney to represent Juan Miguel? Did the adminis tration seize Elian because the courts were ruling against their wishes? This is a question of the government over ruling the courts and doing what they see as the best interest for the boy and possibly what's in the best interest of the Clinton administration. Is there something bigger or deeper behind all of this? Can you say conspiracy? iii. . 1: . t ~,,,,_a,..kr ). „ • , ........ . , •.... Mathias R. Shaner sophomore-hotel restaurant management THE DAILY COLLEGIAN 7 sxtt THE S VW "No one sees those moments, and no one puts them on a list a year in advance so that they can be checked off and marked as milestones when they happen." Accomplishing a long list of goals is won derful, but looking back over the year, it's not how I'll define it or my senior year in general. It will be the smaller moments. It will be the day before classes began last summer that I remember us all coming in on the first day of deadlines, looking around at each other, realizing for the first time that we were on our own, getting down to work and putting out our first paper. It will be the first night of Spring Semester, when the first redesigned issue was on its way to the press and everyone sat down for a minute and took a deep breath. It will be Thursday night staff meetings. It will be donuts at Board of Editors. It will be last night, which we spent at the press watching our last issue be printed. Accomplishing a grand list isn't what a year should be based or judged on, not for my successor Patricia and her staff and not for anyone else heading into another year at Penn State. Set big goals, but don't waste time shooting only for them. You'll miss the moments in between. Stacey Confer (slcl92@psu.edu) is a graduating senior majoring in English, and until precisely 6:15 a.m. this morning, she was the Collegian's editor in chief. Boy Scout handbook gives no sexuality restrictions Being an Eagle Scout, news and opinions about the Boy Scouts of America always catches my attention. The recent news on the Supreme Court case about whether the Boy Scouts can expel an assistant scoutmas ter simply because he is a self-identified gay man has defiantly caught my attention. This news has created a lot of personal turmoil for me, since I am a proud Eagle Scout and an ally to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans gender community. As I understand the Boy Scouts' argument, they feel that everyone in the Boy Scouts should lead a morally straight life. From my understanding, the Boy Scouts say that lead ing a morally straight life means that you cannot be gay. I was wondering where the Boy Scout Handbook said that Boy Scouts could not be gay. So, I looked in my copy of the Boy Scout Handbook to see if it said any thing about sex and sexuality. The 10th edition of the Boy Scout Hand book does not say that a Boy Scout cannot be gay, although it does says that your religious leaders can give you "moral guidance" about issues of sexuality. That did not give me any more help, since I am a Reform Jew. Last month, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, The International Rabbinic Associa tion of Reform Judaism, adopted a resolution stating that "the relationship of a Jewish, same gender couple is worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual." Howev er, if one of the three largest sects of Judaism thinks that same sex relationships are moral, the Boy Scouts should reconsider their position.l also wonder if in fact the majority of scout feel that homosexuality is immoral. In my experience, most Eagle Scouts that I have met do not Matt Golden graduate-acoustics
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers