I MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2010 THE DAILY Collegian Rossilynne Skena Editor-In-Chief Holly Colbo Business Manager About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are pub lished by Collegian Inc., an independent, nonprofit coipo ration with a board of direc tors composed of students, faculty and professionals. Pennsylvania State University students write and edit both papers and solicit advertising for them. During the fall and spring semesters as well as the second six-week summer session, The Daily Collegian publishes Monday through Friday. Issues are distributed by mail to other Penn State campuses and individual subscribers. Complaints: News and edito rial complaints should be pre sented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints should be presented to the business manager. Who we are The Daily Collegian's edito rial opinion is determined by its Board of Opinion, with the editor holding final responsibility. The letters and columns expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of The Daily Collegian, Collegian Inc. or The Pennsylvania State University. Collegian Inc., publishers of The Daily Collegian and related publi cations, is a separate cor porate institution from Penn State. Editorials are written by The Daily Collegian Board of Opinion. Members are: Lexi Belculfine, Matt Brown, Kevin Cirilli, Adam Clark, Rich Coleman, Caitlin Cullerot, Abby Drey, Kather ine Dvorak, Michael Fellet ter, Matt Fortuna, Mandy Hofrnockel, Allison Jack ovitz, Phenola Lawrence, Andrew McGill, Dave Miniaci, Nate Mink, Eliza beth Murphy, Dan Rorabaugh, Erin Rowley, Heather Schmelzlen, Caitlin Sellers, Shannon Simcox, Rossilynne Skena, Kevin Sullivan, Jaequie Tylka, Alex Weisler and Bill Wellock. Letters We want to hear your com ments on our coverage, edi torial decisions and the Penn State community. E-mail■ colleganletters@psu.edu ■ Online www.psucollegian.com ■ Postal mall/In person 123 S. Burrowes St University Park, PA 16801 Letters should be about 200 words. Student letters should include class year, major and campus. Letters from alumni should include year of graduation. All writ ers should provide their address and phone number for verification. Letters should be signed by no more than two people. Members of organizations must include their titles if the topic they write about is connected with the aim of their groups. The Collegian reserves the right to edit letters. The Collegian can not guarantee publication of all letters it receives. Let ters chosen also run on The Daily Collegian Online and may be selected for publi cation in The Weekly Colle gian. All letters become property of Collegian Inc. Planning for festival a concern The University Park Undergraduate Associa tion (UPUA) has $45,000 to spend on its spring music festival Last Call. Despite having such lucrative resources and ample time to plan a rock ing event, UPUA is leav ing Penn State students in the dark about where the money is going and what Last Call will entail. UPUA's budget is big, and students deserve to know where the money is going. But it seems like student government is BARK! (Send) \ ' ,ir/ fre, %/i; O,,AV •/,* w/ x 45 47 // ; ,1 ,% ' Investing in gold a worthwhile choice By Bill Wellock I F I ever have the moneyl, I'd like to make a movie called "Slumdog Gazillionaire." In the movie, Latika leaves Jamal for a col- lege newspaper columnist in Pennsylvania, and Jamal sets out to win her back With luck, courage, a good heart and lots and lots of MY OPINION money 2, he goes after her. He tries his hardest, and after Latika catches the columnist in bed with Penelope Cruz and swimsuit model Marissa Miller 3, she realizes that Jamal was her true love all along. Together again, Jamal decides to com memorate his love for Latika by building a life-size replica of the Taj Mahal out of Enzo Ferraris. I can already see the cri tiques. Haters will say: "Everything about that plot makes perfect sense and is totally believable, especially the part with Penelope Cruz, but there's still one thing I don't get how is Jamal going to make his money?" Gold. And Jamal, baby, I'm right there with you. Gold for breakfast, gold for lunch. Gold for dinner, gold for brunch. And yes, brunch will most definitely be a daily thing. When people call gold a pre cious metal, they mean it. As of yesterday, gold was trading at being tight-lipped about side the organization's possible uses of the funds. walls. It needs better and How much will it spend on earlier planning so stu- entertainment? Food? Activities? Penn State stu dents don't know, and maybe UPUA doesn't know either. The event, called "Wally palooza" last year, brought Asher Roth to Penn State. With such a large budget to work with this year, UPUA can't afford another lackluster choice of performer. UPUA needs to commu nicate both inside and out BARK! Send about $l,lOO per troy ounce And bad for the world but good for investors the price of gold generally increases during times of financial or political instability. So, that means when the meteors start falling, the price of gold will shoot up. Right? Right?? Not quite, said Penn State finance professor J. Randall Woodbridge. If, for example, "World War 111 came along, the prices of all assets would tend to go down," he said. But in the event of something less drastic, gold prices would likely rise. That's because, according to Woodbridge, the investment value of gold tends to control its price, and that investment value reflects eco nomic and political uncertainty. When people are scared about the economy or political unrest, they tend to consider investing in gold. "The feeling is that gold is something that will retain its value," said Woodbridge. "If the United States had a major melt down, the dollar would decline, stocks would decline. The thing about gold is that it's universal." That was all I needed to con sider making gold part of my portfolio, which would actually make it all of my portfolio. Having lost most of my invest ment money in the Pokemon card bubble of '9B, I went looking for a loan: *** Me: Dad, I need $l,OOO. Dad (takes Brooks Brothers shearling slipper-clad, foot from opposite knee and pipe from mouth): What for? dents know what the festi val is and who will be there Such a large amount of students' money must not be thrown around blindly. Students deserve a suc cessful send-off, and prop er planning is vital. With a quick assembly vote and so little time remaining, let's hope UPUA truly has done its homework and will create something memorable. ~~~~ EXage,mil Tai icona " otiER7l. Me: I need to invest in gold Porterhouse Wolfingbcme, the family Great Dane, perks up as Dad folds The Wall Street Journal and rises from his leather armchair Dad: Son, I've been waiting for you to ask me this for a long time. Porterhouse wags tail *** Unfortunately, when I tried to tell my plan to the family golden retriever, she just looked at me like I was crazy. So for now, I'll just have to siphon funds from rent money. But I'm sticking with the gold plan. I'm no Scrooge McDuck, but I know a deal when I see one. Gold is good. And it's big-time. "The thing about gold is that it has an investment value that that is greater than many other commodities, like wood," said Woodbridge. To which I say: Amen. I am not about to invest in wood. There are no rappers wearing ornate wooden clocks around their necks. There are no celebrated solid wood toilets. No one drinks liquor with little bits of wooden flakes in it. Besides, nothing says "new money" like a wood baron. So if you have some money to invest, consider gold. After all, as the adage goes, they're not making any more of it. I will never have the money. 2 Plus a little bit of Jai Ho. 3 And what the heck, also Julia Mancuso. Bill Wellock is a senior majoring in English and is the Collegian's Monday columnist. His e-mail address is wawsolo@psu.edu. FER }- --ez .;7! ,, 77 THE DAILY COLLEGIAN Students must swallow pride, party smarter By Max Wendkos IN the wake of the debate surrounding State Patty's Day, it seems that the creation of drinking holid, becoming a bit of a fad at 1 University Park. Many stu- I dents seem set on creating and celebrating additional "holidays" to prove our ability to party regardless of the concerns expressed by the local community and the university or the measures taken to control our actions. For many reasons, the majority of stu dents were unwilling to accept the pleas and suggestions of borough and university officials and their own elected leaders regarding State Patty's Day. Some said they earned the right to celebrate this fab ricated "holiday" because of their work in the classroom and with the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon. But is that why we work hard in class, and is that why raise money for children with can cer? I hope not. Others questioned whether the crime and hospi ali7ations are actually worse on State Patty's Day weekend than during football weekends. Well, not only has State Patty's Day weekend produced significant ly more alcohol-related crime and hospital izations than a normal football weekend, it also easily trumps recent Homecoming weekends and primetime football games. This year's State Patty's Day weekend saw an increase in police calls by 17.3 per cent, disorderly parties and noise violations by 19.4 percent, and alcohol overdoses by 14.3 percent. Most notably, though, the number of arrests more than doubled. In fact, there were more alcohol-related arrests just this year than there were in the first three years combined. If the hospital izations aren't alarming enough to make us question the celebration, I would hope that the continuously increasing threat of being arrested and risking our futures would be. The downfalls don't end there, though. Consider how foolish it is for us to come together to rebel against the people who determine our tuition, class schedules, judi cial affairs policies, local laws, zoning ordi nances and more. For example, there is currently a proposed ordinance the Nuisance Gathering Ordinance that, if passed, would make "the hosts or other organizers of a gathering or event (of 10 or more people) responsible for the activities of their guests and visitors on the site of the gathering or event and for the spillover of guests or activities onto adjacent proper ties." In other words, the borough council controls a large portion of the liabilities attached to all of our off-campus partying, and we're sitting here and essentially telling the mayor, the borough manager, the chief of police, other prominent officials and our neighbors to "shove it." Hopefully you all see the problem with that. Now, I'm not anti-fun; those who know me can tell you that I enjoy partying just as much as the next guy. But since when have we needed to create "holidays" in order to enjoy ourselves? Never, and we don't need to now. Realistically, because we go to a school with approximately 45,000 students and don't party with 99 percent of the cam pus anyway (even on these holidays), we can just stick to our theme parties with our circles of friends and use them to celebrate whatever we want without fostering an unsafe environment full of cops that simul taneously angers those who we rely on to act in our best interest. The creation of these holidays has turned into nothing more than students jeopardizing our own health, safety, lifestyle and futures because we're hell-bent on instant gratification and refuse to see the big picture. The only added benefit see ing people we don't know dressed for the same occasion and the camaraderie that comes along with that just isn't worth everything we'll los - 6 if we don't swallow our pride and start to party smarter. We have found ourselves in the middle of a political game in which we have no lever age. We cannot simply "party" those who have expressed concerns into submission. The longer it takes the student body to rec ognize this and to make the appropriate adjustments, the more we stand to lose. So, if you've been a supporter of these drinking-centered "holidays," I urge you to reconsider your stance if not for Happy Valley or the university that you all claim to "love," do it for yourselves. Max Wendkos is a senior majoring in marketing and psychology and is the president of the Interfraternity Council. Footlog Penn State will be the first Big Ten school to have its spring game televised by the ESPN family when the April 24 Blue-White game airs on ESPN2. Kickoff is 2 p.m. from Beaver Stadium. Besides Penn State, LSU (March 27), North Carolina (April 10) and Alabama (April 17) will also have their spring games air on ESPN/ESPN2. Last year's spring game set a Blue-White Game attendance record with 76,500. Read more from the Footbiog and the rest of The Daily Collegian's blogs at psucolleglan.com/blogs. MY OPINION
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