I TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010 THE DAIII Collegian Rossilynne Skena Holly Colbo misitics.v Manager About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are pub lished by Collegian Inc., an independent. nonprofit corpo ration with a board of direc 'ors comnnsed of students, Faculty an,; professionals Pennsylvania State University students write and edit both rapers and solicit advertising 'Jr 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 uy mail to other Penn State campuses and individual subscribers. Complaints: News and edit: , iial complaints should be pre sented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints chould be presented to the 'Justness manager. Who we are The Daily Collegan's edito nal opinion is determined oy 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 Drill', Adam Clark, Rich Coleman, Caitlin Cullerot. Abby Drey, Kather ine Dvorak, Michael Fe!let ter. Matt Fortuna, Mandy Hofrnockel. Allison Jack- 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. Jacquie Tylka, Alex Weiler and Bill Wellock. Letters We want to hear your com ments on our coverage, edi tonal decisions and the Penn State community. ■ E-mail collegianletters@psu.edu ■ Online www.psucollegian.com ■ Postal mail/In person 123 S. 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In 2002, Penn State's chapter of the fraternity for gay and progressive men, Delta Lambda Phi closed because of lack of membership. Last year, however, stu dents re-colonized to bring the fraternity back to Penn State, and after a six- month-long pursuit, it has DID I WIN? Denis take good risk with health care By Kevin Sullivan pEOPLE often lament a cer tain homogeneousness in American politics that comes out of a electorate forced to con fine to one of two philoso phies Over the past year, however, as opinions have had the time to ferment as the current health care reform legislation has been debated in Washington, voices of innumer able stripes have slowly crawled out from the cracks. Case in point: the epithets tossed at con gressmen by protesters Sunday afternoon. MY OPINION Republican Congressman Devin Nunes of California went on television defending these people, saying, "When you use totalitarian tactics, people begin to act crazy. And I think, y'know there's people that have every right to say what they want." I'm not sure how it could be considered totalitarian for dem ocratically elected officials to vote on legislation that repre sents the sort of stances they campaigned on. I have a life, so I haven't myself read the actual bill, but from the outlines I've seen, I think it's likely to be transforma tional in American history I don't think this because I can now mooch my broke ass off my parents' health plan for four more years. I don't think this because, though not an actual clause in the bill, its passage apparently includes the self-imposed ban ishment of talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who said on his March 8 show, "I'll just tell you big step for diversity earned IFC affiliation for the first time. The decision shows a step in the right direction for the Interfraternity Council and Penn State in general. After easily earn ing the required two thirds approval of IFC presidents Tuesday, Delta Lambda Phi is officially a recognized member. The 29 members and 11 pledges of the chapter as well as IFC President Max Wendkos are excited about the decision, hoping the greek and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and its allies (LGBTA) will be able to strengthen their relation this, if this passes and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented I am leav ing the country. I'll go to Costa Rica." Which is strange; the country has a nationalized uni versal health care system. I also don't think the legisla tion will be a landmark because it will somehow put our country on a slippery slope toward some Orwellian scenario. The bill is not a takeover of one-sixth of the economy, as many like to say. There is no public option or single-payer plan. In fact, the bill does not create a new program. Instead, it only subsidizes private plans. Flirthermore, even if a univer sal plan was created, the gov ernment already accounts for almost half of the health care market. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in 2008, gov ernment-run programs made up 47.3 percent of health spending to the private sector's 52.7 per cent in 2008. This situation isn't solely the doing of progressives either. During the '9os, when Republicans controlled the House for six years, the amount of private health spending dropped by more than 10 per cent, and George Bush's pre scription drug benefit program helped further the trend as well. While the effects of the new policy will certainly be notice able by many, I would say that the political effects of such a piece of legislation could be just as, if not more so, apparent, and largely in the favor of Democrats Republicans have enjoyed boasting about how passage of this bill would reflect in this year's elections to their benefit. They're probably right. But as conservative author and former ships. The recognition of Delta Lambda Phi will allow the fraternity to be more involved in events like Homecoming and THON. The LGBTA community will also become more vis ible, allowing for more recognition and collabora tion with all of Penn State's fraternities, sorori ties and other groups. Open minds and open hearts allowed for this to happen, and the IFC should be applauded and the newest member con gratulated. You have come a long way, Penn State. Let's continue to move forward 2010 1p.4 •'• ril;fr ' r 7 • -WI. .Ctrl Bush speechwriter David Frum points out, one election is hardly compensation for the major Democratic victory. The Republican Party went all out on destroying the bill completely, and it failed. In doing so, it had less influence than it could have on the bill. The other effect is the long term gain this will score Democrats, in terms of their long problem with branding and self-imaging. After the Kennedy assassina tions in the 19605, the Democrats never seemed to regain their swagger and slowly became more and more timid and, well, conservative. Richard Nixon won re-election by a land slide 49 states in 1972. Jimmy Carter lost in '76 after coming across as weak during the Iran hostage affair. And he lost to an unelectable Hollywood nut, who would become a conservative hero. To combat this dichotomy, a group called the Democratic Leadership Council formed in the 1980 s with a goal of bringing triangulation, the act of present ing an ideology in the middle of the political spectrum. After • Clinton's success with moderate principles, including holding back on proposed health care reform, the group claimed suc cess. Exactly how voters will respond to this shift in ambition and objective remains to be seen. It will surely restore faith in liberal base voters. It's defi nitely a gamble, but it's a role of the dice that Bush and Karl Rove successfully played to desired effect for conservatives in the 2000 s. Kevin Sullivan is a senior majoring in English and is the Collegian's Tuesday columnist. His email address is 105089@psu.edu. Honesty trumps consistency in unbiased news By Kevin Zieber WE make critical choices every time we seek out information; where to look, what medium to pledge allegiance toward and what do we really hope to get out of it? Unfailingly, near the top of the follow-up questions people ask me after discov ering I am a journalist is the question of bias and objectivity "Who is the most biased?" or "Who is the least biased?" and more often than not, "Where do you get your news?" Each is a loaded question with an equally loaded answer. Though there will never be a definite and singular solution to any of these questions, there are red flags that tell you plenty about the legitimacy of a news source. The famous investigative journalist I.F. Stone wrote that journalists can be either consis tent or honest. If they choose consistency, they will inevitably bend the truth to do so. 1. 011 1 ;,4/ Some media are fixated on sensationalist minutiae that do little to inform us, opting instead to weave a narrative that suits the ideology of their producers. It's not hard to find examples of how certain facts are omitted and altogether ignored in the inter est of maintaining consistency. Take Fox News, or any other conserva tive news outlet, for instance. Clearly its narrative is that President Barack Obama is taking over everything and bankrupting the nation at such an alarming rate that armed revolt may be necessary, if not _ . imminent. Given that this is the network line, it's doubtful one would hear Obama's campaign promises to lower federal taxes for 95 percent of working families actually did come to fruition. A CBS/New York Times poll released in mid-February showed that only 12 percent of Americans believe Obama has lowered taxes. Among the Tea Party movement, which is made up largely of Fox viewers, only 2 percent believe that taxes have decreased. Not only that, but a staggering 44 percent of the tea partiers believe that taxes increased. Fox's reporting techniques play a crucial role in skewing the perspective of its view ers with its predisposition to report news after sanitizing it to meet the station's con servative ideology. The disconnect between reality and the network's viewers is no acci dent but rather the result of Fbx's desper ate attempt to keep its enemies consistent. When a news station's viewers are so poorly informed, we must assign a sizable amount of blame to the stunningly low quality of the information they receive. Cable outlets of all stripes are guilty of this self-censoring, but not quite to the egre gious extremes of Fox. The news organizations that overtly tai lor the news to fit the narrow boundaries of their ideologies choose consistency over truth. As long as Fox and its cable news peers MSNBC and CNN have vested inter ests in playing party politics with no real mechanism for fact-checking, we continue seeing polls with a dismal amount of voters possessing any idea of the truth. No longer can heated, unconstructive exchanges between opposing pundits be passed for objectivity. The truth is much too important to be left to media celebrities and mouthpieces of corporate interest. Cable news will not make us better citi zens, nor will it improve our understanding of the world in any honest way. In the cor porate media landscape, ratings battles and bottom-lines always trump your need to know If we are ever to improve our lives and ourselves, we must endlessly look in new directions for information Kevin Zieber is a junior at Ohio University and is a columnist for The Post. blog lines THON After canning trips, fundraisers and 46 hours of dancing, the final numbers for THON 2010 are in. Exceeding last year's total, THON Public Relations Overall Elyse Adams said the continued support of the many different organizations involved is what keeps it going up. Read more from the THON blog and the rest of The Daily Collegian's blogs at psucolleglan.com/blogs. Washington's Post There's no doubt about the type of legacy Tyra Grant leaves on Lady Lion basketball. Grant spoke earlier in the season about her desire to play professionally, either in the WNBA or in Europe, but she also likes to talk her ideas over with one of her high school friends as well. And why not? This person knows a thing or two about trying to take his game to the pro fessional level, and that's why Grant and former Penn State quarterback Daryl' Clark rely on each other's friendship while their careers try and straighten themselves out. Read more from Washington's Post and the rest of The Daily Collegian's blogs at psucoNo glan.com/blogs. THE DAILY COLLEGIAN MY OPINION
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