I Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010 £ o The Daily Collegian Elizabeth Murphy Editor in Chief Kelsey Thompson Business Manager About the Collegian: The Daily Collegian and The Weekly Collegian are pub lished by Collegian Inc., an independent, nonprofit cor poration with a board of directors composed of stu dents, faculty and profes sionals. Pennsylvania State University students write and edit both papers and solicit advertising for them. During the fall and spring semes ters as well as the second six-week summer session, The Daily Collegian publish es Monday through Friday. Issues are distributed by mail to other Penn State campuses and individual subscribers. Complaints: News and edi torial complaints should be presented to the editor. Business and advertising complaints should be pre sented to the business man ager. Who we are The Dally 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 corpo rate institution from Penn State. Editorials are written by The Daily Collegian Board of Opinion. Members are: Kevin Cirilli, Jenna Ekdahl, Bill Landis, Elizabeth Mur phy, Laura Nichols, Edgar Ramirez, Andrew Robinson, Heather Schmelzlen, Jared Shanker, Katie Sullivan, Alex Weisler, Steph Witt and Chris Zook. Letters We want to hear your com ments on our coverage, editorial decisions and the Penn State community. ■ E-mail collegianletters@psu.edu ■ Online www.psucollegian.com ■ Postal mall/ln 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 writers should provide their address and phone number for verification. Letters should be signed by no more than two peo ple. Members of organiza tions 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 cannot guaran tee publication of all let ters it receives. Letters 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. Bus fare increase soft on riders Centre Area Transporta tion Authority (CATA) has finally increased its fare it’s the first hike in eight years. And it’ll only cost you an additional quarter. While a price increase from CATA, which stu dents rely on for trans portation, is disappointing, we understand the agency’s actions. CATA announced last week that the price for a one-way ride on a bus to an off-campus location will increase from $1.25 to $1.50 to offset rising costs. We applaud CATA for not increasing the price sooner in a time when consumers face price S*e, Philadelphia sports fan got off easy By Shannon Simcox I’m a Philadelphia sports fan, so when there is talk at Penn State and other wise of some of the rude things people do at sporting events, I’m mostly not sur prised. As a 13-year old girl, I swapped insults with the best of them in the 700 MY OPINION level of Veterans Stadium, where my dad, uncles and I had season tickets to the Eagles games. I’ve seen it all: dnink bachelor parties that came in late and didn’t make it to half time before vomiting behind my seat, two NY Giants fans that unsuccessfully attempted to enjoy a game two rows in front of me and, of course, fights. Then as a Penn State student, I was initiated into the family with the infamous Notre Dame game and watched in awe (yet feeling somewhat right at home) as the whole student section turned around and flipped off the team. And throughout the years at Beaver Stadium, my “fandom” has been nurtured by throwing snowballs at the officials, the Nittany Lion and, of course, by various antagonizing conversa tions I’ve witnessed between visiting team fans and our won derful Penn State crowd. The point, if you have not got- hikes at every turn. CATA officials also took the right steps to gauge how well the public would take the proposed change. At an open CATA meet ing in April, general man ager Hugh Mose announced the potential hike to the general public. He also presented the plan to all nine local municipalities that CATA serves. Transparency is key with anything to do with people’s wallets and in this instance, CATA gets a gold star. CATA is important to a large part of the commu nity, and its leaders went above and beyond to gath- so wshhe caucus, DONM WHAW-fASTTHE HOUSE sHeWNIGAN* COWMrnEE'TUWJ I&TWITAB ■s&JAIE’ CfflCE fbR USUAL ANP 'rtx/U-FiNP ,|CS IWET “(Clemmens) got off easy. If that little girl had been me, Clemmens would not have made it out of the stadium easily between my uncles and my dad.” ten it: As a Philly and Penn State fan I have pretty much seen it all. And yet, despite all that, I was still disgusted and surprised at the actions of the man who forced himself to vomit on a police officer and his daughter at a Phillies game. If you have not heard the story, look it up, but I will give you some of the details here. The officer was out to, a Phillies game with his kids and the obnoxious New Jersey man, Matthew Clemmens, was sitting behind them. When the officer’s older daughter asked him to tone it down, Clemmens, and his friend, only became worse. The incident ended with the man forcing himself to vomit on the man and his younger daughter, according to reports, and as of July 30 the man is in the can. A judge sentenced him to up to three months in prison, as well as two years of probation and 50 hours of community serv ice, according to the New York Daily News. He got off easy. If that little girl had been me, Clemmens would not have made it out of the stadium easily between my uncles and my dad. I am amazed that, as an offi cer and father, he was able to show so much self-restraint at er feedback and elicit responses from those that use the services. Community members had a chance to voice dis approval at every turn. And CATA has also made every effort not to put the entire burden solely on its consumers. Mose also asked the municipalities to increase its funding of CATA and its services, with an over all increase from these municipalities totaling 5 percent. People rely on the CATA buses day in and day out. CATA has shown through the handling of this price increase process that it can be trusted, too. the game and not hit the man. The maximum sentence was for up to two years in jail, but Clemmens received just two years of probation. Meanwhile the little girl is afraid to go to another Phillies game, which is a shame. Now, as a Philly fan, I’d like to write off the man’s actions by saying he was from Jersey. However, a number of Philly fans are, so that won’t work as well as I’d like. What I can tell you is that this never should have happened, let alone to an innocent little girl and her family. Sure, we Philly and Penn State fans heckle and abuse, but it’s mostly, and should always be, toward the opposing team. If you don’t like it get out of our city. But sporting events are first and foremost a good time that should be enjoyed by everyone. Definitely cheer and heckling is a must, but keep your alcohol under control and remember what it’s all about - enjoying the game, no matter what side you are on. Shannon Simcox is a senior majoring in journalism and political science and is the Collegian's Tuesday columnist. Her e-mail address is scsso96@psu.edu. The Daily Collegian Continued football increases pushing loyal PSU fans away In regards to the July 30 article “Cost of football parking on the rise,” I have been attending games my whole life with my family. I am a freshman at Penn State now, and through the years I have seen a steady increase in ticket prices as well as parking prices. A few years back, $4O would have gotten you a ticket and a parking spot. Penn State possesses some of the most loyal fans in college football. Why does it seem like they are pushing fans away? With today’s economy, the increase in tick ets and parking make it difficult for many families to attend multiple games. I under stand some increases in ticket prices are necessary, yet $4O to park a car is a ridicu lous amount. In today’s tough financial times, this is unfair to the fans that pack in Beaver Stadium week in and week out to see the Nittany Lions prosper against their weak home schedule. The university knows people will still attend the games and obviously must park their cars. It takes advantage of its large fan base and prestigious football tradition. If Penn State continues to prey on its loyal fans, some may not stay loyal much longer. Besides some traffic issues on game days there is no problem with the way things are. Maybe they should adopt the motto, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” University officials should find money in other ways, not by preying on the fans that make Beaver Stadium one of the toughest places to play. Kelly Swift freshman-architectural engineering Wanted: Web Intern The Collegian is seeking a web intern for the fall semester to join its award-winning web team. This position offers a merit based $l,OOO scholarship per semester. We are diving into several new web ini tiatives this fall including a brand new website, and are looking for applicants with a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and proficiency in at least one of the fol lowing: Javascript, Flash, PHE Perl, ASEnet, or C#. We are also looking into mobile applications, as well, so a knowl edge of or interest in learning about mobile development is encouraged but not required. You will be working with the Web Editor, who also has a knowledge of these tech nologies. This position requires a flexible but steady time commitment. Your respon sibilities will vary based on your skills, but could include designing pages and/or interactive pieces for our site, writing scripts to parse and reformat old stories or communicate with public APIs (Twitter, Tumblr, etc), or designing back-end man agement systems, among other things. An interest in journalism and being a part of an independent student newspaper is highly encouraged, as well. To apply, send a resume and cover letter to Editor in Chief Elizabeth Murphy at edttorinchlef@psucollegian.com. FOOTBLOG What we learned on Day 1 CHICAGO Joe Paterno has dealt with bowel control problems through out the summer, causing him to miss three alumni functions. -Paterno spoke noticeably softer and looked weaker than the last time we saw him in April. -He likes the addition of Nebraska but feels really strongly about adding another team from the East. When pressed he brought up the New York market (Rutgers, Syracuse) -Doesn’t anticipate health issues to affect preseason preparation or ability to lead the team in the fall. -On coaching future: I haven’t given much thought if I want to coach next year, for two years, for five years. -(Big Ten Commissioner) Jim Delany doesn’t think Notre Dame is a player for future expansion. Says it’s content playing in the Big East and as an inde pendent. -Delany wants a championship game for 2011. He doesn’t think agreeing to a long term deal with one venue is logis tically possible in the time frame he has.... -Delany hopes a nine-game confer ence schedule is in place by 2013 at the earliest. -The'Big Ten will have a new logo design but not name.... EDITOR IN CHIEF Editor fills in for stuck BC In the fourth part in a regular pod cast series about the story behind the story, Daily Collegian Editor in Chief Elizabeth Murphy spoke with visual editor Heather Schmelzlen. Schmelzlen took charge of the paper on July 25 after Murphy and the managing editor found themsevles stranded in Buffalo. Listen as Schmelzlen talks about sitting in Alex’s office for a day. Read more of The Daily Collegian's blogs at psucolleglan.com/blogs. Nate Mink Football editor Elizabeth Murphy Editor in Chief
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