Letters
Zine coverage self-serving
Leave it to the Vanguard to misrepresent a student group in order to sell their own self-righteous, preemptive, fabricated story.
Poor journalistic style is what makes “The New Campus Media?” [April 19] newsworthy. It is a disgrace to zine culture and the truth. Oddly, the writer still knows more than the Pub Board members who were led to believe they had to choose between the Zine Center and The Agitator.
The Agitator proposal was not “ultimately rejected” and then followed by a “compromise solution” as your article states. Christian [Gaston] introduced the Zine Center four months after the Agitator’s proposal submission. One month and five hours of meetings later, The Agitator was throttled in the same move that approved his Center. There was no “compromise” involved. The Vanguard’s front-page wet dream would not have allowed it.
“The PSU Publication Board proposal was originally developed in part as a response to another proposal from Lew [Church].” True, but you forgot to add: “and make certain this smokescreen would not only keep Lew/PSU from getting the five-month shelved proposal approved, but also indefinitely disband the power of collective voices.”
You write that Lew “sought funding from the Pub Board” and “obtained $5,000 from the [SFC], but the money was put in a reserve account under the stipulation that he must get approval from the Publications Board before he could receive the money.” Your article is wrought with repetition and contradiction.
Finally, how dare you use my name in a completely unethical, last-minute, half-ass story? Last week I retrieved my voicemail at 5:30 p.m. to hear Michelle’s late afternoon plea for “PSU’s side of the story before the 4 p.m. deadline.” You didn’t really want our side at all, and fact-checking would have rendered your fairytale unfit to print. The Zine Center is only a good idea if the Vanguard, too, is dissolved.
Crystal Elinski
Student
[Ed. Note: The Vanguard delayed publication of “The New Campus Media” to allow time for the Agitator staff to comment. Also, news editor Matt Petrie spoke in person and with Crystal Elinski, Lew Church and Darris Mishler to request that they comment for the story. All three declined to comment.]
I was very disappointed to see your article about how to create “weapons” that included a picture of a bottle of The Works, a caustic toilet bowl cleaner [“Found at last! Elusive WMDs, April 19]. My brother’s best friend was involved in an accident doing just what you described in the article – he and his friends put some aluminum foil in a pop bottle with The Works and shook it up. Unfortunately, they were in a car at the time and intended to throw it out the window but it exploded before they could throw it. My brother’s friend is permanently blind in his right eye and has only partial vision in his left. I realize that you put a disclaimer at the top of the page so The Vanguard doesn’t get sued, but is it really very responsible to publish directions on how to do something so dangerous in a school newspaper? I realize the information is available on the internet and other places, but I think it was totally inappropriate for a newspaper to publish directions on how to make a Works bomb.
Laura Westin
PSU Student
Agenda guides media meth mayhem
I appreciate your article and agree mainstream media behave with tunnel vision on any given subject until like a child with attention deficit disorder they turn to the next journal balloon floating by [“Methamphetafiends,” April 19]. However, the one thing I have learned is there is usually an agenda. In this case I would suggest that you are seeing scare tactics to gain public support for more police to save you all from those addicts, terrorists and public protesters. Police state coming to a town near you!
Shawn Wallace
Victoria, British Columbia
[Ed. Note: The column referenced was written by an opinion columnist and does not reflect the opinions of the Vanguard editorial board.]
Students, not SALP, are the problem
This is f-ing ridiculous. If people spent half as much time working for change as they do bitching about people in offices that they don’t control, this university would be an even more amazing place [“SALP problems not a laughing matter,” April 22]. Our newly elected officials can’t even maintain a 2.0 GPA. I’m fed up with the asinine and immature antics of young “progressive” politicos who actually end up so fragmenting the movement that they are antithetical to their own cause. Natalee Webb might have made some questionable decisions, but in the end it’s the students who are making the decisions.
It’s time for people to get serious about their governance. They can’t take care of themselves, they shouldn’t be in office. Period. Regardless, SALP’s decisions have nothing to do with student government.
Their decisions are not binding, so get over it and do your homework (in multiple ways)!
Ryan Schowen
Student
[Ed. Note: The column referenced was written by an opinion columnist and does not reflect the opinions of the Vanguard editorial board.]
My name is Lauren Josi. At no time have I ever been an OSPIRG coordinator or even a member [“SALP problems not a laughing matter,” April 22]. For future reference, I was misquoted in the initial article about the April Fools’ joke that Ms. Webb decided to play [“Adviser resignation merely a prank,” April 5]. I was a Students For Unity (not OSPIRG) Coordinator when Ms. Webb played her “prank.” Although my organization is funded through SALP (like OSPIRG) Ms. Webb is not our advisor. Although I do not condone Ms. Webb’s actions and still find the prank confusing, irritating and uncalled for, she did not lie to someone she is employed to advise. I can still completely understand why anyone would have a problem with this entirely confusing and unnecessary situation; I would just like to have my role in it clarified.
Lauren Josi
Student
More behind on-campus fundraisers
Children International aka Holy Land Christian Mission aka Share America is indeed partnered with DialogueDirect, a hired-gun hard sell outfit which gets $180 for each new sponsor recruited [“Children International needs a foster parent,” April 1]. The CEO of Children International, James Cook, got $324,000 last year – it was $377,000 in 2002, so non-profit is a bit of a misnomer. I am currently in Philadelphia and they are pulling the same sort of aggressive, in-your-face recruitment tactics here. “The sale doesn’t begin till the third no,” that sort of stuff.
I’m sure there’s more…
Austin Kelley
Langhorne, Pa.
[Ed. Note: The column referenced was written by an opinion columnist and does not reflect the opinions of the Vanguard editorial board.]
