SCRAPS FROM THE
EDITOR'S WASTEBASKET

—Donald E. Simanek

1986

THE LATEST VECTOR

Worse yet, this "Born Again" issue will go out at the end of Spring semester. Off campus readers will receive it sometime this summer. If so, consider it a special "Fourth of July Issue."

Long-time readers will recall one year when we put out three issues. Now we'll try to return to our intended average of two per year! Lately people have bugged us with "Where's the VECTOR?" inquiries. We even heard rumors that "the administration" had "killed" THE VECTOR. Nonsense! Some members of the administration are our most loyal fans and boosters.

OLD NEWS

IT'S A MIRACLE!

This is another example of how news media slant reporting to favor belief in the miraculous, even in cases where the phenomena have a purely scientific basis. Parhelia are so well known that one can easily find books in most libraries, with nice color pictures of their various configurations and complete explanations of the rather simple physics which explains them.

Though many people have never seen them, parhelia are sufficiently common that anyone who casts an observant eye skyward frequently should see several in each year. (Similar, but less colorful, rings can be seen around the moon.) These phenomena even occur at times when no particularly note-worthy religious event is occurring!

There are several lessons here. What does this tell us about the scientific literacy of our journalists? Why doesn't a TV journalist bother to check with a local physicist or meteorologist for an explanation, instead of implying that the event is "miraculous?"

Also, why do journalists treat the Pope, and other "mainstream" religious leaders as if they were worthy of special respect? If you or I or any ordinary citizen stood up in public and spoke inane, puerile platitudes, we'd be ignored by the press. The Pope, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson can say trite or idiotic things and get TV coverage, police protection, and (in the case of the Pope) elaborate speaker's platforms built at public expense. [I do note with approval that the Pope was given a somewhat more appropriate public reception when he visited Holland.]

Just once I'd like to see the members of the press treat religious spokesmen to the tough questions they aim at a President of the U. S. [I'd like to see them get the same treatment given to a politician who may be suspected of some personal scandal.]

I am reminded of the movie "Being There" of a few years ago. It told the story of a gardener with the mentality of a child, who, by an unlikely chain of circumstances, is treated as a person of great political insight, whose simple utterances are taken as words of wisdom, and who, toward the end of the movie, is even being considered as a presidential candidate. This was a bit hard to believe, but had he been considered as a candidate for Pope it would have been fully believable. Do not think, dear reader, that my intent here is to insult the Pope (or Catholics in particular). He probably does the best he can, within his limitations and those of his position. He is merely a prominent example of the misplaced respect and reverence people have toward certain religious and secular leaders. Without such blind support, these leaders would fade into a well-deserved oblivion.

Some say we get the leaders we deserve. That's an indictment of the collective "all of us."

Remember another religious leader, Jim Jones? Notice how little is said about him these days? (In case you've forgotton, he was the originator of the "Kool Aid" test of religious faith.) It seems "we" would rather forget this unpleasant affair. At the time of his death, in the mass suicide of his followers, we heard a lot of analysis about "Rev. Jones."

But analysis should have focused on those who joined his movement, who gave up their minds to him, and followed him, "even unto death," unquestioningly. As long as there are sufficient gullible sheep of this sort, there will be charismatic leaders to take advantage of them.

HE CAN ACT

PRESIDENT REAGAN ON SCHOLARSHIP

In TIME (July 11, 1983) Terrence P. O'Brien reminds us of Reagan's special qualifications to speak on this subject:

Reagan once bragged on national television that he never tried to make grades higher than Cs, since Cs were the minimum necessary to play sports.

SPORTS AGAIN

In 1873 a group of students at Cornell University requested permission to play a football game in Cleveland. Cornell's president Andrew D. White replied, "I refuse to let forty boys travel four hundred miles merely to agitate a bag of wind."

Where are university presidents with such courage today?

Cornell's free-for-all brand of football was so violent at that time that in 1876 both Harvard and Yale refused to play Cornell. Football was strictly intramural at Cornell until 1886, when Cornell's new president, Charles K. Adams, gave his official blessing to a "cleaned up" version of the game. Since Adams lacked the courage of his predecessor in this matter, the Cornell faculty passed a series of resolutions against football, starting in 1894.

It was a losing battle. Today sports have polluted the entire educational system in this country from bottom to top. It has reached such a sorry state that some college administrators claim we must have sports to stimulate alumni interest in the school which, in turn, generates alumni financial support.

If this is true, it is a damning indictment of alumni, implying that their interest in the academic programs is so slight that they wouldn't give money to support academics, were it not for the presence of sports at the school. If that's the sort of alumni a school turns out, maybe that school doesn't deserve support.

WE WOULDN'T DARE COMMENT ON THIS ONE

The University's new president also said that, at his request, there would be no formal inauguration. "The dollars involved could better be spent in other ways... I don't want to spend the energies that need to be consumed by such an event."

[Lock Haven University's new president had recently been welcomed with an innagural ball, the first in the school's history.]

CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

That response has always seemed to us a bit silly. A critic is performing a public service just by pointing out error, stupidity, and incompetence. Must he also be expected to provide details for the remedy? When we point out that some person or institution is doing a job badly does that obligate us to do that job ourselves?

We are reminded of what H. L. Mencken had to say (in The American Mercury) about criticism.

Of a piece with the absurd pedagogical demand for so-called constructive criticism is the doctrine that an iconoclast is a hollow and evil fellow unless he can prove his case. Why, indeed, should he prove it? Is he judge, jury, prosecuting officer, hangman? He proves enough, indeed, when he proves by his blasphemy that this or that idol is defectively convincing—that at least one visitor to the shrine is left full of doubts. The fact is enormously significant; it indicates that instinct has somehow risen superior to the shallowness of logic, the refuge of fools. The pedant and the priest have always been the most expert of logicians—and the most diligent disseminators of nonsense and worse. The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by such learned dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe—that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power, and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

LET'S AID THE HOMELESS

But if Khadafi goes, we'll have to send Ronald Reagan too. Ronnie has been itching to have it out with Khadafi for some time, and this would give those two a chance to settle their grievances one-on-one. [Note, this was written in March 1986. It's so difficult to write satire these days, for reality often makes it obsolete, and unfunny.]

Some American Nazi leaders and leaders of the Ku Klux Klan could go into this melting pot, too. While we are at it, lets send some of those folks who are always trying to improve everyone else, people like Jerry Falwell. Jerry is always telling us that religion can improve people. Let him prove it by seeing if he can bring harmony to just one little island. Of course, one man's religion is another man's heresy, so we'd better be fair and send the Ayatollah Khomeni. We've already sent the Bagwahn Rajneesh to our imaginary utopia, and he will certainly try to make these folks mellow.

Oh, I almost forgot. There are some folks at Maharishi University who claim that if only 0.1% of the people of a country engage in coherent transcendental meditation, the entire country will become more peaceful, the crime rate will go down, and all sorts of other good will flow to everyone. They've had a hard time demonstrating that to everyone's satisfaction, since most countries have too many wild variables running around to confuse their statistics. Here, with a small population on one small island, they could do a controlled experiment.

I suspect the island's population would rapidly decrease with such individuals on it.

ADMINISTRATIVE RELATIONS

Had we wanted to be provocative, we could have pressed for answers to questions such as these:

• What happened to the $30,000 the administration promised for science equipment?
• Why has no one ever been able to get a full accounting of money spent on the International Education Program?
• Why was Ulmer Hall (the science building) the last classroom building on campus to get a photocopying machine? And why was that machine a small one, inadequate to the needs and heavy use of the faculty and staff in that building?
• Why was $60,000 spent for a fancy new scoreboard for the remodeled Phys. Ed. building, when it already had a scoreboard?
• Why are science budgets so lean that when physics labs needed electrical meters, they had to be obtained by begging money from alumni?

Besides, as administrators keep reminding us, things are just fine at Lock Haven, and are getting better. Positive thinking is now in fashion. Everyone is working hard—to polish the school's image. We only wish as much concern and effort were put into a serious effort to upgrade the academic quality of our programs. If this were done, we'd not need to worry so much about "image."

NOTES FROM ROCK RAVEN

We've neglected reporting news from our sister institution, Rock Raven State College, so we'll bring our readers up to date.

Rock Raven has also achieved university status, and, coincidentally, has just inaugurated a new President, Dr. Willis Overland. His inauguration was delayed nearly a whole academic year from the time he arrived to begin his duties. But he accommodated to the situation by refraining from any noteworthy executive actions during that year.

Herewith some highlights from his inauguration speech, which many considered inspiring. Indeed many were observed to be inspired to fits of uncontrollable apathy during the speech.

• ...We shall resolutely march into the future with our feet firmly planted in the traditions of the past.
• We favor motherhood and apple pie, but do not intend to neglect support of fatherhood and cherry pie.
• We shall continue to provide students with an education of the quality their modest means can afford.

SCATOLOGY

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE WATER CLOSET

Man and his plumbing are the subjects of this clever, witty and ingenious study of man's continuing efforts to dispose of his waste...

Recommended use: sociology, history, bacteriology, scatology courses.

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