Voices of Central Pa December 2015 -January 2015

VOICES Saving on heating costs pg. 6

OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA Thoughtful. Fearless. Free.

Voice’s Choices pg. 12

Remembering VOICES’ beginnings

The wonders of rosehips pg. 9

pg. 3

CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION Looking into the advances of Penn State construction.

The five year capital plan that Penn State has put in place has specific goals in mind that will hopefully make the Penn State community more efficient and technologically innovative.

Pg. 5

Helping create VOICES for the voiceless • Rebuilding Penn State for the 21st century • Heating bills: Making winter fuel go further • A Personal Memoir of a Civil Rights Activist • The wonders of the rosehip • A look at energy, economy & environment • VOICES Choices • Middle East: Rising population & problem • BOOK REVIEW: This Changes Everything • BIRDWATCH: Cackling Goose • What smells? The stink about stink bugs • Advice to happily survive the winter chill • Not so fast there: The LAGuide to change • Whitey Blue • Sudoku

December/January 2014/15

Issue #212

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Page Two: Voices- alive, vital and expensive Whew! This month is overwhelming.

I’m not talking turkey trouble; I’m not talking holiday shopping, I’m not talking New Year’s plans, or even the family birthdays in December. I’m talking the number of submissions Voices has had from brilliant local writers. It is so exciting to look in my e-mail and see an article that speaks about problems and solutions for climate change, one that talks about energy conservation, one that suggests how to have a pleasant cold weather experience, one that informs us about issues in the Middle East, others with relevant and enlightening information we can use, and some that just make

us smile or laugh.

This is a unique newspaper. It is one that highlights the local – local voices and local concerns. It takes larger issues on, showing how global is local, too.

We can include anything we would like because we are not governed by a conglomerate or a boss who is only interested in the bottom line. Our bottom line is to report stories that otherwise might not see the light of day, or be accessible to everyone, not just those who can afford our product.

It is a radical thing to print a paper with liberal values, to support efforts to derail climate change, to support

Thoughtful. Fearless. Free. © 2014/15 Voices of Central Pennsylvania Inc.

December/January 2014/15, Issue #212 EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR IN CHIEF Marilyn Jones

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Voices encourages letters to the editor issues.

Letters should be a maximum of 250

LAYOUT CHIEF

words; opinion pieces should be a maximum of 800 words. We reserve the right to edit length. Because of space limitations we

arts@voicesweb.org

OPERATIONS Advertising Manager Jon Vickers-Jones advertising@voicesweb.org Circulation Manager Kevin Handwerk circulation@voicesweb.org Webmaster Bill Eichman

cannot guarantee publication.

Send submissions to: editor@voicesweb.org.

Letters become the property of Voices.

ADVERTISING POLICY Write to advertising@ voicesweb.org for rate information. Only publication signifies acceptance of an ad by Voices. Publication of an ad does not imply endorsement or recommendation by Voices of any product or service.

Deadline to reserve space is the 15th of the month. Cancellation of an ad by the customer after the 15th incurs full charge.

Voices accepts political ads regardless of

bill@voicesweb.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Elaine Meder-Wilgus Vice President Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. Secretary Chip Mefford Treasurers Peter Morris & Jesse Barlow

In This Issue...

and opinion pieces commenting on local

editor@voicesweb.org

Amanda Dash

lowering our carbon footprint, to stand survive alone. To print this ongoing up for local farmers and businesses, voice of the people we need your help. to share So here is my plea: information a b o u t vegetat ion This is the end of the year, that we can folks, and that means we all access for really need your taxnutritional, deductible contributions me d i c i n a l , to keep printing in 2015. a n d We don’t want this to be our biological last issue. We do want to health, to thank our volunteer staff suppor t and all our contributors and causes that readers for working hard to help poor keep this free, independent people and MARILYN JONES publication alive, vital and victims. It is relevant. Please help us Editor in Chief also radical make sure we can print to report again this coming year. about more ordinary things without Send your payments or any bias – our local police department, contributions to: Voices, P.O. our townships’ business.

Box 10066, State College, Pa. But a paper like this does not 16805-0066. ■

party or viewpoint.

SUPPORT VOICES Voices of Central Pennsylvania is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit volunteer organization.

Your donations and bequests keep Voices free and independent. Donate at voicesweb.org or email voices@ voicesweb.org for details.

CONTACT US Voices of Central Pennsylvania P.O. Box 10066 State College, PA 16805-0066 voices@voicesweb.org voicesweb.org

2 — PAGE TWO: Voices - alive, vital and expensive 3 — Helping create VOICES for the voiceless 5 — Rebuilding Penn State for the 21st century 6 — Heating bills: Making winter fuel go further 7 — A Personal Memoir of a Civil Rights Activist 9 — NATUR AL LIFE: The wonders of the rosehip 11 — A look at energy, economy & environment 12 —VOICES CHOICES 14 — Middle East: Rising population & problems 16 — BOOK REVIEW: This Changes Everything 17 — A Cackling Goose of a different feather 18 — What smells? The stink about stink bugs 19 — Advice to happily survive the winter chill 20 —Not so fast there: The LAGuide to change 21 — Oregano, a seasoned cure for indigestion 22 —Letters to the Editor 22 — Tantalizing highlights of the 2014 midterms 22 — SUDOKU 23 — Out and about: This month in your township 23 — Whitey Blue on war in the classroom

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December/January 2014/15

Helping create VOICES for the voiceless

By ART GOLDSCHMIDT axg2@psu.edu As a young man, I had some interest in journalism, but I never saw myself as the founder of a journal. The world already had so many books, magazines, newsletters, and newspapers, so why complicate it further? Writing is what I most love to do, but by the 1990s I had so many books or articles that I wanted to write, or that others wanted me to write or to edit, that I needed no more chances to burst into print.

Around 1989 Ben Novak, who was president of Penn State’s Undergraduate Student Government when I joined the faculty and later served as (unpaid) legal counsel to the State College Democratic Committee when I chaired it, founded a biweekly magazine called The Lionhearted.

By then Ben was already an elected trustee of the University, and indeed I recall e xc h a ng i ng views about his gadfly role with Bryce Jordan, who was our president from 1983 to 1990; it was clear that Ben was seeking a new means of influencing ART GOLDPenn State SCHMIDT students.

Vice President He asked Geoffrey Perry and me to be among its writers. Both of us were too busy to accept, and as time passed, it became clear that The Lionhearted was going to be politically conservative, pro-life, and hostile to homosexuals and feminists. I remember meeting

Photo by AMANDA DASH // VOICES

A look inside the office of VOICES, located at Webster’s Bookstore and Cafe. Starting off as a subset of the biweekly and conservative magazine, The Lionhearted, VOICES, since 1993, has developed into a monthly liberal newspaper that promotes collaboration and discussion berween the community and those who write, edit, and design the paper for Centre County readers.

Ben for breakfast in the spring of 1992, when I got ambushed by his attacks on the Democratic Party, women’s rights, and related issues. Although we shared a common bond as fraternity advisers (he advised TKE and had earlier spoken to some of my Delts), I was sure now that we would march in different directions politically.

The Lionhearted was becoming quite shrill in its attacks on The Daily Collegian (renamed The Daily Communist), the womyn’s rights, gay rights movements, and campus liberals generally. In an infamous issue published in April 1993, it printed a cartoon of the leading feminist writer of the Collegian writing her article while wearing a bikini. The campus feminists, discovering this outrage, decided to follow the truck that

delivered copies of The Lionhearted to various drops in and around town and on campus, to pick up all copies of the offending issue, pile them up in front of Ben’s law office on South Allen Street, and burn them. It was a silly thing to do, slightly reminiscent of the Nazi book-burnings, and probably illegal.

It did, however, give The Lionhearted and Ben the national publicity that they craved.

How could we liberals best respond? Many of us realized that the soundest approach was to create a periodical that would counter The Lionhearted’s messages, perhaps on a level more cerebral and mature than that of The Daily Collegian. Unlike The Lionhearted, which published the Penn State football schedule on its front page but never listed its Board

of Directors or identified Ben’s role as publisher on its masthead, and which frequently reprinted articles from conservative national periodicals or wrote locally under pseudonyms, we’d abide by journalistic standards, if we knew what they were.

I reserved the Community Room in Schlow Memorial Library for Monday night, July 26, 1993, and sent press releases to the Collegian and the Centre Daily Times, inviting anyone interested in creating an alternative newspaper to The Lionhearted to come. I wasn’t expecting a crowd. I remember riding home that afternoon on a CATA bus with Martha Evans, who thought that the purpose of

see voices, pg. 4

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December/January 2014/15

Town and Gown. That was all she could do at the time, and I soon found that she wouldn’t return my phone calls. Ben starting this journal was to enable was actually more supportive, for he Penn State faculty members to come up viewed this rivalry as the journalistic with more publications for promotion equivalent of a courtroom debate. or tenure. Louise usually attended a This caused me a problem: there was Buddhist meditation group that met on a biology instructor on campus who Monday nights, but she decided to skip it wanted an avowedly feminist paper in order to join me for moral support. To that would in no way cooperate with our surprise and delight, enough people Ben Novak, and she made an angry showed up to fill the Community Room. phone call, not to me but to Alycia I had agreed to cochair the meeting, Chambers, the NOW president who together with Alycia Chambers, a had become our vice president. Louise counseling psychologist who was then actually interviewed Donna for Voices. president of the local chapter of the As far as I was concerned, she was an National Organization for Women. They unhappy woman who distrusted all had been contemplating the creation of males, and luckily she didn’t last very a periodical to be called the Voice, but long at Penn State. For the most part, my press releases came out before they we tended to recruit and sometimes to were ready to go public. Among the alienate our editors and writers, totally people attending that meeting was Ben independently of the Women’s Studies Novak himself, who offered to take our Program, or any other campus group, hypothetical paper under the care of his or indeed from any town organization, already created nonprofit association including the Unitarian Universalist that had 501(c)3 status under the US Fellowship.

Tax Code, to be the “left ventricle of The first issue of Voices hit the street The Lionhearted,” as I quipped at the earlier than Mimi Barash had predicted: time. It would have saved us much 14 October 1993. It was tabloidtrouble later on, but I was sure that sized, had 24 pages, a fair number of neither the feminists nor the gays would advertisements, and an impressive want our paper to fall under the care array of articles. Its cover picture of The Lionhearted, whatever the tax was of the new façade of the Palmer advantages. I sug-gested that we create Museum on campus, leading the reader some working committees, principally to a critique of its architecture by Wil administrative, editorial, ways and Hutton, our Arts and Entertainment means, and social. The administrative editor. I missed out on the experience committee, which I agreed to chair, or the trauma of putting that first issue would draw up our constitution and Photo by AMANDA DASH // VOICES together. The editors claimed that they bylaws, and would elect our officers. spent three all-nighters, working in It eventually morphed into the Board The second issue of VOICES from November 1993. The first issue printed in Angela’s apartment in Bellefonte, trying of Directors that Voices now has, with October 1993 was also tabloid size and 24 pages. The paper intially was quite an to cut and paste the various sections responsibility for general direction and effort to print, with three all-nighters held by the editors to get to the paper out on time to fit our print space. The first student fundraising. The editorial committee and accidentally printing off too many issues to distribute. Whereas the paper was representative on our Administrative would figure out who would manage initally worked on in the apartment of former editor-in-chieft Angela Rogers, nowadays Committee, Jason Ezratty, was so the various operations of the paper VOICES has an office and meeting place in Webster’s Bookstore and Cafe. enthusiastic that he thought we could itself, choose an editor-in-chief, create give away thousands of copies to a structure of section editors, think of us to sell the advertising space that we needed to students on campus, so our initial press topics for articles, and seek out writers. They quickly meet our expenses, since we clearly could not expect run was 20 thousand, far more than we could determined that Bonny Farmer would be editor-in- our readers to pay for copies, something both the distribute. I spent the first Sunday morning after chief, Angela Rogers managing editor, and various Collegian and the Lionhearted couldn’t do. Bonny the paper appeared, standing at one of the exits to people who attended the 26 July meeting would Farmer played a lead role in many of our initial the Eisenhower Auditorium, trying to hand copies head the various sections. We agreed to meet a decisions, and I think that she must have had prior to each Catholic student leaving mass, because one second time one week later. experience with running newspapers. Regrettably, of our contributors was a Roman Catholic kid whom By conducting a name search on LIAS, as the I no longer recall exactly what she had done, but I I had met at that year’s Student Encampment who Penn State libraries’ online catalog was then known, do know that she aspired to make Voices financially had gone to Denver to be with a huge student group I determined that quite a few periodicals had been strong enough to pay her a living wage. When that that met with Pope John Paul II. I thought it would named the Voice. Indeed, I feared confusion with the proved impossible—indeed, we had moments when be fun to show that Voices was open to a group with Village Voice, familiar to many of us as the mouthpiece the editors worried lest we could pay neither our which Ben identified closely. It was an experiment for New York’s bohemians. It was Dan Walden, one office rent nor our printer—she quietly vanished we never repeated. That was how we began. And we of our early administrative board members, who from the scene. have not yet ended. ■ suggested Voices of Central Pennsylvania, a name But I’m getting ahead of my story here. I visited none of us thought had ever been used before. I the office of Mimi Barash, who said she’d be wanted us to speak up for all disadvantaged people, delighted to see a periodical dedicated to fighting not only women and gays, hence the plural title. Dan The Lionhearted, for she and Ben were both Penn Arthur Goldschmidt is Vice President of VOICES also suggested that we subtitle it “A Liberal Journal State Trustees and their offices actually faced each and is a Professor Emeritus of Middle East History of News and Opinion.” Given the conservative bent other on South Allen Street. She predicted that we’d at Penn State University where he taught from 1965 of most central Pennsylvanians, we soon had to need six months to acquire our staff and equipment, to 2000. drop that qualifier, which was making it hard for and offered to run a free advertisement for us in

from voices, pg. 3

December/January 2014/15

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Rebuilding Penn State for the 21st century

By RACHELLE GAYNOR rkg5072@psu.edu Although residents of State College may be growing tired of all the construction going on in town and on the Penn State campus, each project has specific goals in mind to make the Penn State community more efficient and technologically innovative. These goals are part of the five year capital plan that Penn State, as well as Hershey Medical Center, put into place to benefit the local community. “The principal goal is to make some significant progress in renewing our facilities,” said Ford Stryker, associate vice president of Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant. “We have many buildings that were built in the 50’s and 60’s after World War II in response to all of the students that were Photo by AMANDA DASH // VOICES going to college then, and unfortunately now they are old and they need to be View of the renovation of the Health and Human Development building from Old Main lawn. This building used to be called Henderson South and renovations are part of Penn State’s five year capital plan to renovate and update the University Park campus. renovated.”

One major part of these renovations is focused on several scientific buildings on to be done which won’t be done until May,” Stryker emit,” Stryker said. This project was met with quite a University Park campus. These include renovations said. bit of resistance from the public. “There was a lot of to the chemistry labs in the Whitmore building, the Another important project for students and controversy over the conversion of the power plant biology and microbiology labs in the South Frear faculty who are interested in athletics and fitness is from coal to gas, but we were able to work through building and the biology labs in the Euler building. By the renovation of the Intramural Building located that and we have gotten the necessary permits, so far the biggest project in terms of capital, according on the east side of campus. This project has been that project seems to be moving along relatively to Stryker, is building a new facility to replace the funded mainly by student facility fees and has been well,” said Stryker.

Fenske building that houses the Department of broken up into two phases, according to Stryker. “We The whole five year plan costs approximately $2.7 Chemical Engineering. “Each project is oriented did phase one, billion, which is garnered from a variety of sources. toward providing which added This is how the money can be broken down according better facilities for the “Finding the space to accommodate everything a recreation to Stryker: $940 million is coming from reserves academic programs during these renovations is hard. We don’t have any fitness facility that Penn State has been saving for capital spending that they are in extra buildings sitting around that we can just put in the front, and $750 million will be borrowed from a variety of existence for,” said now we sources. Some of the money that is borrowed will Stryker. These projects people in, but we are working our way through it.” and are working be paid back through self-supporting facilities that have, for the most part, on phase two, the plan is contributing to, such as Hershey Medical been going according Ford Stryker which is going Center and the housing and food services. $700 to plan without any to add more million will come from the category of “other” which major setbacks, Associate VP of Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant b a s k e t b a l l includes things like gifts and student facility fees. despite challenges that courts and $175 million will come from the operating budget. naturally accompany convert the Penn State has also been receiving $40 million per every project. “Finding existing area year from the state, for a total of $200 million over the space to accommodate everything during these in the middle of the building to a multi-sport court five years. A more in-depth breakdown of these renovations is hard,” said Stryker. “We don’t have facility,” Stryker said. sources can be found on the Office of Physical Plant’s any extra buildings sitting around that we can just Although the renovation of academic and faculty- website. put people in, but we are working our way through based buildings is a huge part of the capital plan, “I think this is really a great opportunity for Penn it.” it is not the only part. A significant amount of the State to address some of our long-standing facility There are plenty of other important projects total capital has also been put toward technological issues and use this money judiciously to do that,” on campus that do not revolve around science innovation and efficiency. This includes major said Stryker. “It’s wonderful that we are in a position departments. These include renovations to the investments into information technology to upgrade that we are able to do this because the facility assets Burrowes building, and renewing portions of East data centers at Penn State and the Hershey Medical of the university are very significant so it’s important and South Residence Halls. A major project that has Center and update the human resources and student to keep them up to date so that they can serve the impacted students and faculty is the renovation of information systems, according to Stryker. Another students and researchers years into the future.” ■ the Hetzel-Union building, more commonly referred goal of the plan is to reduce energy consumption by to as the HUB. The good news for people on campus updating water treatment plants and by switching is that this project is nearing completion and should to different energy sources. “We are converting be open to the public by this February. “In February Rachelle Gaynor, originally from Long Island, our coal-fired heating plan to heating by natural the main part of the building is going to open up, but New York, is a senior at Penn State pursuing a gas, which is much more efficient and reduces there is some additional renovation work that has career in journalism. significantly the amount of greenhouse gases that we

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Heating bills: Making winter fuel go further your calendar for the time-change weekend every year so you don’t forget. Advances: new refrigerators chunter@paipl.org often have the coils underneath Get a more efficient refrigerator for instead of in the back, so they can free! Rid your house of vampires! Slash be pushed all the way to the wall. To your bills! clean these, just make sure you clean No, these are not the splashy headlines the intake every time you vacuum – of an overly enthusiastic late-night no need for an appliance mover. infomercial host; they’re teasers for a Worried about vampires? Stock class that is an important collaboration up on garlic and wooden spikes or between PA Interfaith Power & Light plug anything with an indicator light (PA IPL) and Interfaith Human Services in to an accessible power strip to (IHS). The class details effective energy eliminate “vampire” or “phantom” efficiency measures that people can loads created by chargers and take in their own homes. The goal is appliances on standby by turning to make Fuel Bank supplies last longer, them really and truly off , without the keep Centre County residents warmer, hassle of nightly unplugging. Some cut total housing costs for financially estimates put phantom loads over a poor households, and benefit us all by year at nearly a month’s worth of total reducing climate-changing pollution. household electricity!

Advances: The first class for the 2014-15 heating new-generation power strips can season took place November 6 at IHS treat secondary devices (like stuff member congregation Grace Lutheran plugged into your TV) differently, Church in State College for a crowd of automatically powering them down about 25. when you turn off your TV (or The class began three years ago, whatever you may have plugged into when Ruth Donahue, the executive your designated “primary device” director of Interfaith Human Services receptacle). (which administers the county fuel Sign up for a class by calling bank), approached the United Way Interfaith Human Services at (814) and the Centre County Commissioners 234-7731. Upcoming classes: for additional funds to fill the growing •December 2, Tuesday 6 p.m., need for winter fuel by low-income Philipsburg, CenClear Photo by RUTH DONAHUE // Interfaith Human Services households that had exhausted the fuel •December 12, Friday, noon, State help provided by the federal LIHEAP Sylvia Neely demonstrates an LED light bulb and measures the energy use for a Fuel College, Trinity Lutheran Church program before the cold weather Bank energy class at Grace Lutheran Church. This, as the first of many classes, is to •January 12, Monday, 6 p.m., ran out. Many of these households demonstrate effective energy efficiency that people can practice in their own homes.

Philipsburg, CenClear include very young children, elderly •January 23, Friday, noon, residents, or people with disabilities.

Bellefonte, Catholic Charities The commissioners wanted to help, but •February 5, Thursday, 6 p.m., they also asked if there was any way to disconnecting them from the old thermostat so they Spring Mills, New Hope Lutheran in reduce the demand for fuel. don’t escape back into the wall cavity! Setting your Spring Mills PA Interfaith Power & Light works on climate thermostat to drop 10-15 degrees while you’re in bed •February 20, Friday, 1 p.m., Philipsburg, change as a moral challenge, responding to the or out of the house (and so that it’s warmed back CenClear common calls of all faith traditions to care for the up before your feet hit the floor in the morning), •March 9, Monday, 5 p.m., Bellefonte, Catholic most vulnerable people, and to care for Creation. can save 5-15% a year on heating bills! Ron also Charities Helping local low-income residents stay safely and talked about how easy it is to override the settings •March 18, Wednesday, 6 p.m., Philipsburg, more comfortably in their own homes by doing more if you’re up unusually late for a west coast ballgame CenClear with less was a perfect fit, and the two organizations in overtime, or if you need to rise with a sick child Want to help? have been collaborating on these classes ever since. in the middle of the night. New programmable •Volunteer to create a hands-on demonstration by Two Americorps workers, Kris Klotz and Andy thermostats don’t even have to be reset after a power contacting Sylvia Neely SNeelyPA@gmail.org Hayes, were instrumental in developing and outage. Thanks to Ace Hardware of State College, •Volunteer to help weatherize low-income Centre presenting during the first couple of years, and Sylvia every class participant received a coupon for $4 off County homes through PA IPL’s Weatherization Neely (who has served on the Executive Committees of any thermostat. Anyone can purchase one for First initiative. of both organizations) has continued the work. This about $25.

•Donate $4 or more to match Ace Hardware’s year, the class has been revamped to include a couple At every class, there are participants who are able community-minded contribution when you make of hands-on demonstrations and how-tos. to share some of their own tips and tricks for cutting your own Ace purchases (energy efficiency or In November’s class, Ron Johnson took the section utility bills, but (remarkably) everyone comes away otherwise). Ace will collect gift cards and cash about programmable thermostats (who needs to with something new, too. donations to purchase energy-saving supplies for keep an empty house at 70 degrees?) to a new level Returning to the teaser at the top: Get a more Fuel Bank class attendees. ■ by showing how to replace an old thermostat — efficient refrigerator by simply vacuuming the coils. including the helpful “been there, done that” tips that If you can’t move your own, trade a local high school Cricket Hunter is the executive director of never seem to be part of instruction booklets. The student five minutes of muscle for a few cookies.

Pennsylvania Interfaith Power and Light. big hint here: tape the wire ends to the wall before If you can, offer to help a neighbor – and put it on

By CRICKET ECCLESTON HUNTER

December/January 2014/15

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Personal Memoir of a Civil Rights Activist Part 2- A LONG HOT SUMMER

Commerce. Copies of the same are in the hands of Civil Rights Act superceded the local law. It didn’t Charlie Cobb. I subsequently made contact with matter we were arrested and escorted out. We sent cxd28@psu.edu the weekly newspaper editor, two Negro ministers one of the kids to call the Greenville office as we had 1964 – Events of 64 generated the first of the and a couple of the Negro store owners. My work been instructed to do. But, there was no need. Once long hot urban summers that became typical of the thus far has been limited to accurately laying out outside the police released us. late sixties. The country was still in mourning for different areas on the map, attempting to arrange a Our other act of civil disobedience targeted the President Kennedy. Neither the Warren Commission place for rallies, meeting, etc, trying to identify and local public swimming pool, which was all white, all Report, which identified Oswald as the lone assassin, locate the elusive Negro leadership in Leland, and the time. A dozen or so of us marched to the pool nor the conviction of Jack Ruby in March for killing attempting to communicate about various matters carrying towels and trunks even though we knew Oswald had allayed suspicion that the assassination with Greenville. that there was no chance that we were going to be was a conspiracy. In Jackson, Mississippi, an all II. As I understand I am to concentrate primarily allowed in. Sure enough when we arrived the police white jury wouldn’t convict the murderer of Medger on voter registration with July 16th in mind as were already there. We were informed that the Evers, Byron DeLa Beckwith.

Freedom Day for the County. Also I pool was closed for repairs. It stayed closed for the There was some good news. The 24th am to secure housing for others who rest of the Summer. We were detained for holding Amendment which prohibited the use might possibly arrive here. a demonstration without a permit. Fortunately we of poll taxes in federal elections was III. In my analysis of the situation had sent the local kids home so that they would not ratified. Poll taxes and literary exams of things, the area (sic) will remain be in harm’s way either that day or after we left. I were two of the primary legal methods stagnate in this town (by that I mean remember sitting at that little small town police used to deny Black people the right to the stone wall will stand no matter how station waiting for COFO lawyers to arrive from vote in the South. The US Senate broke many times I fracture my skull) unless: Jackson. It was a terrifying experience. The three of the Southern filibuster and passed the 1) I am either assisted or subordinated us passed the time singing freedom songs, which at Civil Rights Bill in June. Sidney Poitier by another worker who will be able to least gave the appearance that we were courageous became the first African-American spend a goodly portion of time here. freedom fighters. We weren’t. We were scared to win an Academy Award for best 2) More funds are allocated for future teenagers, a long way from home and very much in actor for his performance in LILIES housing, and, more important(ly) the harm’s way. That arrest and the previous one, indeed OF THE FIELD. Other events in the rental of facilities that could be used nearly all of the similar arrests from that summer cultural world included the American as a co-ordinating mechanism. 3) An were thrown out by the Supreme Court as civil rights debut of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and CHARLES DUMAS adequate communications network is violations. That and other similar incidents inspired Muhammed Ali beating Sonny Liston Theater Professor, PSU provided between here and Greenville some of us like Karen Brown and myself to go to law to win the heavyweight championship. for the transportation of necessities school later in order to be a voice for the voiceless Internationally, two newly and messages. and to defend the civil rights of the oppressed. Of independent African countries, Tanganyika and IV. My budget for the week was: Income: $10 from course it took me eleven years to get there.

Zanzibar had merged to become Tanzania. Nelson COFO Funds, $5 donated by Father, $5 personal But, legal issues were not our main concern. We Mandela and his fellow defendants in the Rivonia funds Reed, St. James Catholic Church; Outgo: $6 were more afraid of the retaliatory violence from Trial were sentenced to life imprisonment. They rent for living quarters (weekly) $2 toilet articles, the white terrorist groups. One night a pick-up truck remained incarcerated on Robben Island for twenty- $2 office supplies, $5 food, communication cost, sped by and fired a few barrels of buckshot through seven years until democracy came to South Africa. cigarettes, pool; Balance: 0 the window. No one was hurt and The mood in the Mississippi Summer Project I managed to find an The three of us passed the time fortunately the window was open, had been set by the disappearance and assumed office and a place to stay in a so didn’t need to be repaired. At lynching of our fellow activists, Mickey, Andy, and second floor walk-up across singing freedom songs, which Charlie Cobb’s suggestion, we spent James. It created a chilling effect on our work yet the street from railroad at least gave the appearance that night in the Greenville Freedom inspired us to move to a higher level. Every action for station. I supervised a house. that we were courageous good or bad seemed a matter of life and death. couple of volunteers. Jim, Early in the summer the strategy LELAND- I had arrived in Greenville, Mississippi a college student was the freedom fighters. We weren’t. had changed. Because of the around the Summer Solstice in June to work through only one who stuck around We were scared teenagers, a upcoming Presidential election, the a Catholic Church. But, that plan hadn’t worked out for the long haul. The rest of that be” decided to forestall long way from home and very “powers so I joined The Council of Federated Organizations the staff consisted of several any actions that might cause much in harm’s way.

(COFO). I stayed around the Greenville office local kids who were in and confrontations. It was felt that bad through early July. Then I was assigned to be the out of the office all summer. publicity might help the conservative project director in Leland, a small suburban town We had a makeshift freedom Republican Barry Goldwater get about ten miles from the city. For the first week I school, which helped with the basics of literacy. But, elected. Also no one wanted to create situations, was alone trying to build a base. At the reunion last the primary activity was registering folks for the which might result in violence. We had already Summer, a fellow volunteer, Lisa Todd, shared a Freedom Democratic Party. seen what that might bring. Most of our efforts went report that I wrote at the time to “The Powers That MFDP- In the planning for the Summer Project, into registering people for the Mississippi Freedom Be in Jackson.” It was dated July 10th. What follows the original intent was to use the volunteers to Democratic Party (MFDP). are some excerpts: register voters and test the parameters of the recently Since Negroes were systematically denied the “I arrived in Leland the evening of the 8th of passed Civil Rights Act, by sit-ins, demonstrations, right to vote, they were not allowed to join a political July. My clothes and work material arrived the 9th. etc. There was some of that. We integrated the main party. It was our intent to register as many people, The first thing I did was to make contact with the floor of the only movie theatre in town. Blacks black and white, as possible to a new party, the police officials, city hall, and the Catholic priest. I were only allowed in the balcony. But, our band of MFDP. These registrations would be presented to secured a map of the town, a list (which I personally merry but scared brothers and sisters purchased copied from the record book) of the Negro registered our tickets and sat downstairs. The police came and see memoir, pg. 8 voters, and a list of the members of the Chamber of told us we were violating the law. I retorted that the

By CHARLES DUMAS

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December/January 2014/15 from memoir, pg. 7

the Credentials Committee at the Democratic Party Convention, which was going to be held later that summer.

We would argue that the MFDP better represented the democratic and egalitarian principles of the Democratic Party, than did the regular democrats who discriminated against Negroes. By the end of the Project we had registered over 80,000 people under very difficult circumstances.

DAILY ROUTINE- Farm workers worked the fields from “can to can’t” can see to can’t see-, sunrise to sunset.

Each morning we would get up before sunrise to get out to where workers would be picked up to be taken to the fields. We were not allowed on the fields by the plantation owners and we avoided churches out of fear that they would be burned or bombed. We would explain the principles of the MFDP to the workers and ask them to register. We explained that their names would not be revealed to local authorities. Hence they should not be afraid. Some enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity to participate in the process, but many didn’t. Despite our assurances they feared reprisals. They knew that many black Mississippians had been attacked, lost their jobs, had their houses and churches burned, even killed for daring to try and vote.

After a week or so we noticed a strange phenomena. If I would make the pitch more people said no. But, if one of the white volunteers made the pitch people were more likely to sign the registration form, even some of those who had refused to sign when I had asked them. It was not due to my lack of oratorical skills. Other projects had similar experiences. Rather it was the residue of long infused Jim Crow discrimination. Some folks would do something just because white folks said to do it, even if they perceived it to be against their self-interest.

This created an ethical dilemma.

One of the underlying principles of the Movement was to help restore the dignity and self-worth of oppressed African-Americans in the South by facilitating their active engagement with the political process. The MFDP was one of the means to promote that engagement. However, the fear engendered by generations of racial intimidations dissuaded many from joining the MFDP. We could get people to sign by using the power of white presence, which came from that systematic discrimination and intimidation to get people to sign the MFDP registrations. We could use Jim

Crow against itself but at what cost? set off riots in Philadelphia, Chicago, In the end it became a case-by-case Rochester and Jersey City later in the determination. summer. 1964’s Long Hot Summer Stokely Carmichael (Kwame precipitated similar disturbances Toure) had become project director in dozens of American cities for the in nearby Greenwood. We had several rest of the decade. It had little effect talks about this realty of Black folks on us in Mississippi, where that kind being kowtowed after years of racial of atrocity and the deplorable living oppression. He became convinced conditions were commonplace. But, that only by having Black people it brought the issue of nonviolence, work with Black people could we help strategy or tactic to the forefront. liberate them from the psychological THE LAST DAYS OF THE depression, which had arisen from PROJECT- On August 4th the bodies of institutional racism. Later he became Jimmy, Andy and Mickey were found head of the Student Non-Violent buried in an earthen dam near where Coordinating Committee (SNCC) they had been lynched. Interestingly and articulated enough, during the We could get people to sign 44 days that they the idea of Black Power by using the power of white had been missing, which excluded seven other bodies of presence, which came from Black men who had white activists that systematic discrimination been suspiciously from the or g a n i z at ion . and intimidation to get people killed were I am sure he discovered buried drew from these to sign the MFDP registrations. around the State. experiences in Andy and Mickey We could use Jim Crow the Delta. The against itself but at what cost? had both been shot idea was not so in the head. Jimmy In the end it became a case- had been shot three much to punish white activists times after he was by-case determination. as enhance the severely beaten. The empower ment plans were to bury of Black people. The other issue we all all three of them together. But, there discussed was the use of nonviolent were no cemeteries in Mississippi, protest. which allowed Blacks and Whites to lie SATYAGRAHA- We had all been at rest together. So, Mickey and Andy’s instructed in the tactics of nonviolent bodies were sent home to New York. resistance, based on Dr. King’s On August 6 MFDP held a interpretation of Mahatma Gandhi’s convention at the Masonic Temple in principles of satyagraha or truth force. Jackson. Ella Baker was the keynote In the philosophy of satyagraha, the and Fannie Lou Hamer, E.W. Steptoe, protestor or activist does not ever use Winson Hudson, Hazel Palmer, violence to assert his or her cause, Victoria Gray, Rev. Ed King, Lawrence even unto death. The satyagrahi Guyot, Peggy J. Conner, Aaron Henry, believes that the transformative power Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, of love and justice can transform and Bob Moses, were among those 68, the oppressor. King believed in the elected as delegates to the National philosophy of nonviolence. Most young Convention to be held in Atlantic people in the Movement believed that City in late August. Two days later on nonviolence was a tactic to be used August 8, the body of James Chaney in some but not all situations. In the was laid to rest at Okatibee Cemetery South that tactic was adhered to in in Meridian Mississippi. Many people almost all situations. Up north it was from the Movement including Rita a different story.

Schwerner, Mickey’s widow, and the In New York City, in Harlem, July Community were in attendance. Even 16, 1964, a fifteen-year old Black though there were many hard days to youth, James Powell was shot and come, including the struggle at The killed by police Lieutenant Thomas Democratic Party Convention later Gilligan in front of his friends and that Summer. Jimmy’s burial was for about a dozen other witnesses. The many of us the end of the Mississippi incident set off six consecutive nights Freedom Project. of unrest and rioting. It is estimated It has been hard to put into words that 4,000 New Yorkers participated what Mississippi Summer meant to in the riots which led to attacks on me personally. It changed my life. In the New York City Police Department, a few short months I was transformed vandalism, and looting in stores. At from a frustrated teenager into a the end of the conflict, reports counted hardened freedom fighter. At the time, one dead rioter, 118 injured, and 465 I was not sure what was going on. I arrested. This Harlem riot arguably wrote the following poem one night

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at a get together at Hodding Carter’s house. He was my friend and a friend of the Movement. He and his father had used the family newspaper, The Delta Democratic Times, to argue for sanity and civility. For their efforts they had crosses burned in their yard and their family threatened. Later Hod became a spokesperson for the State Department during President Carter’s administration.

LELAND, MISSISSIPPI JULY 1964 What place am I in?

Am I sitting in Leland, Mississippi or Hyde Park?

From the conversation, cocktails and potato chip dips, I can’t tell.

The banter and chitchat seem banal enough.

Yet through the window a breeze brings hints of kerosene and burnt wood.

Amidst the night sounds, a muffled trio cries for help.

Strange fruit truly hangs on these Southern trees.

And in the dimmed light I do not see the faces of my people.

Tomorrow as I walk the streets of this town, what will come of this?

As I carry the registration cards to the cotton fields, As Another black, Another freedom fighter, Another target?

Can these words deflect the hate, stop the bullets?

Or are these just eulogies, flimsy funeral flower arrangements To be flung about my charred corpse What a strange scene, A Black boy from Chi-town sipping imported vermouth, Listening to a lot of fancy ideas from a room full of people, Who could, and would, and should give goddamn.

Mississippi, you don’t really exist You are a myth that drives men when all else has faded And no other idea persists except that which screams to be.

Black is the topic of conversation, temporarily.

Black is reason for forgetting the rest of humanity, temporarily Black seems lost in the darkness of night, temporarily.

But Black is, and, oh my God, not temporary. ■ Charles Dumas, a Fulbright Fellow, is a theatre professor at Penn State, a professional actor, director and writer, and the artistic director and co-founder of The Loaves and Fish Traveling Rep Company.

December/January 2014/15

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NATURAL LIFE: The wonders of the rosehip

By LINDA MEEK stonepondfarm@hotmail.com Winter is on its way: drying indoor air with wet, cold, chapping winds and frigid temperatures. All are irritants that cause dry, cracking skin, chapped lips and splitting cuticles, contributing greatly to the breakdown of delicate skin tissue and premature aging. Now is the time to start your skin regimen by adding some extra protection.

Our grandmothers used Crisco for dry, chapped, skin. Our mothers swore

by Ponds cold cream for irritated skin.

Today, we have the benefits of worldwide ingredients at our fingertips to combat premature aging. There is cocoa and shea butter, aloe vera gel, almond, apricot, and olive oils, and countless essential oils. The list of ingredients Photo by Eleanor F Coutts // Flickr goes on and on, all with different health benefits, and many with very similar Rosehip seed oil is extracted from pressing the seeds of wild rose bushes.Rosa moschata or Rosa rubiginosa in the southern Andes, benefits and uses. But when it comes to or from Rosa canina, which grows in many regions of the world including South Africa and Europe. skin care, Rosehip seed oil is a stand-out favorite, especially in the winter season when your skin, particularly your face, the world including South Africa and Europe. It has Agriculture (USDA) has proclaimed the Multi-flora needs constant attention from exposure to the harsh been used by Chileans, ancient Egyptians, Mayans, rose, Rosa-multiflora, as an invasive, wild crafter in elements of winter weather.

Native Americans, and Europeans for centuries for the northeast, we are actually very lucky indeed, for Commercial Rosehip seed oil is extracted its healing properties. The amazing benefits of the our infamous and plentiful Multi-flora rose does from pressing the seeds of wild rose bushes, Rosa rosehip seed oil has only recently been validated and moschata or Rosa rubiginosa in the southern Andes, introduced to modern cultures. see rosehip, pg. 10 or from Rosa canina, which grows in many regions of Although the United Stated Department of

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December/January 2014/15

from rosehip, pg. 9 produce a rose hip that generates as many health benefits as those grown in other countries for commercial use. The Multi-flora rosehip is as effective as the rosehips commonly harvested for use in commercial skin care products. There are other uses for the Multi-flora as well: the leaves can be ground and applied to heal sores. The fruit or hip, relieves pain (consumed in a tea or applied topically), and is used as a diuretic or a laxative, and has shown evidence for healing ulcers, wounds, sprains, and injuries. Even the roots can be used to make a successful tightening and regenerating skin tissue astringent, a calmative to sooth and ease irritation of the skin, and a carminative to relieve the bowels if taken as a tea internally. The leaves and hips can be brewed for a wonderful, rosy flavored cup of vitamin C. Rosehip seed oil is a superstar for healthy skin, hair, and nails. Unlike any other oil that addresses similar skin conditions, Rosehip seed oil prevails because of its natural ability to be quickly absorbed into the skin, and to replenish moisture and create a barrier against further dehydration without leaving an oily residue. It is just what is needed for winter weather - an organic moisturizer that can be carried along and applied anytime,

Photo by YASMINE HAMID // Flickr

Rosehips, sometimes referred to as haws or heps, are a sweet and necessary food for many overwintering birds, so caution is required when stripping a bush of its hips. The hip can be used as a diuretic, and has shown evidence for healing ulcers. leaving a mess-free finish.

It is rich in vitamins and antioxidants: vitamin A, in the form of beta carotene, essential fatty acids, and the linoleic acids omega-6 and omega-3, making it a natural and organic remedy for a variety of skin conditions. It corrects UV damage from the sun, reduces appearances of scars, burns, and stretch marks, treats fine

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lines and wrinkles, and helps prevent premature aging by soothing, healing, and moisturizing mature skin. It is a wonderful remedy for eczema and psoriasis, and it evens skin tone if you have hyper-pigmentation, age spots or other minor skin discolorations. It also has the added bonus of healing brittle nails and moisturizing dry hair.

As an acne remedy, rosehip oil is superlative. It seems counterintuitive to put oil on your face to reduce acne, but some acne is caused by a lack of moisture, over washing, or applying drying agents that irritate and deteriorate skin tissue. Rosehip seed oil heals irritation and helps balance the over-production of the oil, aiding in reducing acne.

Using it as a make-up remover is one way to add rosehip seed oil into your daily skin routine to replenish skin. Adding it to your spray toner helps balance and regenerate skin, providing your toner does not contain any alcohol or harsh chemicals. Some who have very oily skin may want to use it only at night, but most will find it to be light and absorbent, making it easy to use throughout the day. The scent is a soft citrus aroma that makes it pleasant for daytime use.

It is still not too late to take a walk and pick rosehips. Although their thorny protection will require gloves and a jacket that can be snagged, don’t let that deter you from using this wonderful bounty. Dried and crushed rosehips can be diffused in a light oil such as organic sweet almond or jojoba oil to complement the rosehip

oil absorbency qualities. You might end up with an oil that is slightly less absorbent, but the fun of making your own organic moisturizer will far outweigh the differences. When picking wild rosehips, the inclination is to stand still and pick only from one spot because scratches and pricks are inevitable, but Rosehips are a sweet and necessary food for many overwintering birds, so caution is required when stripping a bush of its hips. But it is so plentiful that with permission any farmer would welcome a crafter walking through pastures to pick hips. Every hip you pick and use is one less seed that a bird will spread, and one less plant that a farmer will need to eradicate with chemical application. A few tools such as scissors, eye protection, and a bag to hold your precious thorny cache will help keep injuries to a minimum.

Co-existing with nature and using nature’s bounties is a mindset that many people are starting to embrace. Rosehip seed oil production is a worldwide, multi-billion dollar industry. Farming for rose hips and complimentary products would have some positive environmental and financial impacts, such as eliminating the necessity for tons of herbicides used to eradicate it, improving runoff and water quality, and feeding many birds and wildlife species that are now endangered. ■Linda Meek is the owner and operator of Stone Pond Farm in Julian, Pa.

December/January 2014/15

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A look at energy, economy & environment

By KATHERINE WATT katherine_watt@hotmail.com When I was little, my father gave me a great explanation of deus ex machina, the literary plot device used by writers when they’ve backed a character into an inescapable corner. He set the scene as a radio drama episode ending with the story’s hero stuck at the bottom of a deep pit: straight sides, no ladder, no rope, no other people to pull him out.

Tuning in next week, listeners heard the drama continue, “with a mighty leap…”

The Wikipedia entry on “deus ex machina” notes that it’s generally undesirable, implying a lack of author creativity, and failing to pay due regard to the story’s internal logic. The resulting plot developments are often so unlikely that they challenge the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

In September 2013, when asked what Penn State will do if no new cheap, high-EROEI (energy-returnon-energy-invested) technologies emerge and scale up quickly enough to bridge the gap between today’s energy resources and an 80% reduction by 2050, Office of Physical Plant Director of Energy & Engineering Rob Cooper borrowed the narrative technique, commenting: “We have confidence in mankind’s ingenuity to create these ‘breakthrough’ technologies to help us address our energy future.”

Unable to suspend my disbelief, along with a handful of other activists, I’ve been testing a “Yes-No” question since then: “Does Penn State have a plausible, data-supported plan to safely steer the University community into the gathering storms of costly and unreliable fossil fuel supplies, climate change, and economic contraction?”

So far, the answer is “No.” Penn State’s detailed energy plans are mostly a black box of unknowns for outsiders. There’s some evidence that an Energy System Master Plan was drafted in 2007 or 2008, laying out multi-decade energy demand and supply projections. The plan is classified as “confidential” by OPP and held in the University Archives at Pattee Library. Appeals to Ford Stryker, Vice President for Physical Plant, and the Records Management Advisory Committee were both rejected during Summer 2014, and President Eric Barron declined to intervene.

Reverse engineering Penn State’s

overall energy strategy by collecting year]). Anything less and we certainly small pieces of information that fall should not be claiming to be moving into public hands, primarily through in the right direction – rather moving zoning review and Board of Trustees in the wrong direction, just at a slower minutes, we know they’ve got a 30- rate…”

By the university’s own calculations, year contract for natural gas delivery

by Columbia Gas. We know they’ve fuel substitution strategies aren’t designed and built a new 400-psi reducing overall energy use. Combined natural gas transmission pipeline with the last several years of moderate in better building across campus. And we know they’re investment converting the West Campus Steam envelopes to reduce waste, they’ve only Plant from coal to natural gas and managed to stabilize campus energy diesel fuel for a production capacity consumption at just about 3,000,000 far higher than required for current mmBtu per year.

In public statements, OPP campus demand.

We’ve also looked at public officials claim they’re motivated by a capital spending plans (including a combination of regulatory pressures $140 million Chemical & Biological (tightening emissions standards) Engineering building, and a $69 and a moral obligation to mitigate million data center), and the recent the University’s contribution to greenhouse announcement that Penn State will climate-destabilizing participate in the Department of gas emissions. To support their Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge to emissions claims, they rely on gas reduce the “energy use intensity” (EUI) industry propaganda that natural of the building portfolio by at least gas combustion emits lower amounts 2.5% per year through 2020. (The EUI of greenhouse gases than coal.

Independent measures energy use per square By the university’s own calculations, s t u d i e s foot, a metric fuel substitution strategies aren’t support the opposite the University reducing overall energy use. conclusion: tends to play up Combined with the last several m e t h a n e in press releases because it makes years of moderate investment in leakage at the wellheads charts with lines better building envelopes to reduce cancels out sloping down waste, they’ve only managed the carbon and to the right, emissions at while masking to stabilize campus energy combust ion, the cancelling consumption. l e a v i n g effect on total n a t u r a l energy use caused by increasing the number and gas about the same as coal from a size of buildings while marginally greenhouse gas standpoint.

In my view, there’s a third, far improving portfolio efficiency.

Energy use intensity is not the same more implacable force at work, and it as total energy consumption. Kevin demands a very different institutional Anderson, Deputy Director of the fiduciary response: the declining Tyndall Centre for Climate Change marginal economic returns on fossil Research, wrote about the difference fuel dependence.

Actuary Gail Tverberg of Our Finite in October: “…We are many times more efficient World predicts that the world will be now than we were in 1970 and even working with roughly 40% of 2010 more than in 1920 – yet energy baseline fossil fuel supplies by 2030 consumption and emissions continue – not due to carbon legislation, or to their relentless rise. The climate fossil fuels running out completely, doesn’t give a damn about efficiency, but because a growth-driven economy only about emissions. So if companies, requires cheap fuel to grow, and the barrel-scraping governments and individuals, at least unconventional, the wealthier amongst us, are to make extraction techniques we’re using a positive contribution, we need to be now (such as fracking) aren’t cheap. delivering absolute reductions in our Geoscientist David Hughes of the emissions. And if we are serious about Post-Carbon Institute has analyzed avoiding the 2°C characterization well decline rates across the so-called of dangerous climate change, then “shale revolution” for oil and gas those absolute reductions need to be and reached the same conclusion: in double figures (i.e. over 10% [per as early as 2020, fuel that will still

be technically recoverable will not be economically recoverable; many extraction companies sustained by junk bonds rather than operating revenues for the last few years will go bankrupt during the shakeout, leaving abandoned wells and investors holding the empty bag.

In other words, the economic harms of natural gas substitution strategies are more immediately significant than the climate harms. Natural gas hasn’t just physically displaced coal at many power plants, including Penn State’s. As Bill McKibben and other environmentalists note, capital investment in substitution-oriented natural gas delivery and combustion infrastructure has displaced capital investment in the zero-carbon and de-growth energy strategies that are essential for reducing total energy use.

McKibben quoted energy analyst Joe Romm in a September Mother Jones article: “[F]rom a climate perspective the shale gas revolution is essentially irrelevant — and arguably a massive diversion of resources and money that could have gone into carbon-free sources.”

That global scenario has been perfectly mirrored here in Central Pennsylvania. To date, at least six crucial years and tens of millions of student and taxpayer dollars have been wasted at Penn State with the natural gas detour – the permitting, design and construction of new gasdependent physical infrastructure across the University Park campus.

If Penn State OPP were to take these pressures seriously going forward, a 10% annual cut in campus fossil fuel consumption would be a big step in the right direction. The 2013 baseline of 3,104,127 mmBtu per year would drop to 1,484,695 mmBtu by 2020: cutting consumption and emissions by roughly half and at least doubling our regional capacity to withstand global energy price and access shocks.

With a lot of hard work by community activists, and a little luck, perhaps 2015 will be the year Penn State OPP leaders recognize the full scope of our shared community energy predicament, effectively communicate it to the Board of Trustees, and establish a plausible public response.

For more information, check out the archives at Steady State College (steadystatecollege.wordpress.com) ■ Katherine Watt is a State College writer and community organizer.

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December/January 2014/15

VOICES CHOICES Artist of the Month ~ Justin Gruneburg

By KASSIA JANESCH kaj5227@psu.edu Local artist Justin Gruneberg, a graduate of Penn State with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts has been working with multiple mediums, usually oil on canvas, but has been experimenting with digital work as well. Gruneberg said, “I don’t necessarily have a preference. Digital is cool because it can be very efficient and allows for more flexibility throughout the process. But I think I still hold a romantic ideal towards painting. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with it, or maybe it’s nostalgic, but whatever it is, when I put oil paint onto a canvas by way of a brush, that’s when I feel the most fulfilled.”

Gruneberg used to attempt to make political, cultural or social statements and to put meaning in his work, but it never materialized how he imagined, so he’s exploring another direction with his new works, taking interesting concepts and images and putting them “through the filter” of his brain, with the goal of creating something he enjoys and feels passionately about. He describes his own past works as “if you have a box with a label and you drop me into that box, the label would read I take a bunch of stuff and throw it together and see what happens. I find images of objects and environments and mix them together with the hope that something resounding comes out the other end.”.

His works are available for sale on his website, www.saatchiart.com/jmgrune.

Restaurant of the Month ~ The Naked Egg

By HANNAH GENOVESE hrg5049@psu.edu One of the only elements that would seem out of place in a home setting is the small breakfast bar complete with professional espresso machine. This bar allows for the restaurant to boast a complete list of coffee and espresso drinks, all made with the coffee of the day. Those of us who require a good caffeinated pick-me-up most mornings will appreciate this drink list, whether your preference is a vanilla latte or a good old fashioned shot of espresso.

Upon our arrival, we noticed that the dining room was full, and immediately expected a long wait. However, the twenty minutes that the hostess told us would be our wait time turned out to be more like fifteen and passed quickly.

After our wait time was up, we were promptly seated and attended to by a professional and personable server. She quickly took our order and brought us our drinks. Despite the dining room still being rather packed at this point, our food did not take long at all to come out of the kitchen.

I had ordered a bagel with cream cheese and lox with a side of sausage patties. The café’s rendition of the bagel and lox came with a few pieces of red onion sprinkled on top, which I thought added a great taste to the already-savory breakfast. The sausage tasted good, but the patty was rather thin, and had a slightly dry texture. Someone at my table also ordered scrapple, which I had never had before. It had a good taste, but a slightly soggy, mushy texture.

Overall, The Naked Egg Café is a great place to eat brunch, with a great ambience at a reasonable price.

December/January 2014/15

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VOICES CHOICES Poet of the Month ~ Rachelle Gaynor Rachelle Gaynor is a senior at Penn State majoring in journalism and minoring in English. She grew up on Long Island, New York with two older brothers whom, she said, served as her main support system and inspiration.

According to Gaynor, she has had a passion for writing (especially poetry) since she was in fourth grade when she started writing poetry almost everyday. She has taken multiple poetry and short story courses throughout her education for fun rather than out of necessity for her major, and her poems have been published in Penn State’s Kalliope Literary Journal.

Gaynor said the main reason she writes poetry is because she feels like it is the best way for her to communicate her emotions and it helps her work through the thoughts in her head. She always feels better by the time she finishes a poem, even though she believes that a poem is never truly finished.

Desolation I have known the exposed desolation of white walls, Dripping with fresh paint, fumes suffocating, All the plain pre-packaged promises of empty boxes, Filling with pictures, and pillows, and infinite keepsakes, Perpetual ripping of tape and cardboard, barbaric, Stumbling over piles of junk and mountains of clothes, Empty closet, bookshelf barren except for the cloud of grey Dust that covers everything, coughing from the smell of it.

And I have known the sorrow of torn down posters, Loneliness of a freshly washed carpet, a newly stripped bed, Slamming of dresser drawers, now empty of their guts, Bottomless garbage bags, deformed cable ties, a circus of trash, A crisp clean room, only ghosts dare to linger.

Help Chip get some exercise! (A Fundraiser!)

Donate and receive! Our friend Chip Mefford has graciously volunteered to deliver Voices to your door via old-fashioned bicycle for one year (in wind, rain, sleet, and snow) for a 100-dollar donation to our local free press. We must get at least 100 participants in order for this plan to work. Help us out! This money would make all the difference. Please go to: State College Bicycle Transport at http://www.statecollegebicycletransport. com/ to find out the details and place your order. Don’t let Chip down!

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December/January 2014/15

Middle East: Rising population & problems

By ART GOLDSCHMIDT axg2@psu.edu

With populations rising in the Middle East, overpopulation is beginning to put a strain on nation’s resources as water and food become more scare for these growing countries.

Military and political events dominate the headlines for Middle Eastern news these days, whether about Iraq or Iran, ISIS or Sisi, OPEC or AIPAC. We find it hard to keep up with the names of leaders, places, and even countries, let alone what all of them are doing. Now, with several thousand US troops heading to Iraq as “advisers” to Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress its government, which is fighting the Islamic State, the American people (Above): Image of Cairo, Egypt in 1920, which at this point in time was the largest city in the Middle East with a little less than need even more to understand what is 800,000 people, according to the 1917 Egyptian census. In the early 1900s large Middle Eastern cities were not commonplace. happening in this turbulent region— Photo by cilla//Flickr and why.

(Below): Cairo’s Midan Tahrir, translated to Liberation Square, in modern times. Currently Cairo has a population of nine million, 17 Historians often say that political million if you count Giza and other places accessible by Cairo public transportation. Overpopulation in countries such as Egypt is events are best explained in the context becoming a problem for the Middle East with water scarcity and food concerns now becoming major problems for growing cities. of social and economic trends. How have the peoples and countries of the Middle East experienced changes in their social organization, life-styles, and ways of making their living during, say, the past century?

One hundred years ago, the Ottoman Empire, then the nominal ruler of lands from Egypt in the west to Kuwait in the east, from Adrianople in the north to Yemen in the south, openly entered World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Its main foe was Czarist Russia, which the Ottomans thought had incited the Balkan peoples against their Turkish rulers. But now the Ottomans were also fighting France and Britain. The three countries each ruled over more Muslims In 1914 than the Ottoman sultan, who was Sunni.

The only other Muslim state still nominally independent was Persia, which was Shiite.

These two Muslim states suffered from the fighting on their territory during World War I. The Ottoman 117 thousand troops during World War I, whereas the deserts, and a few salt marshes. In some areas, the Empire, with 21.3 million inhabitants as of 1914, lost Ottoman Empire, with a population of 21.3 million, majority of the locals were nomads who herded a total of 3 million soldiers and civilians as a result lost more than two million lives from battles, famine, camels, sheep, and goats. For most of the region, of the fighting, war-related starvation, disease, and and disease. America’s wounded numbered 204 subsistence agriculture predominated, carried out the Armenian deportations. Even Persia (which we thousand; estimates of Ottoman soldiers injured in by unschooled peasants, using tools and methods now call Iran), though not a belligerent, lost several battle range from 400 to 764 thousand. little changed since Biblical times. Cities were few. hundred thousand subjects due to fighting on its soil A foreign traveler in the Middle East a century

by Russians, British Empire forces, and Germans. ago would see vast empty spaces, mainly mountains, see middle east, pg. 15 The US, with 92 million citizens in 1914, lost about

s

, the rded gion, out hods ew.

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December/January 2014/15 from middle east, pg. 14 The largest was Cairo, which had 787,461 inhabitants according to the 1917 Egyptian census. It now has over nine million, or 17 million if you count Giza and all other places accessible by Cairo public transportation.

Iraq had about three million people when the British Empire troops took it from the Ottomans; now it has 35 million. Baghdad has grown from 200 thousand to seven million. Syria had 2.2 million when France took control of the country in 1920; its population just before its civil war began in 2011 was slightly over 20 million. Its largest city, Aleppo, had 200 thousand people in 1920 and more than 2.3 million in 2011.

The same story can be told for other Middle Eastern countries, especially the ones in which oil has been found and developed. There are now fewer empty spaces and many more people.

Despite heroic efforts to increase lands under cultivation by building new dams on the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris rivers, the amount of arable land has hardly increased at all. Countries that once exported grain now import most of their basic foodstuffs. Potable water is scarce. Overpopulation is a grave problem for most countries.

There are few nomads left. The peasants no longer make up more than half the population of most Middle

Eastern countries.

Many Middle Eastern countries are caught in a vicious circle. Civil wars, The people have become much dissident movements, strikes, and demonstrations abound because economic more urbanized. and social conditions are bad. But as long as there are wars and internal Ma nufac t ur ing disorder, they cannot improve those conditions, even as their populations has grown, but the real growth continue to rise and become steadily and more urbanized, more schooled, and areas have been in more ambitious. the military, the bureaucracy, and the professions. trained for work in their modernizing become steadily and more urbanized, Outside of government, landowners economies. Not surprisingly, many more schooled, and more ambitious. and Muslim scholars used to be the now want to migrate to Western There is little that the European leading classes; now business owners Europe or to North America.

Union or the United States can do to and labor leaders vie for dominance.

Regrettably, the growth of large- alleviate these problems beyond what State-supported schooling is now scale manufacturing in the Arab they are doing already. The rise of the available to both boys and girls, so a countries, Turkey, and Iran has not Islamic State in Iraq and Syria does not much higher percentage of the people reached the level of Japan, China, augur well for the future of the Middle are literate. Many young people or the “Little Tigers” of Southeast East, but defeating it militarily will be feel that their governments do not Asia. Nor have they developed a extremely costly and protracted. If I give them the jobs or the chances Middle Eastern version of Silicon could advise Obama, I would tell him for advancement that they feel they Valley, as Israel has been doing. More to use his rhetorical skills to articulate deserve as a result of their many years investment is needed in libraries and a vision for the future of the Middle of education. This feeling contributed laboratories that would facilitate large East, a goal toward which Israelis, to the revolutions that convulsed the scale industrialization and technical Arabs, Turks, Kurds, and Iranians Arab countries in 2011—and Iran training, but the funds that might might strive. in 2009 and Turkey in 2012. Social develop them are spent instead on The vision that I would propose is mobility is stalled, at least for civilians. guns, tanks, and fighter jets. that all people will feel secure about Highly trained and urbanized Many Middle Eastern countries their own lives and property, the future men and women are likely to move are caught in a vicious circle. Civil of their children, their basic rights and to places where they can find suitable wars, dissident movements, strikes, freedoms, and a world at peace. ■ jobs. During the past forty years, this and demonstrations abound because usually meant the Arab emirates and economic and social conditions are sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf, but Arthur Goldschmidt is Professor bad. But as long as there are wars now jobs there have become scarce Emeritus of Middle East History at and internal disorder, they cannot because more Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Penn State University where he taught improve those conditions, even as Emiratis (citizens of the United Arab from 1965 to 2000. their populations continue to rise and Emirates) have become educated or

Home of the 9-to-5 No-Repeat Workday VOICES AD: 5” X 5-1/2”

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December/January 2014/15

~ VOICES BOOK REVIEW ~

By JESSE BARLOW jesse.barlow@comcast.net Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate’’ is an in-your-face activist’s book about the politics of climate change, the political power of the fossil fuel industry, and the grassroots resistance to it.

That humans, through the burning of fossil fuels, are causing climate change is well-established science.

To quote a report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science “about 97 percent of climate scientists have concluded that humancaused climate change is happening.’’

Various international agreements have put the acceptable level of global warming by 2100 at two degrees Celsius. One highly credible study quoted by this book says that we can burn about 565 gigatons of carbon and have an 80% chance of meeting that goal. Oil, gas, and coal interests have already laid claim to deposits which will produce about 2795 gigatons of carbon. As I heard Klein say in an interview on BillMoyers.com, that means we will be telling fossil fuel companies to leave assets in the ground.

That is why climate change has become a political controversy.

The 2014 election (which was after the publication of this book) was a boon to fossil fuel interests and climate deniers. The leaders of the next Congress have prioritized their crusade against the Environmental Protection Agency, particularly its ability to regulate greenhouse gases, above their crusades about Obamacare, immigration, “restrictive’’ gun laws, and abortion. In these pages, the Pennsylvania 5th district’s own congressman, Glenn Thompson, is in professed climate change denial.

The first chapter, titled “The Right is Right,’’ offers an explanation of climate change denial. After attending what amounted to a climate change denial conference at the Heartland Institute, a right-wing “think tank,’’ Klein concludes, “I think these hard-

core ideologues understand the real significance of climate change better than most of [those]...in the political center...the Heartlanders are completely wrong about the science.

But when it comes to the political and economic consequence of those scientific findings...they have their eyes wide open.’’

She rejects a number of ideas, mostly market oriented, that have been promoted by our political center.

She is more than skeptical of the notion that somehow, some day, the market is going to produce an idea that will save us all from climate change. She considers the cap-and-trade bills that were defeated in Congress in 2009 to be not “the climate movement’s greatest defeat, but rather a narrowly dodged bullet.’’ The downside of that defeat is that the very notion of climate change legislation was discredited.

One market based solution she favors is carbon taxes, especially if attached to a redistributive mechanism to help poor and middle class consumers pay fuel and heating costs.

One of the book’s biggest targets is neoliberal trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA). Klein is not uniformly against trade agreements, but, she believes that for the most part, they have been detrimental to the development of green energy companies. She argues that World Trade Organization (WTO) rules make it very difficult to protect local green industries against competition from foreign companies and multinationals.

Even with neo-liberal trade agreements, there still have been a number of successes among green energy companies through the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan program.

Some companies failed, but there were enough successes to earn the American taxpayers a $5 billion profit. Still Klein

believes that these successes are not coming quickly enough.

The book calls for a rebuilt and reinvented public sphere or as conservatives call it, “a lot of big government.’’

For starters, she recommends several taxes on the fossil fuel industry. Almost all of the book’s proposals would not get a hearing in the new congress, but, there are some good ideas here.

As the result of privatized energy companies showing little interest in switching to renewables, cities such as Hamburg, Germany and Boulder, Colorado have voted to buy back their electrical grid. Klein strongly favors utility buybacks and stronger local control over the energy industry.

C l i m a t e change has meant that natural disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy have become more frequent.

She would like to see the fossil fuel industry paying for more of these disasters in much the same way that the tobacco industry was made to pay health-related damages for smoking.

Texas Congressman Steve Stockman’s 2013 comment, “The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it, oil and gas come out,’’ is an excellent representation of the philosophy this book calls “extractivism.’’

The book points out several instances of local and indigenous populations displaced by fossil fuel companies and the extractivist philosophies of their governments.

Many areas where we extract our energy are poor and in out-of-theway places where residents have little political power.

Klein points out that until recently, many of us reaping benefits from fossil fuel were isolated from its

extraction, allowing us to ignore the issues involved. However, to extract the energy from many of the new energy sources-the Alberta tar sands, North Dakota’s Bakken formation, Marcellus Shale deposits- requires significant energy, environmental destruction, and, in the case of natural gas extraction, greater methane emissions. Not only are these energy sources more difficult to extract, we cannot isolate ourselves from them as easily.

All that drilling and fracking has caused a lot of resistance and not necessarily from your typical “tree huggers.’’ Opponents have included cattle ranchers in South Dakota, suburban home dwellers in Texas, and, in one instance, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson quietly joined a lawsuit opposing fracking-related activities near his home. The book gives accounts of several struggles between locals and the extractivists that include a few victories for the locals.

Klein’s good news is her argument that climate activism could be used to produce a broader social movement.

Perhaps that is what climate deniers and market fundamentalists fear the most. She argues that it will not be possible to produce real political movement on climate change without producing change toward a more egalitarian society.

Shortly after the publication of this book, the People’s Climate March in New York City on September 21 attracted over 400,000 including some from Centre County. There were also about 2,700 related events that day in 166 countries. The climate movement directly affects the rights of the poor, minorities, and indigenous people, since they are most likely to live near areas such as the Alberta tar sands where fossil fuels are extracted. They are also the most likely victims of climate disasters and often get the least enthusiastic relief.

Unfortunately, so far, the impact of the climate movement on elective politics has been less than it should be. This book helps the reader understand that movement and where it could go. ■

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December/January 2014/15

A Cackling Goose of a different feather

By JOE VERICA joeverica@gmail.com One weekend in early November, I spent the better part of a brisk Saturday afternoon in the backyard raking leaves. After hauling several loads of the desiccated rust-colored foliage to the curb, I paused for a few moments to catch my breath. As I stood there calculating how much longer it was going to take to complete my task, I heard the distinct honking sound of migrating geese approaching.

When I looked up, I spotted a long skein of Canada Geese advancing from the north.

Overcome with a mild case of arithmomania, I began counting the geese. As the tally was nearing the century mark, I noticed something peculiar about two of the geese. While they superficially looked like geese, they appeared significantly smaller than their flock mates. Were there other waterfowl besides geese in the flock? I quickly grabbed my binoculars off the front porch and trained them on the party crashers. It turns out the interlopers were not Canada Geese, but rather Cackling Geese.

Cackling Geese (Branta hutchinsii) are small geese that closely resemble the more familiar Canada Geese. The resemblance is so striking that the Cackling Goose was once considered to be a subspecies of the Canada Goose. That all changed in 2004, when the American Ornithologist Union split the Canada Goose into two species. The subspecies representing the large-bodied geese that bred in the interior of North America were designated as Canada Geese, while the small-bodied, tundra breeding subspecies were elevated to full species status as Cackling Geese.

Like the Canada Goose, the Cackler is a grayishbrown goose with black legs and a black head and neck. A narrow horizontal white band can sometime be seen at the base of the neck, just above the breast.

Photo by Amy Evenstad // Creative Commons

The Cackling Goose (foreground) is noticeably smaller than the familiar Canada Goose (background). These two birds have such a striking resemblance that the Cackling Goose (branta hutchinsii) was once considered to be a sub-species of the Canada Goose. In 2004 the two geese were officially split into two different species.

On the side of the face, the Cackler has a white cheek patch or “chinstrap” extending from the ear down below the head. The tail is also black with a white band near the base. The call of the Cackling Goose is also distinctive. It tends to be higher pitched than the Canada Goose’s “honk” call. To my ears, it sounds more gull-like than goose-like.

The main morphological differences between the Cackler and the Canada Goose are related to size.

While the Canada Goose can tip the scales at 10-15 lbs, the Cackler is closer in size to a Mallard Duck, weighing in at about 4-5 lbs. While the difference in size can be substantial, size alone is not always a reliable characteristic. Smaller Canada Goose individuals can weigh between 6-7 lbs, overlapping in size with larger Cackling Goose individuals. Also, Canada Geese that are malnourished may develop as runts.

If you see a small goose that looks like a good candidate for a Cackling Goose, be sure to get a good look at the head and the bill, as they are often distinctive.

The head of the Cackler is smaller and more rounded relative to the Canada Goose. The Cackler is also noticeably short-necked.

This can sometimes be difficult to discern in a sitting or swimming goose, as geese tend to contract their necks while at rest. In flight, this difference is more obvious.

Perhaps the most distinct difference is the shape of the bill. In contrast to the elongated bill of the Canada Goose, the Cackling Goose has a stubby, triangular-shaped bill.

Cackling Geese breed in coastal tundra, in a range extending from western Alaska through northwestern Canada to Baffin Island. This range is typically beyond the northern limit of the Canada Goose. Cackling Geese are grazers - like cattle with wings. They feed primarily on grasses, submerged aquatic plants, and grains.

As winter approaches and the tundra marshes and wetlands freeze over, the Cackling Geese head south.

Their winter quarters extend from southwestern British Columbia and central California in the west, to northern Mexico and the Gulf Coast in the east.

Small groups of Cackling Geese regularly stray eastward during migration, and have been known to overwinter along the Atlantic coast. Here in Central Pa., we regularly see a small number of Cackling Geese each year during migration. While a few are seen during fall migration, the vast majority of Central Pa. sighting occur during spring migration.

When they are seen, they are typically mixed in with migrating flocks of Canada Geese. One way to pick them out in a flock is to look for the loners that are hanging out near the edge of the flock. The best local places to see them are the Centre Furnace Duck Pond, Bald Eagle State Park, Colyer Lake and Lake Perez in Stone Valley. ■ Joseph Verica is a vice-president of the State College Bird Club. He received a PhD in Biology from Penn State in 1995. He has been a birdwatcher for over 30 years.

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December/January 2014/15

What smells? The stink about stink bugs

By KASSIA JANESCH kaj5227@psu.edu Rolling out of bed on a chilly fall morning, heading to the coffee maker or the television, it is not uncommon to glance down and find a visitor in your warm home: a tiny brown stink bug making its way across your floor searching for a heated shelter, safe from the elements.

Stink bugs, though a commonplace almost expected occurrence in the fall season, has more severe consequences beyond the disgust of a smashed bug, the annoyance of a sudden surprise, and the odd smell creeping into your living room.

Stink bugs, or Halyomorpha halys, the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), are not native to the United States, and can be easily confused with the common garden variety of native shield bugs. Accidentally introduced Photo courtesy of online Wall Street Journal from Asia, this invasive species has actually not been around for very long. Damage done to an apple by the stink bug’s feeding. Stink bugs (halyomorpha halys) although seeming common to the area are It was first documented and collected in not native to the United States and were introduced from Asia, with earliest local documentation being 1998 in Allentown, Pa. Allentown, Pennsylvania in September of 1998, though it was mostly likely Pennsylvania the stink bugs have targeted mostly If the stink bugs are unwelcome guests in your around for a few months before then.

According to the Associated Press, stink bugs have orchards – content to feed on apples and peaches. household, there are a few precautions you can take. increased in numbers, and are now present in 41 Some blackberry, corn, and soybean crops have Of course, make sure most cracks around window been damaged as well, according to the Penn State screens or panes are totally sealed against the outside states. with caulk. Though there are store-bought traps With no natural native predator (in China there is entomology department’s fact sheets.

Though stink bugs don’t actually damage the and insecticides available, the bugs can learn how the parasitoid wasp Trissolcus halymorphae, which fruit so that it isn’t edible, they make it appear very to escape from the trap. There are some moderately is being considered, very carefully, for introduction undesirable to buyers, leaving it with dark brown effective sprays, but not everyone feels comfortable into the United States), the brown marmorated stink spots where the bugs have gnawed. Despite the spraying chemicals where their family lives. bug, commonly referred to as just the “stink bug,” is Placing a disposable aluminum turkey pan under able do great damage on farms in the summer and produce’s freshness and safety for consumption, this forces farmers to use their fruit only for juice, unable a lit-up desk lamp, and filling it with warm soapy early fall months, specifically in Pennsylvania. to sell it whole, even at a reduced price.

According water will attract the stink bugs. The soapy water Stink bugs feed upon a wide variety of fruits and to the Associated Press, the profit from stink bugand the warm light draws them in, and the soap vegetables. In their native countries (China, Japan keeps them in the trap, as they can’t gain traction and Taiwan), it is not unusual for them to be found affected crops can be reduced by almost 90%.

Pesticides aren’t consistently effective – if they on the suds. on soybeans and a variety of fruit, including but are sprayed one day, the resilient bugs will be back If this seems unappealing for a living space, try not limited to persimmons, citrus fruits, figs and the next.

Though various techniques are being tested carefully cutting the top off of a plastic soda bottle, peaches, but farmers have found that the stink bugs are not discriminatory in their taste – they seem for keeping them away from crops, nothing has been gluing foam (found in a hardware store) to several to find most fruits and vegetables, and even some largely successful, and researchers are still working points around the circumference of the bottle, so the decorative plants, desirable, regardless of region. In on ways to get the stink bug population under bugs have a surface to climb up. Then, take the top control. The introduction of the bottle, cap still screwed on, upside down into of a predatory species the main area of the bottle, securing it down with is being considered, tape. Place a battery powered light under the bottle but could have many to attract them, and add a little soapy water in the unforeseen consequences, top if desired. thus resulting in a long Additionally, rubbing scented dryer sheets along process for approval. window screens reportedly cuts down stink bug The US Department of sightings in the home greatly.

Agriculture has developed So, let’s support local Pennsylvania farmers by an artificial stink bug trying to make less of a stink about stink bugs in pheromone, which can our home, because their presence in our home is not be used in the summer to where they are the most harmful. ■ lure the bugs away from crops, when placed on Kassia Janesch is a senior at Penn State studying traps located away from English and Environmental Inquiry. the fields.

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December/January 2014/15

Advice to happily survive the winter chill

By JAY SEARLES jay@weatherranger.com So… remember last winter - how cold it got and just stayed there? So far, as of this writing in November, it is looking like it may be the same, or possibly worse, this year. Some folks told me how cold and miserable they were last winter, basically just “holed up” in their apartment or home, afraid to go out, so depressed and irritable that they made friends and family suffer along with them.

GOOD NEWS! There are things you can do, not only to help yourself survive the winter chill, but to …THRIVE! Number one on the list is the problem of sensitivity to the cold. Everyone feels the cold deep down when its first shots come in the fall and early winter. As the temperature goes down, so does the mood. The number one way to deal with that is to protect yourself from the cold, and thankfully, science has come a long way to help us out. You can wrap yourself in the best thermal underwear that is designed to keep the body’s heat in, and the cold out.

Shawn Lupa, Product Specialist at Appalachian Outdoors shared a list of products they had which includes everything from the most modern, thin, very warm materials, to the latest in wool products that do not itch, and, as Lupa said, “keep your skin dry and you warm.” Some of the brands we discussed were Patagonia, Smart Wool, Ibex, and Ice Breakers.

This good stuff allows you to put on layers, go play, or do whatever you want outdoors while staying warm. Then, when you come in, you will also feel comfortable because you’re still dry since the layers allowed your skin to “breathe.”

Photo courtesy of crosscountryskipa.com

A cross country skiing path in Central Pennsylvania from the website of major cross-country skiing enthusiast and local teacher Howard Pillot. Pillot’s site has maps and resources for cross-country skiing in Pennsylvania.

The other major issue in winter interfering with good health and happiness is the lack of exposure to sunshine. This tends to put people on a downward spiral, sometimes sending them in a desperate search for a remedy for their blues. One solution is to take a short, regular walk outside. It will invigorate you, get your blood circulating, and expose you to the sun. There is another place I think folks could go that might help – to the vitamin department of your local store. Since I am not a medical professional, you will need to check with your doctor first before doing anything shared here.

From personal experience, according to blood tests I took, I had low Vitamin D levels heading into the 2012 winter season. My doctor put me on 10,000 to 15,000 units of Vitamin D a day. (It takes a month or more to get levels up in your body to where they can do you some good, and one pill of vitamin D in most brands is only 1,000 units). Once my levels were up, I felt so much better and healthier for the rest of the winter.

So you fix all this stuff and you’re feeling warm and comfy inside; there is even a smile on your face most of the time. Then what do you do with this white winter wonderland?

Well, there is a lot you can do depending on how the winter turns out, especially snow-wise.

Locally, for downhill skiing, there is Tussey

Mountain, with plenty of space to zoom down the slopes and have a great time. This, of course, is dependent on snow cover, but we don’t have to worry about that. All we need is cold weather and the good folks at Tussey Mountain will make a great snow cover for us!

If we get plenty of snow across the state, there are places you can go cross country skiing, too - even some places that are pretty likely to have good snow regardless of what the weather is doing. One source you can access for more information, headed by major enthusiast and local teacher Howard Pillot, is his web page, “crosscountryskipa.com.” It has maps and resources with recommendations for equipment and clothing and where to find the best cross-country skiing in Pennsylvania.

An outdoor activity that is a bit rare here is ice fishing. I am an enthusiast from Minnesota who looks forward to drilling holes in the ice and to catching fish. All species that bite in the summer can be caught in the winter through the ice, though it is usually a slower process. If you decide to take up this adventure, do your research and go prepared: Do not go alone, ever! Safety is your number one concern. Some local lakes that freeze over by mid to late December are Black Moshannon and Canoe Creek State Park. There are several local bait stores with lots of information and equipment available.

There are also plenty of winter sports and activities in all the local communities. Many activities occur around the holiday season, and sports continue throughout the winter. You can visit area web pages, including happyvalley.com for listings. Always be aware of the weather forecast and potential changes before heading out, though. And for that, you can check local listings including weatherranger.com.

However you decide to tackle the cold weather season, I just hope it is safe and enjoyable for you.

Cheers! ■ Jay Searles is a meteorologist who forecasts the weather for the State College area at weatherranger. com.

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December/January 2014/15

Not so fast there: The LAGuide to change

By STEVE DEUTSCH VOICES Satirist sdeutsch22@gmail.com Who among us hasn’t stepped outside on the first crisp day of autumn, taken a deep woodsy breath, coughed, and exclaimed that “change is in the air.” And, I’m sure that many of us grew up with a “philosopher uncle.” In my case it was great Uncle Mulliner, who would as he sat by the fire in every weather, place his paper down, scratch his balding head, take a sip of his cold tea and a puff on his dead pipe and wisely proclaim, “The more things change the more they stay the same.”

Make no mistake about it, change is coming.

It is even coming to the Centre region, where it has been 1954 since, well 1954. And although, humankind, p a r t i c u l a r l y Americans, find it difficult to accept, change did not start with Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. Philosophers, poets and politicians have been commenting on the causes and effects of change for thousands of years.

Heraclitus even argued STEVE DEUTSCH VOICES Satirist that “there is nothing permanent except change.” While to Confucius, “Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.” A subtle Lao Tzu states, “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” And C.S. Lewis helpfully adds, “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.” We even know where change happens, thanks to Ronnie Reagan who said, “All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” And where it doesn’t, thanks to George Carlin who said, “I put a dollar in a change machine. Nothing changed.”

Strangely, it was my young cousin, Charley, who summed up how most of us feel about change.

Charley is an evolutionary biologist with three

Ph.D.’s, an MD Here at Stevieslaw, we feel that the real problem in dealing with change and a habit of is not that change is happening, but that it appears to be happening entertaining friends and family faster and faster. Wasn’t it Paris Hilton who famously said when in his basement discussing Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity on the last Oprah, laboratory.

His “More than 98% of the change that has ever affected mankind has face reflects the strain of a lifetime happened since last Wednesday?” of staring at really, really small things and fighting for government grants by writing around the word evolution. recent mid-term elections. In the guide, you will not Charley’s favorite expression, usually uttered while only learn the best techniques for molding yourself staring at who-knows-what in a high powered into an emotional fetal position, but also where to microscope is a resigned “all change is bad.” Many buy the buttons and tee shirts that best express in the family find these outbursts disturbing. Some your decline. We will show you how you can at least have been forced to seek counseling, while others- become cognizant of the changes that are clobbering --like Cousin Jerry, may be found most days in a you by passively studying them. Why not arrange bedroom closet gibbering things like, “the end in for an eight-year-old and an eighteen-year- old to lecture you and your neighbors on what’s current nigh.”

Here at Stevieslaw, we feel that the real problem in once or twice a day?

3. Run and Hide: Here in Central Pennsylvania, dealing with change is not that change is happening, but that it appears to be happening faster and faster. we often encounter Amish and Mennonite horses Wasn’t it Paris Hilton who famously said when and buggies on our major roads. More often than discussing Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity on not, we brake or swerve around them in time. I the last Oprah, “More than 98% of the change that suspect most residents have wondered, when the has ever affected mankind has happened since last pace of life seems just too much, about showing Wednesday?” And that is the reason we are pleased up at a Sunday service and asking, sincerely “Can to publish, “Not so Fast, Not so Fast: The Less- I live with you?” In the guide, we will teach you intelligent-than-average-American Guide to dealing why that just won’t work---you have no skills, they with change.” In the guide, we will instruct you in have actual rules, etc. The answer is to form your great detail about the three strategies of dealing very own religious group that won’t accept change in any form. In the guide, we introduce you to a with change (or for that matter most problems): 1. Embrace it1---Be the first person on your host of American locations where no one lives or block for every new endeavor. Start with a continuous wants to live. Learn to live off the land by accepting alfalfa! You contract with Virgin Galactic to explore the Universe government subsidies for not growing 2. can do that the old fashioned way and beyond. Have technical updates from companies Buy the guide and use December and January on the forefront of “the new” delivered instantly through a novel implant to your brain, and then have to study it. Hurry or the world will have completely your people test each new idea at once. Develop a changed before you are finished. fleet of drones for communication and defense.

1This may require substantial resources. If you Generate your power needs by processing invasive species of plants, animals, and people using a new are not already fabulously wealthy, see the LAGuide: technique that has as its single waste product, a Rags to Riches in America: The power of inherited dollop of anti-cancer vaccine. And more and more… wealth.

2Instruction may be found in Catch-22. ■ 2. Accept it: Sure change is going to turn everything on its head, but what can you do? Abject Steve Deutsch retired from Penn State in 2006, resignation and blind submission are things we have all learned to do well---witness the results of the although he has not yet told them.

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December/January 2014/15

Oregano, a seasoned cure for indigestion

By KASSIA JANESCH kaj5227@psu.edu Living in central Pennsylvania, we are all familiar with the sights and Dr. Hristov explained that they “carried out screening in in-vitro tests smells that come along with farm country, so much so that we with various compounds, essential oils, and other plant-derived compounds, don’t even wrinkle our noses at a field freshly and oregano leaves was the one that significantly decreased spread with manure. Bombarded with methane production in laboratory conditions.” news of climate change, it isn’t often Then, oregano was introduced into the cows’ diet, that we connect it with the picturesque and within a specified amount of time after feeding, (and smelly!) fields of cows. gas samples were taken from the rumen. For those However, the Pennsylvania State of us who aren’t familiar with the anatomy of cudUniversity College of Agriculture chewing mammals, the rumen is, according to Sciences has been conducting research Merriam-Webster, “the large first compartment at the dairy barns, located off Park of the stomach of a ruminant in which cellulose Avenue near Beaver Stadium, regarding is broken down by the action of symbiotic methane mitigation. Methane (CH4), microorganisms.” The methane emissions were according to the Environmental estimated using a tracer gas technique.

Protection Agency, “is the second most There were taste panels to compare prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the milk from control cows and milk from United States from human activities… those that were fed oregano, and Methane is emitted by natural sources the panelists were unable to tell the such as wetlands, as well as human difference. However, Dr. Hristov does activities such as leakage from not think that this method could be natural gas systems and the raising used on commercial dairy and meat of livestock.” farms yet. He stated, “we still need Methane is released from cows’ to do further research to confirm these digestive process, but can also findings in larger and longer trials.” further enter the atmosphere when However, the College of Agricultural manure is stored in large amounts. Sciences does not limit their research Because livestock like cows are to just one option in regards to raised for our consumption, these methane mitigation. They will soon methane emissions are considered be publishing data regarding a recent to be human-related. trial they’ve done with a methane Dr. Alexander Hristov, a professor inhibitor that resulted in a consistent of Dairy Nutrition at Penn State, long-term decrease, around 30%, of has been conducting research methane production. to find ways to reduce methane This is without a doubt an important production from cows. He and his and necessary scientific advancement, team of research assistants made a but Dr. Hristov wanted to clear surprising find involving a common something up: “The general public kitchen staple – the herb oregano. may have a misperception of the role Most commonly seen when of livestock in total greenhouse gas sprinkled upon a slice of pizza, oregano emissions in the US. The contribution is also linked to high antioxidant levels is only about 3%. The public should and may have anticancer properties. pay a lot more attention to reducing This was suggested in several studies greenhouse gasses from energy and with animals, though this is still transportation than from agriculture being studied and isn’t certain yet, activities.” ■ according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. It has Kassia Janesch is a senior at previously been used with livestock in a commercial farm setting, to reduce Penn State studying English and mortality rates and increase success of Environmental Inquiry. reproduction.

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December/January 2014/15

Letters to the Editor Voices encourages letters to the editor and opinion pieces commenting on local issues. Send submissions to oped@voicesweb.org.

Letters should be a maximum of 250 words; opinion pieces should be a maximum of 800 words. We reserve the right to edit for length. Because of space limitations we cannot guarantee publication. Letters become the property of Voices.

I’m appalled that Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act for women once again as a senator. He was one of only 25 senators to vote against it this week and that was the third time he has blocked this bill as a senator.

Doesn’t he recognize the importance of providing equal pay for equal work for women? By 2018, women will make up the majority of America’s workforce so we must fix this pay disparity. The bill would punish employers who retaliate against

employees who share wage information and would create a grant program that would train women on pay negotiation skills.

Sadly, this is not the first time Toomey has voted against women. He’s also failed to cosponsor the International Violence Against Women Act of 2014, which would permit United States leadership to have regional cooperative arrangements with five to 20 other countries to prevent violence against women and girls. He’s voted three times to end

services for victims of human trafficking such as crisis intervention, counseling, emergency shelter, criminal justice advocacy and emergency transportation. He’s even voted to defund a U.S. Attorney-led human trafficking task force.

I don’t understand why Toomey repeatedly votes against the interests of women.

Linda Jacka-Frantz Bellefonte, Pa.

Tantalizing highlights of the 2014 midterms

By MARYLOUISE MARKLE mlouisemarkle@gmail.com In a fog of irony too dense to drive through, and among the many highlights of a memorable election evening, Republicans have sent a self-identified castrating woman to Washington. (Joni Ernst, R. Iowa).

Florida chose a sitting governor with an aversion to both floor fans and telling the truth (Rick Scott). Wisconsin reelected a misogynist with a penchant for disciplining teachers (Scott Walker). Texas elected their former Attorney General who has made vast inroads in disenfranchising qualified voters in Texas (Gregg Abbott).

Massachusetts elected an outsourcingaward-winning-crybaby with a fake human-interest story about fishy families (Charlie Baker). And a former centerfold, that still plays one on TV while driving a pick-up truck (Scott Brown), nearly undid a committed and respectable sitting Democrat from

New Hampshire (Jeanne Shaheen).

Apparently, the Democratic record just wasn’t good enough. God/Zeus knows that the “faltering economy” is all the President’s fault.

Yes. Approximately 10 million Americans now have affordable healthcare, bringing costs down (CBO). There have been 64 consecutive months of job growth (Forbes) and 4.538 million new jobs created. The Stock market has topped 17,000. There are now two additional women on the Supreme Court. Bin Laden is dead, which used to matter. Same-sex couples now enjoy equal rights. And there have been strong though quiet anti-poverty measures and pro-environment Executive Orders (Republicans are suing him). Moreover, the U.S. economy is soundly recovering from the Bush Recession, despite years of Republican obstruction and a trickledown economy nearly completely gutted by Republicans the last time Americans endowed them with power.

And so, in the tragi-comic 2014

midterms, Republicans, without firing a single synapse, have successfully deemed all that was good to be bad, blaming President Obama, with a lot of help from cable news on both sides. Cowardly Democrats, rather than taking credit for populist issues — health care, the economy, student loans, the environment — chose instead to distance themselves from their own success. And worst of all, a majority of alienated, lazy or misguided voters made the

unfortunate choice to simply not show up, leaving the election — and the fate of our democracy — to the least informed and the most unreasonably angry one-sixth of the voters among us.

A veritable “Confederacy of Dunces.” ■

Marylouise Markle is a writer who lives in State College, PA.

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December/January 2014/15

Out and about: This month in your township State College Borough The borough has completed a proposed budget for 2015 that calls for the elimination of several currently vacant positions, including two police officer positions. Snow removal laws are as follows: Snow must be removed from the full width of all public walks within 24 hours after the snow has stopped falling; antiskid materials must be placed on icy walkways; if the walks are not cleared of ice and snow, the borough may have the walk cleaned and bill the property owner for the cost of the work. ■

Ferguson Township

Harris Township

Patton Township

Residents will be informed about snow emergency routes, offered tips for protecting mailboxes from snow plow operations, and provided other information by email automatically by going to their website at twp.ferguson. pa.us. Click on winter weather reminders at the link.■

The township has a program called “Adopt-a-Hydrant” in which community members commit to keeping the hydrants of their choice clear of snow in the winter, and free of weeds and shrubs in the summer. Contact: www.info@ boalsburgfire.com. ■

The Waddle Road Interchange Improvement Project to widen the road will begin this year and is projected to finish by the end of 2016. In March they will bid out the remainder of the project.

Twelve million dollars in state and federal funds have been appropriated for the project. The township will remain responsible for utility relocations and right of way acquisition. ■

College Township Mount Nittany Medical Center has applied for permission to build a “Healing Garden” in the spring of 2015. The space it would occupy is currently open space.■

Whitey Blue on war in the classroom

By DAVID SILVERMAN VOICES Satirist silver1922@earthlink.net I was talking the other day to Whitey Blue, longtime Centre Region resident and hard-nose.

Whitey, I read in the local newspaper the other day about a grade school recently having a tribute

to war veterans in their all-purpose room. Have any thoughts about that?

“I sure do! Why expose all those little kids to the horrors of war?”

So they will appreciate the horrors these guys and gals went through to protect this country!

“C’mon, some of these kids in 10 to 15 years will be drafted into the service to fight against whatever

country or group the government of that day declares war on. Why bother them with all that now? By that time today’s enemies, like ISIS or al-Quaida, may be our allies!” ■ David M. Silverman, combat vet of WWII, who, appreciatively, attended such a gathering at a local school.

VOICES OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA Thoughtful. Fearless. Free.

An Open Letter to Those Responsible for Removing Kevin Reuning

When you, GPSA President Rhubart and Executive Vice President Whalen, under advisory by the judiciaries, removed Kevin Reuning, a delegate for the College of Liberal Arts in the Graduate and Professional Student Association as the chairperson for the Committee of Student Concerns for surveying the graduate and student body on their…concerns, we were shocked. Some felt that the survey was critical of the GPSA and others thought the survey was a good barometer of the organization, but the response was to cite presidential privilege in making policy and thus limit discussion on the issue. Furthermore, you have referenced this as an internal matter when it is in fact of upmost importance to the Graduate and Professional Student body.

Trying to silence criticism in this

way can only be counterproductive, as is citing a constitution that lacks clarity and is recognized by all as wanting.

Those of us who support Kevin and recognize his considerable efforts and talents can only be disappointed by such a short-sighted action. We believe that the challenges of the GPSA need people like Kevin and those who have come forward to support him.

We want to move forward and make the GPSA something vital. Right now the GPSA has a great chance to change the image that it has had in the past.

We’ve made great gains in a short period of time by having dedicated people like Kevin working in the GPSA. Others are equally dedicated and some of those people have spoken out already on social media and are understandably concerned. Many in the student body are in support of this

survey and will be concerned as well.

We have made gains convincing the grad and professional student body that we are serious about advocating, representing and serving them; let’s not spoil it now. Reinstate Kevin and hopefully he will accept. Otherwise, please tell me who will be more committed in his or her time, efforts, and spirit, in working to better the welfare of graduate and professional students? Tell me what direction we are to take if you fail to listen?

Concerned Graduate and Professional Students (This list continues to grow and Reuning also has wide spread support among graduate students not involved in GPSA directly.)

Anne Whitesell, Graduate Student College of Liberal Arts,Department of Political Science Spencer Carran, PhD Candidate, Ecology/CIDD, IGDP Delegate Representative to the student health insurance taskforce Jeffrey masko, PhD Candidate,

College of Communications, Student Delegate of the Graduate Council, Executive Secretary of the GPSA Enica Castaneda, College of Communications Mehmet Ali Döke, PhD Candidate in Entomology Program in the College of Agricultural Sciences & At Large Delegate in GPSA Mahmut Nedim Cinbiz, PhD student in Nuclear Engineering Ceyda Coruh, PhD in Plant Biology Natali Ozber, PhD Candidate in Plant Biology and a member of Student Concerns Committee in GPSA Renata Horvatek, Ph.D. candidate, Education Theory and Policy | Comparative and International Education Morteza Nove 22 Laurent Cases, Graduate Student Morteza Karimzadeh, PhD Student, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Stephanie N. Berberick, PhD candidate, Mass Comm/ Women Studies minor ■

Sales person to head advertising department. Apply to Elaine Meder-Wilgus at webstersbookstore cafe@gmail.com. Great opportunity for outgoing person.