An Open Letter to Penn State President Eric Barron
Dear President Barron,
I am writing today to urge you to integrate college gambling education and prevention efforts into existing Penn State programs about alcohol, drugs and other risky behaviors.
Seventy-five percent of college students gambled during the past year (whether legally or illegally, on campus or off). While the vast majority of those old enough to legally gamble can do so responsibly, the most recent research estimates that 6% of college students in the U.S. have a serious gambling problem that can result in psychological difficulties, unmanageable debt and failing grades.
Higher education has responded vigorously to alcohol-related problems. Nearly all U.S. colleges and universities have policies on student alcohol use; however, only 22% have a formal policy on gambling. Those without policies in place have the responsibility to inform students about the risks of excessive gambling and to provide recovery-oriented measures. Now is the time for Penn State to meet that challenge and implement a formal policy on gambling.
Increased awareness of high rates of binge drinking has led to the development of numerous prevention programs. Working together, we can address gambling-related harms on and off campus, educate our college students on how to make responsible decisions about gambling and help those students struggling with gambling addiction.
I encourage you to visit collegegambling.org, which was developed by the National Center for Responsible Gaming and provides campus administrators and college health professionals with examples for promoting campus-wide awareness of college gambling.
Now is also the time for Penn State to speak out publicly as to whether Penn State University supports the approval or the denial of the casino license application for the proposed Nittany Mall casino in College Township. The township’s website includes over four hundred public comments from area residents in Happy Valley. Each of them e-mailed that casino-related feedback to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) at [email protected].
Penn State should do the same immediately by providing the PGCB with the university’s position regarding the recommended approval or denial of the casino’s license application. It is time to end the policy of silence Penn State has continually demonstrated regarding the proposed casino. Hundreds of our community members have expressed their opposition to the casino while emphasizing the potential negative impacts of a casino being available 24/7 near the main University Park campus of Penn State.
Thank you for your consideration of this important and growing issue. Your leadership in voicing Penn State’s support of or opposition to the proposed casino at Nittany Mall would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Daniel Materna,
Howard
No One Should Be Excluded from Human Rights
To the editor:
Thank you for the very thoughtful and thought-provoking article by Jennifer Black, “Mass Incarceration Is an Urgent Human Rights Crisis.” It is an important article.
Ms. Black rightly connects the case of Nelson Mandela and others who serve long prison sentences with the need to change the laws affecting incarceration, and with the racism of our current bloated prison system. Ironically, however, one of the bills she promotes, SB 135, would not apply to Mr. Mandela, nor to many of the other older incarcerated people, including other political prisoners, she mentions, because it excludes an entire category of incarcerated people from the bill’s benefits: If the bill is passed, it will continue to condemn anyone “convicted of murdering a law enforcement officer” to life without parole.
Truly to bring into being a system with the values Ms. Black describes — releasing those no longer a threat to public safety, offering redemption and a second chance to every human being, and placing human rights along with true public safety at the top of the list of values we need to honor in all aspects of society — necessitates providing every person the dignity, the human right, to be judged for who they are now. Equally important: No life should be valued above any other.
Such exclusions do nothing but satisfy the very need for revenge Ms. Black so persuasively argues against. The lessons of the years of mass incarceration also tell us that creating any new category of people labeled “criminal,” unworthy of solidarity and forgiveness, will only continue to swell the numbers of Black people, other people of color and poor people languishing in isolation behind prison walls. Excluding human beings from legal rights will allow the human rights abuse of mass incarceration to continue on a less mass scale.
I am well aware that including everyone in bills like SB 135 makes some lawmakers queasy about opposition, especially from well-funded and -organized forces. But the human rights nightmare of mass incarceration was created by just such “realpolitik,” and restoring justice will require a commitment to deeper values—and the courage to stand by them.
Laura Whitehorn,
New York City
GT’s Political ‘Nonsense‘
Those of us living in central and northern Pennsylvania know our congressman, Glenn “GT” Thompson, to be a friendly, caring, and decent person. But there is so much nonsense in his political analysis, policy stands and logic that he continually reminds us of how poorly we are served.
Look no further than Thompson’s recent weekly communication to his constituents. As a prime example, there isn’t one word in his February 25th missive about the unlawful, unprovoked and Hitler-like invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Not one word, despite the fact that his “newsletter” went out more than two weeks after Putin began threatening an invasion, and days after Putin actually launched his tyrannical war.
Instead, his newsletter peculiarly argues that the IRS is not processing our refunds fast enough because Biden supports a “radical climate change agenda” that somehow weaponizes the IRS.
Most absurdly, he suggests that the U.S. effort to reestablish controls on nuclear arms development in Iran is an insult to Americans. His evidence? This wholly unrelated statement by Kamala Harris (misspellings are GT’s):
“Racism exists in American. Xenophobia exists in American. Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, it all exists.”
That statement, which he implies he rejects, is his evidence that we are “sucking up to Iran’s leaders.”
GT’s illogical, nonsensical and partisan red-meat newsletter does more to inflame than inform—and strongly suggests to me that it’s past time we had a representative who thinks more clearly and who doesn’t simply regurgitate the latest blather that’s sent his way.
Martha Young,
State College
