COLUMN: See no news, hear no news

From Nadia Dowshen's, "Urban Guerrilla," Fall '99 From Nadia Dowshen's, "Urban Guerrilla," Fall '99Two recent incidents showed me how little Penn students, myself included, know and care about what goes on beyond the walls of our ivory tower. Campus organizations also perpetuate our ignorance of events in the world around us. On the Monday after the announcement of the University's new alcohol policy, the front page of The Daily Pennsylvanian consisted of six articles, all about alcohol, while genocide in Kosovo received only a few paragraphs of attention in the national and international section. For a quick quiz can you name the five candidates for the Philadelphia Democratic mayoral nomination? Do you know the history of the conflict between the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians? Do you know who Amadou Diallo is and why his death was so controversial? I would be the last to condemn students for not knowing what goes on. You'd think that as a pseudo-journalist I'd have a clue, but the truth is I almost never read the Inquirer or the Times except when I'm on vacation. Most days I read the DP but I usually finish my lunch and run off to class before I even get to the national and international sections. I rarely catch the news because I almost never watch TV -- except for an hour of ER on Thursday nights. Basically the only way I ever know what's going on is by talking to my parents. It's not that I don't care about what's going on. I just have other priorities. Reading the newspaper finishes last on the list, particularly when I'm weeks behind on reading, writing and collecting data for my thesis, have a write up due for lab the next day or have to research and write a column. And of course other commitments -- such as the second semester senior obligation to take advantage of our last chance to party late on weeknights -- take priority over awareness of world affairs. As a native Philadelphian and an Urban Studies major, it embarrasses me that I don't know what's going on in this city half of the time. But honestly it doesn't bother me all that much because even if I did know what was going on in local, national or international politics, who would I talk to about those issues? We hang out with other Penn students and we talk about issues like the alcohol ban or what jobs or grad schools were applying to. And then I feel like I've traveled to another country when I take a walk down to Rittenhouse Square or spend the day at University City High School, both within a mile of campus. The point is that college is the time when most of us have the luxury of isolating ourselves -- immersing ourselves in our studies, extracurricular activities and social lives -- before we go out into the real world. But we shouldn't get too complacent. It can be dangerous to lose perspective on the larger issues. The seriousness with which we treat issues like the new faulty alcohol policy pales in comparison to the fact that people are being murdered because of their ethnicity in Kosovo and that we live only blocks away from some of the most severe poverty in this country. The Penn community and the world would be healthier places if we all just took a few minutes each day to reflect; to learn from the experiences of our fellow citizens in the global village and our neighbors in our West Philadelphia backyard.