Have some taste

Dear Editor,

As a Cal State Long Beach student, I am curious to see what our campus paper offers its readers. Each morning I tolerate the ink stains on my fingers in order to expand my awareness of the CSULB community.

On Aug. 31, 1998 the back cover of the Daily Forty-Niner featured a football player between the bare legs of a woman with the caption, "Penthouse: Grab it and have some fun." Apparently, the football player's goal was sex, and the ad was an appeal to the sexual impulses of college males.

This was a sad and crude indictment of your judgment. I do not pretend to be the moral voice of CSULB, but I am disturbed by the vulgar representations the ad will have on the newspaper and the university.

The juxtaposition of a front-page story of a CSULB student's perfect SAT score combined with a smutty back-page ad for a porn magazine sends very mixed signals, but as you journalists know, the last thing one reads will be remembered the most.

I am not debating the issue of pornography, only its place on our campus. We have prospective students and their parents touring campus every day; imagine their discomfort as your X-rated sponsor taints their impressions of CSULB.

I suggest using better judgment in the future. Please keep the porn out of our school.

­ Sam Pierstorff,

English major