Last weekend, comedian Mike Birbiglia opened his performance with a critique of The Daily Collegian's Feb. 29 front page. He specifically mentioned a drunken driving case and the day's --State Patty's Day -- events, noticing the irony inherent in creating a holiday for drinking at a university where it is already too de rigueur.

It's not a joke, he told his audience, "it's an intervention."

Though the criticism brought both embarrassed chuckles and proud roars from the audience, the point was a serious one.

State Patty's Day 2008 witnessed five arrests for DUI, six for disorderly conduct, seven for public drunkenness and 17 for underage drinking.

"Penn State," he said, "you have a drinking problem."

Anticipating more crime than a normal weekend, the State College Police Department increased staffing by 50 percent and fielded 121 calls, more than the 80 calls they respond to on a normal Saturday.

Those aren't exactly the kind of statistics you want to have on a day that Safeguard Old State (SOS) Student Relations Director Joe Veltre called "a day students can kind of unify."

It's not surprising. You don't need a crime, law and justice major to tell you that if you designate a day for excessive drinking, it makes sense that there would be an increase in unruly behavior.

SOS supported this year's State Patty's Day and tried to partner with LateNight Penn State to organize some non-alcoholic activities for students. The partnership never happened.

Instead of saying that they "didn't have the resources to offer alternative programming," members of SOS could have thought up some sort of alternative that wouldn't have been expensive to organize.

After promoting the day for its ability to create community among students, they should have done something for those students who didn't feel like getting wasted.

State Patty's is an interesting tradition.

But a tradition that includes DUIs and disorderly conduct and public drunkenness citations is a tradition not worth having.