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I Quote, Unquote ‘More RAs are needed because one RA is not suf ficient for the amount of residents per hall.' Tiran Thomas, Douglas RA '©it ©amecock - p«*s Whc 6amccock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Editorial Board Sara Ladenheim • Editor in Chief Kenley Young • Managing Editor Emily Streyer • Viewpoints Editor Corey Ford • Assistant Viewpoints Editor Brad Walters • Editorial Contributor Kiki McCormick • Editorial Contributor Lawsuit against The State nearly comedic Consider this scenario: The advertising department and the online staff of The State want to make more money from online casino ads. So they conspire with the editorial board to rally against video poker in the hope that when video poker is criminalized, more gamblers will turn to the online sites that ad vertise with The State. Of course, nothing like this ever took place. This story was in vented by CoIUhs Entertainment for a lawsuit accusing The State of unfair trade practices. we ve got to nana it to coinns on one count: inis nas to oe one of the most creative lawsuits ever filed. But our amusement is this lawsuit’s only merit. The suit is simply an attempt to deflect criticism of video poker and get positive press by portraying the industry as a victim. This is especially obvious from the fact that other media outlets were told about the lawsuit before The State was. We’re confident that something this silly won’t be taken seri ously. There’s a near-sacred separation of the advertising and edi torial sections of a newspaper, and there’s no evidence that The State has violated that. The paper had been writing against video poker for a long time before the ads appeared on its Web site. In fact, The State didn’t even choose the ads. They were included in a set from the paper’s parent company, Knight Ridder, which was unaware of the ads’ true content. The ads have since been re moved. Furthermore. The State received only a nominal amount of money for these ads. What newspaper would compromise its in tegrity for a couple thousand dollars? Let’s not give Collins En tertainment the satisfaction of being taken seriously. Instead, let’s sit back and watch as the comedv unfolds. Safe Ride questions still need answers sc 's Student Government is once again promising that the university-wide Safe Ride program, designed to provide stu dents with sober transportation from Five Points during the weekends, is near fruition. But some of the same obstacles that hampered earlier efforts to secure the sober ride service must still be overcome, and the student senate doesn’t seem to be any closer to answering any practical questions about the program. For exam ple, Student Government might be committed to maintaining the service, but how will it fund Safe Ride? Will it be sponsored by Columbia businesses? Will the university help subsidize it? Will the money come from a portion of the student activity fee each student pays with tuition? If so, will this significantly increase tu ition? Student Services co-chairwoman Melissa Fletcher’s answer? i m not exacuy sure wnere me money is coming irom. Also, Fletcher said she hasn’t even met with USC Vehicle Man agement and Parking Director Derrick Huggins. All we know is that, according to Fletcher, Huggins “sounded like he wanted to cooperate for us.” That’s typical bureaucrat-ese for “We don’t know how he will respond.” The Safe Ride program is a worth while service and SG should be commended for its efforts, but un less senators can start getting answers to the program’s fundamen tal funding questions, they’re not going to get any closer to making Safe Ride a reality for USC. About Us me bamecocK is me swoeni new^^ me university oi oourn wronna ana is puDiisnea ivionaay, weanesaay ana Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer with the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of The University of South Carolina. The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is the newspaper's parent organization. The Gamecock is supported in part by student activities fees. Address The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia. SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Student Media Area code 803 Advertising 777-3888 Classified 777-1184 Fax 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803 Editor gcked@sc.edu 777-3914 News gcknews@sc.edu 777-7726 Viewpoints gckviews@sc.edu 777-7181 Etc. gcketc@sc.edu 777-3913 Sports gcksports@sc.edu 777-7182 Online www.gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Submbsion Policy Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome from all members of the Carolina community. Letters should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be an opir*^ piece of about 600-700 words. >oth must include name, phone number, profes sional title or year and major, if a student. Handwritten submissions must be personally delivered to Russell House room 333. E-mail submissions must include telephone number for confirmation. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub lished. Photos are required for guest columnist and can be provided by the submitter. Call 777-7726 for more information. ' I The Gamecock Sara Ladenheim Editor in Chief Ken ley Young Managing Editor Emily Streyer Viewpoints Editor Kevin Langston Brock Vergakis News Editors Clayton Kale Associate News Editor Rachel Helwig EtCetera Editor Todd Money Jared Kelowita Sports Editor Kristin Freestate Copy Desk Chief Sean Rayford Photo Editor Rob Lindsey Encore Editor Student Media Ellen Parsons Director of Student Media Susan King Creative Director Kris Black Julia Burnett Betsy Martin Kathy Van Nostrand Creative Services y Will Gillaspy Online Editor Corey Ford Asst. Viewpoints Editor John Huiett Asst. News Editor Ann Marie Miani Asst. EtCetera Editor David Cloninger Assf. Sports Editor Greg Farley Asst. Photo Editor Casey Williams Asst. Online Editor Brad Walters Graphics Editor, Copy Editor, Editorial Contributor MacKenzie Craven Charlie Wallace Philip Burt Senior Writers Lee Phipps Advertising Manager Sherry Holmes Classified Manager Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Jonathan Dunagin Graduate Assistant College Press Exchange (O£\M5TO0y : ALCOHOL- 15 Gooo \r\£A&T__ State Issues Education priority over poker South Carolina Mario Ona has a huge js a pub|jc re|a. problem. If I t|on$ senior and spelled education £ 4 “ejukayshion,” «"tes a column would ya’ll know ev^ ^ what I be talkin’ Friday. He carr be about? 1 thought reached via The so. Gamecock at With our state gckviews@sc.edu having one of the j : worst educational systems in the United States, it is mind boggling why our representatives insist on giving so much attention to some hate pride symbolic cloth thing or some Nin tendo card-game machines. I don’t get it. Maybe these representatives are vic tims of the same educational system and somewhere along the way, they weren’t taught the meaning of “prioritize.” Well, gentlemen, it’s time to break the vicious circle and time to get these kids some re al education. I’m certain the flag and video poker machine issues concern many and deserve our representatives’ attention. But are these issues enough to justify pro crastination on the education issue for as many years as I can remember? I don’t think so. “Prioritize” is the mag ical word. We have seen some short-term initia tives to address the situation. But some how, the issue dies down, and it’s back to flags and Nintendo. It seems that most of these represen tatives want to resolve the education prob lem within their term. So, rather than initiating a long-term plan, which seems like a necessity, they try fast and easy, yet ineffective measures that keep the prob lem stagnant, governor after governor af ter governor. I recently read agreat example that il lustrates this point. Sen. Darrel Jackson, D-Richland, proposed dropping the SAT requirement (currently 1200) of the $5,000 Palmetto Fellows scholarship for minori ty high school graduates. This was in re sponse to the low percentage of minori ties that earn the scholarship every year. These students only earned 21 out of 704 total scholarships awarded in 1999. My first reaction was: “Does Jackson have any interest in finding out WHY minority students are not earning more scholarships?” My first question, after knowing of the low percentage, would have been: Why aren’t minority students earning more schol arships? While many people aigue that the SAT is a poor way of measuring high school stu dents’ potential, it is beside the point in this case. It is the intent of trying to re solve a problem quickly and convenient ly that makes my skin crawl. If I were Jackson, I would have con ducted some research to back a probable hypothesis: Minority students are not re ceiving the same preparation as their white middle-class counterparts. With an educational system as bad as South Carolina’s, it should come as no sur prise that the scarce good schools of the state are located in white middle- to high class neighborhoods. Upon determination that minority stu dents are not receiving an equal opportu nity to be as prepared as their majority counterparts, then, and only then, can a course of action be taken. But even then, doing away with the standards is absurd. There is no way to compensate for poor education. The minority students need to be prepared and given the instruments necessary to be able to compete with the majority. For this reason, I think Jackson’s pro posal is an abomination. You don’t help someone climb a wall by getting a tractor and bulldozing the wall down. You lock your hands and give them a boost. If you bulldoze the wall, where is the sense of ac complishment for that person (especially when the person realizes everyone else had to climb the wall)? By removing the SAT requirement as a means to “help” minority students earn the scholarship, Jackson would be rear ing substandard citizens who are not ca pable of reaching the same standards as their majority counterparts. Jackson’s initiative might have some immediate results and put more minority kids in college, but does he realize the long term consequences? Does he realize how hard college is without the proper tools? What happens when inadequate prepa ration begins to show up in college and the percentage of minority student dropouts begins to increase? Will Jackson then pro pose doing away with finals for minority students or, better yet, do away with GB\ requirements? Why doesn’t he just hand minority stu dents college diplomas! This is a classic example of fast and easy, yet ineffective, initiative. While the problem is temporarily resolved, the negative consequences linger. And the result is stagnation. So please, senators, representatives, political heads alike, put your heads to gether. Put the flags and video games away for now and at least take a first step toward better education for the future leaders of South Carolina. If you don’t, we are going to continue producing students who don’t under stand the word “priority.” And, Mr. Jackson, how about teach ing kids how to fish instead of just giving them a fish? That way, they can eat for life. Letters Evolution not accepted as proven, scientific fact To the Editor 1 am writing in response to the political cartoon you ran last week concerning evo lution. In it, the Kansas school board is de picted saying, “We’re not banning evolu tion ... we’re just eliminating... any mention of it... and pretending... it doesn t exist!” while going from a human to a micro-or ganism. For one, the Kansas school board is not getting rid of evolution but instead treat ing evolution as only a theory. A theory is a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle to explain phenomena, or an unproved assumption: conjecture. The school board is not teaching evolution as fact and is showing the flaws and in consistencies that persist in evolution. The theory of evolution has NOT been proven to be true. The theory of evolution is so plagued with assumptions that if just one is wrong the whole theory is shot. For example, there is a rock formation that one could take an evolutionist to and ask him/her how old it is. Now using their unifomiitain doctrine that states that ex isting processes acting in the same manner as at present are sufficient to account for all geological changes, they would look at the vast numbers of layers, some even If paperclip-thin, and state that the forma tion must be hundreds of thousands of years old, at least. They assume that a layer forms each year, because that is what we observe at the present, therefore many hundreds of thousands of years are needed to cre ate the many layers they see. They would be dead wrong though, because this for mation is at Mt. Saint Helens and was cre ated in several days, NOT thousands of years. And if evolutionists can be wrong on this, what else can they be wrong about? Or am I incorrect to say science could ever be wrong? Science KNEW 1500 years ago that the earth was the center of the uni verse. Science just KNEW 500 years ago that the earth was flat. And science KNOWS now that we evolved from sin gle-celled organisms that just somehow ap peared billions of years ago. What will we know tomorrow? Donnie Pritchett Pre-pharmacy junior Reflgkxi colums found tasteless, opinionated To the Editor 1 am a student here at the University of South Carolina and find your religious articles tasteless. 1 am probably not the first Y person who has noticed your apparent lack of taste. Today’s issue of The Gamecock has been the second issue with a less then appropriate religious story [“Heaven: not what it seems,” Sept. 8; “Whole god not for everyone,” Sept. 20]. I am quite aware that this is a secular .university, but your humor is not appreciated. A wide variety of people come to this establishment for an education. Beyond popular belief, not everyone likes to guzzle beer and have sex. Some people here come from very reli gious families. On behalf of these people, 1 would appreciate it if you toned down your tasteless, humorless, opinionated and quite disrespectful articles. Thank you. Clint Blunt Pharmacy freshman Editor’s Note: The pieces appearing on the Viewpoints page opposite the edito rials are columns, not factual articles, and reflect the opinion of the columnist only, not The Gamecock. Campus Issues Students have to speak up ometimes, I think it’s a good idea to discuss campus problems, to point -them out so that concerns can be shared and to sug gest possible solu tions. So here we go, in no particular order: • Have you ever needed to schedule a certain class in a certain semester and been foiled because all sections of that class were in the same inconvenient time slot? Sometimes, sections are held at the same time because they are laige lectures with smaller group meetings at other times. But often, sections are scheduled in the same slot for no discernible reason. It is, of course, a difficult job to coordinate the uni versity ’s class schedules. But it would be helpful to students if the university could make an effort to offer classes at different times; this particularly applies to classes that are required for students in certain ma jors or schools. • My God, the heat. My God, the cold. Have you ever tried to use the Thomas Cooper Library computer lab in winter? If so, you probably felt the need to wear a bathing suit and hydrate often. And what about sitting through class in Gambrell in August? Did you have to break out your woolen sweaters? Me, too. Fortunately, this campus problem is in the process of being dealt with right now, according to Charles Stevenson of Ener gy Services in the Facilities Management Center. The problem with some buildings, Stevenson said, is that the manual ther mostat controls in some buildings are dif ficult to adjust. The library controls, in par ticular, are difficult. This dilemma results in buildings that are overheated or over cooled, resulting in discomfort and wast ed energy and money. But relief is in sight. Stevenson and his department want an eneigy master plan that includes digital thermostat controls for all buildings on campus. These controls would make it eas ier for his department to adjust tempera tures to a comfortable level. Recently, $600,000 was allotted for a first year of up grades. Stevenson hopes to have that mon ey spent by June. And—great news—he says the library is a priority. • This is actually the problem of Mar riott (or whomever is in charge of food ser vices). “Rush hour” for food stations are, of course, those 15-minute breaks between classes, when we’re in a big hurry to scarf something on our way across campus. It would seem that the staff would adjust to serve our needs, but that doesn’t seem to be happening in some places, particularly in the Sidewalk Cafe in the humanities quad. I recently stood there in a long line to one register while four employees worked in the back. Why can’t people work the registers for 15 minutes, helping us get to class on time, and then go back to their oth er duties? • When you take a tennis class, don t you expect to be graded on, say, the de velopment of your ability to play tennis? That logic escapes the Physical Educa tion Department at USC. I admit this is a persona] pet peeve of mine, as I got a Ba in tennis because, though I gained skills, I did poorly on the test that partly consist ed of TENNIS HISTORY. It’s asinine, I know, but it happened. I don’t blame the coach, though. The P.E. Department re quires a laige part - in my experience, about a third - of the grade in a P.E. class to be “cognitive” in nature, which usually means a written exam. No matter how well a stu dent leams to dance, or kayak, or play a sport, she could fail the class because of a possibly irrelevant, but required, written test. Many students take P.E. classes to get some exercise with the discipline enforced by a grade to make themselves go to the gym. Others are in it for recreation, to re lieve the stress of school. It doesn’t help much when you know you can be given a poor grade, despite good effort, because of some test. 1 wish the P.E. Department would offer classes.to serve these needs, or at least significantly reduce the grade percentage for written work. So these are my thoughts. If you have any that I left out, that’s what letters to the editor are for. Wfe may as well express what we need and want out of this university - we’re paying for k.