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Quote, Unquote 'The flag symbolizes tremendous pain and suffer ing and invokes deep pride and determination.’ John Palms, USC president Whe (5amecock 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 End of registration not a dead end The first round of registration ended Friday, but some students have found themselves shut out of required classes because there aren’t enough spaces. In some cases, colleges are facing a lack of faculty, an increase in the number of students taking classes, or a combination of both. For example, according to USC’s Institutional Planning and Re search Web page, the College of Journalism and Mass Communica tions has grown from about 700 students in 1993 to more than 1,000, but in the same time span, the school has lost eight faculty members. Not only does this present a problem for students and faculty during advisement periods, but it also stretches the faculty thin and leads to a shortage of classes available for students to take. The College of Journalism is not alone in facing this problem. As if that weren’t enough, some students who register early lake advantage of upper-class status and exacerbate problems for ^udents who must register later. 1 hese students pack their schedules with the maximum number of credit hours, planning to drop disappointing classes at the beginning of the semester. Fortunately, students who are shut out from classes they want or need can fight back, thanks in large part to the ease of online registration. Keep trying to register online for the class you want — through the end of this semester, during winter break, and even during the first days of class next semester. Chances are, someone will drop the class and leave an open space. Also, people who don’t make their tuition payments are automatically dropped from classes, and especially in larger classes, there’s bound to be some one who doesn’t pay his bill on time. An alternative is to go straight to the professor teaching the chiss or to the undeigraduate student services office for your major and explain your situation to them. Particularly if you require the class to graduate, professors will typically understand and at least try to work with you. * Don’t give up hope. No registration system is perfect; the best thing students who need certain courses can do is to understand the system. Most students who really need certain courses can take them if they perservere. football fans need to stay for long haul Although Saturday’s face-off against Clemson ended as most feared - despite a good fight, we finished the season with no wins - all is not lost for the USC football program. * We urge people to remember that improvement takes time. As pleased as we are to have Lou Holtz as a Gamecock, football mira cles don’t happen overnight. Just as some of our academic prizes, such as the Darla Moore School of Business, grew during years of careful planning and hard work, our football program needs time to blossom. Being a dedicated fan to a football team is somewhat like in vesting in the stock market; you have to be in it for the long haul. That Williams-Brice Stadium remained packed during the darkest moments of our losing streak is a credit to the fortitude and fideli ty of Gamecock football fans. Our football team’s record will im prove; we have to be patient. I 1 The Gamecock is the student newspaper of The University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and t nday 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 Streel Columbia. SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. SnioCHT MBNA Area code 803 Advertising 777-3888 Classified 777-1184 Fax 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803 Editor gckedOsc.edu 777-3914 News gcknewsOsc.edu 777-7726 Viewpoints gckviewsOsc.edu 777-7181 Etc gcketcOsc.edu 777-3913 Sports gcksportsOsc.edu 777-7182 Online www.gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Submission Poucy Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcomi from all members of the Carolina community. Letters should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be ai opinion piece of about 600-700 words. I I Both must include name, phone number, profes * ’ onal title or year and maw, 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 tor 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 tor more information. ---1 I ME VaAMECOCK 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 Kelowitz 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 4 __ Will Gillaspy Online Edita Corey Ford Asst. Viewpoints Editor John Huiett Asst. News Edita Ann Marie Mianl Asst. EtCetera Edita David Cloninger Asst. Sports Edita Greg Farley Asst. Photo Edita Casey Williams Asst. Online Edita Brad Walters Graphics Edita. Copy Edita. Editorial Contributa MacKenzie Craven Charlie Wallace Philip Burt Senior Writers Sherry Holmes Classified Manager Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Jonathan Dunagin Graduate Assistant College Press Exchange W m 1 wswc*# wnC L mmm mm,«, {i mmm mauL,** 3 nmu048 fim„. U* **fi&:*i* m.„ / fciPSa# PKSli,. . Social Issues 'Good' acts should be examined There are many things we do here at the university in or der to take up the time between class, sleep, and studying; Some people go out and join clubs, whether those be sports, greek, resi dence hall, etc. Others just love to party. Some people like to explore the intellectual oppor tunities available to them. Then there are the people who feel that they’re going to save the world. Wanting to make your community a better place to live or to assuage the guilt of having a better life than others isn’t wrong, but it’s selfish. If that is what your heart tells you to do, then do it. One of the human race’s beauties is that it can gain satisfaction and pleasure out of helping other people. If you’re doing it to make others think that you’re a wonderful person, you’re an idiot. University oiganizations can be the worst at this. I joined Into the Streets my freshman year, just to see what it was like. They assigned my group at a welfare-hous ing zone to clean the grounds. The people there didn’t give a damn; we were help ing nobody. It was, in short, an attempt to stroke students’egos. Some people were fooled; others (like me) learned their les son. There is no greater an assembly of the naive and blind than Amnesty International. Some of its members have a perception and value system that is truly noble, and my respect for them is great, but I still say they’re naive. These people, however, are not blind. They know what they are doing and know themselves. They are not the people I will be describing with great pe jorative intention. Violence is always an alternative. It is often inappropriate and/or ineffective, but it is always an alternative. Sometimes it is the best alternative. I’m just stating a fundamental difference of opinion, and this isn’t enough to flame others. This is... One person I knew from Amnesty In ternational went on (and on, and on ...) about work with migrant farm workers. This person criticized me for having op posing views. I’m not sorry that we enjoy low pro duce prices. If we have to maintain the current system to do it, I’m all for it. A half-hour later, this person and a couple other AI members were discussing how much Hispanics disgusted them. They did n’t realize that they were saying it, but they were. Not implying or insinuating, but plainly saying it. If I was a migrant work er, and I knew of their characters, I’d spit at their help. Another example is someone who wanted me to sign a petition denouncing the NYPD because two cops filled a West African immigrant with 40 bullets. He didn’t know English, was told to stay still, and wound up rushing the officers be fore being perforated. In neighborhoods like the one in which this happened, crack is rampant and a police uniform is a target. A perceived act of aggression is a “shoot first, ask questions later” situation. Too many cops have been killed because they got this order wrong. As for 40 bullets, it may seem excessive, but it really isn’t. In neighborhoods like these, the standard is sue is two 9mm automatic pistols that hold 13 bullets each. Two cops and-two pistols equals 52 bullets that can be fired in no less than eight seconds. Why did they fire so many times? Wfell, it was dark, and if the guy is on crack, bul lets that hit but do not hit the heart, brain, or a major artery do not count. If your fife is on the line and you’re not a stalwart paci fist, then you don’t take chances. Most of the members of AI aren’t even stalwart enough to stick with it once they gradu ate, let alone find themselves under such tests of character. Know thyself before crit icizing others. Some of us need to realize that we are only animals — animals capable of unri valed beauty and brutality. People are going to be homeless, tortured, starved, filled with bullets, oppressed by dictators, and generally miserable because of others’ desires. I am very thankful that I am not one of these people, and I never forget it. That is why when 1 sit at the dinner table this Thursday, 1 can say that I truly realize the significance of that day. College Press Exchange USC police focus too much on parking tickets To the Editor The time has come for someone to stand up against the actions and behaviors of the USC “police.” For too long, these so-called protectors of campus have been more of a public nuisance than a public help. Save the uniform and gun, one could eas ily mistake a USC “policeman” for a me ter maid. In fact, I find it hard to believe that they do anything else but hand out parking violations. Doing little more than acting as meter maids with guns, the officers seem to do nothing more than hand out parking tickets and call tow trucks all day long. At a campus with horrible park ing already, the last thing stressed out students need is 400 cops trying to have their cars towed. For instance, two Sun days ago, I parked in the School of Law parking lot. Granted, it is reserved for those with special stickers, but no more than three cars were parked. This left about 30 unused spaces on a Sunday afternoon. When I came back to my car, it was gone. It is utterly unnecesary for a paid “police officer” to scour the empty lots across cam pus looking for illegally parked cars. I would assume that they might have better things to do. Maybe it’s just me, but I be lieve thefts, rapes, and other more violent crimes should take precedence over the scum of society who park their cars ille gally. It is simply time for a change. Clarence Alston Computer Science Freshman State Issues Flag does r not belong over state Maybe it’s because I wasn’t bom in South Car olina. Maybe it’s because my parents are Yankees. How ever, I’ve been raised in South Carolina since I was three years old, and I don’t think these have any influence on my opinion concerning the Confederate flag on lop of the State House dome. First of all. I’m a little concerned as to why the NAACP has singled South Car olina out as the most evil and racist state in the South when Georgia and Mississip pi both have the Confederate flag incor porated into their state flags. Why aren’t these two states facing a boycott from the largest, most powerful minority associa tion in this great land of ours? In my hum ble opinion, Mississippi and Georgia should be feeing a boycott similar, if not more se vere than, South Carolina’s. These states have taken what some feel is a symbol of hatred and have used it to represent their state wherever their flags are flown. This appears, at least to me, to be a much more unacceptable application of the flag than what our humble state has done by placing the original flag over the Capitol. - However, despite the fact that South Carolina isn’t the only state deserving a boycott, Gov. Jim Hodges’ “compromise” concerning the flag fells well short of what should be done. One of Hodges’ ideas is that the flag will be moved from the Capi tol and placed in a monument of some kind on the Statehouse. In exchange for this, Hodges offers the recognition of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as’a state holiday. This offer is just silly. Attaching the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to something like the Confeder ate flag is a disgrace to King’s name. King is arguably the most important American of this century. What he did to advance the ideals of racial equality in this country can’t be understated. The fact that Hodges wants to offer this “compromise” is almost sickening. King’s accomplishments stand alone in their greatness. Why bring the flag into this debate? King’s birthday should be a stale holiday regardless of what happens to the Confederate flae. I understand that the flag represents heritage for many Southerners. The his tory of their ancestors should be remem bered. However, the Statehouse dome is not the appropriate venue for these memories. The fact of the matter is that, unfortunately, many racists use the flag as a symbol of their intolerance toward African-Americans. It is for this simple rea son that the flag should be taken down. I frilly support the placing of the flag in some sort of monument on the Statehouse grounds. The history of this state is inter esting and important to remember. Many people gave their lives to the divisive Whr Between the States, and a memorial to these South Carolinians is necessary. Finally, 1 feel that the flag should be re moved simply because it is an embarrass ment. I love the South and what it has to offer. However, many Yankees watch movies like “A Time to Kill” and think of the South as a land of dirt roads, racist red necks, pick-ups, and trailers without air conditioning. The South is looked upon as the ignorant brother in the family known as the United Slates. The fact that the flag flies above the Statehouse only exacerbates this view. Late night comedians often see this issue as a great source of material for their shows. They make light of something that is a very serious issue for many proud Southerners. It is because of this that the South is often frowned upon. The re moval of the flag would help remove some of the stigma placed on the South, espe tioiiy my uuiut' ituuj. However, the best reason for re moval of the flag is that, for many, it is a symbol of racism and evil. Despite your own personal view of what the flag means, you should respect this fact and support the efforts to bring it down.