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Quote, Unquote There were tattoo parlors down there, and massage parlors, but not the type of messages you see today.’ Edward Barnes, co-owner of Underground Columbia site Zk (Bmecock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Editorial Board Brock Vergakis • Editor in Chief Kevin Langston • Viewpoints Editor Nathan White • Asst. Viewpoints Editor Patrick Rathbun • Editorial Contributor Brad Walters • Editorial Contributor Martha Wright • Editorial Contributor Stores pull sauce for wrong reasons The controversy surrounding Maurice Bessinger's views on the Confederate flag and the slavery-condoning tracts he sells in his restaurants has led several local supermarkets to pull Maurice’s barbecue sauce from their shelves. While The Gamecock in no way endorses Bessinger’s views, we do believe the supermarkets that have pulled Bessinger’s sauce have done so for the wrong reasons. oiores nave earned me popular sauce oil meir sneives ioi many years, even while Maurice has held the same opinions he does now. Back in 1976, the Supreme Court ha'd to step in and force Bessinger to serve African-Americans at his restaurants. But only now that Bessinger’s views have become public con troversy once again have stores such as Bi-Lo, Wal-Mart and Food Lion chosen to ban his sauce. Given the timing of these stores’ moves, it seems only logical that the stores are pulling the sauce not necessarily because they disagree vehemently with Bessinger, but rather to avoid losing customers who find his now-public views objectionable. If cus tomers don’t like Bessinger’s opinions, they should have the right to decide whether they want to buy his sauce — supermar kets shouldn’t make that decision for consumers just to get good PR. To ban Bessinger’s sauce is to say that corporate America, in its everlasting quest to turn a constant profit, is perfectly justi fied in punishing someone for his opinion. The stores should recognize Bessinger’s right to an opinion and consumers’ rights to choose whether they agree with that opinion, and restore Maurice’s sauce to their shelves. Channel 51 has new lease on life Cnfortunately for the vast majority of Carolina fans, the USC-Alabama game was only available on pay-per-view television. Equally unfortunate was the fact that on-cam pus students did not have the option of purchasing the game. WRHA should take the initiative and broadcast all Carolina games that are not being televised by regular networks. Home and away games should be televised for students. Why not? WRHA currently has a channel that serves no useful purpose and could easily be used to broadcast games. Channel 51 broad casts 24 hours a day, seven days a week from the top of the School of Law. Hopefully, avid watchers of this channel will not mind if WRHA broadcasts all Carolina games that are not being broadcast by network stations. This would be a great service to Carolina students and would make Channel 51 must-see TV. A _ ^ „ TT ^ A D U U 1 O The Gamecock is the student newspaper of The University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday j 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 oreaniwtion. 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 Fa* 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803-777-7726 Editor in Chief gamecockeditorOhotmail.com University Desk gamecocudeskOhotmail.com City/State Desk gamecockcitydeskOhotmail.com Viewpoints gamecockviewpointsOhotmail.com Spotlight gamecockspotlightOhotmail.com Sports gamecocksportsOhotmail.com Online www.gamecock.se edu Submission 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 opinion piece of about 600 words. Both 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 and should be sent to gamecockviewpointsOhotmail.com. 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. Tmi Gamecock Brock Vergakis Amy Goulding Editor in Chief Sean Rayford « , Photo Editors Brandon Larrabee University Editor Charles Prashaw Amanda Silva Jonn Muietx Asst. University Editors City/State Editor John Bailey Kevin Langston Asst. City/State Editor Viewpoints Editor Nathan White Jared Kelowitz Asst. viewpoints Editor Daytime Sports Editor [ MacKenzie Craven Kyle Almond Meredith Davis Night Sports Editor Asst. Spotlight Editors Jason Harmon Miranda LaLonde Ashley Melton Ann Marie Miani Brad Walters Jennie Moore Martha Wright Katie Smith Copy Editors Design Editors Erik Collins Robyn Gombar Faculty Adviser Melissa Millen Ellen Parsons Brant'ey Roper Director ol Nicole RusseH Student Media Advertising Staff Susan King Sean ^ Luna Creative Director Todd Hooks Melanie Hutto Carolyn Griffin EmMie Moca Business Manager Martin Sa|isbury Sherry F. Holmes Creative Services Classified Manager College Press Exchange THE STRATEGIC. ' HEEi> IS bEVElC>ftNG: ■ IF THESE UN€S> INTERSECT, VJE \ CPENTME. VALVES. mt y 2000 Olympic Games Let the corporate games begin The 2000 Olympic Games have come to a close. Of course, reflec tion on the games is prudent. As 1 write this column, I am reminded of the Visa commer cial with the syn chronized swim mers forming the word “VISA.” Before they do this, a narrator discusses the overconimercialization of the Games and how it is necessary to marvel at the inherent beauty of the Games. What beauty? The Olympics today do not rep resent anything more than the corpo rate takeover of America and the world it dominates. Let’s look at the spon sors. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are official sponsors of the Games. Go down to Sydney and see how many athletes include Cokes and Big Macs in their diets. There are oth er sponsors like Nike, an official Olympic supporter and owner of the United States Olympic Team (they don’t actually own the team, just their souls). Some athletes are realizing the fal lacy the Olympics really are. Kaliya Young, a three time All-American at UC-Berkeley gave up a year of school to try out for the Canadian National Water Polo Team. That was until she realized that all of her hard work, ded ication mid sacrifice were going to fill up the corporate coffers. She quit her Olympic ambitions and went back to school. The Olympics are supposed to be the triumph over mind and body in the pursuit of physical excellence. That may have been true in the past, but now it’s more about the techno logical improvements in equipment and gear in the pursuit of corporate excellence. Look at the new Speedo suits de buting in the Sydney Games. Or those new speed skates at Nagano. The records are falling. Are they falling because of physical excellence or is it technological excellence? The beauty of the games is gone. The moment is over,just like the nar rator in the Visa commercial says. It is time for the games to return back to the traditions of antiquity to revive them. When the games began in 776 B.C., they were a religious festival honor ing Zeus. Athletes trained for months and were reviewed by a panel that as sessed their physical endowments, etc. Olympic athletes competed in the nude and no records were kept. The winners were given an olive branch (its vitality was transmitted to the re cipient), gave public thanks to Zeus and returned home as victors. One event in the ancient games that depended upon technology was the chariot races. The difference be tween now and then was that the own er of the chariot was the winner of the race instead of the chariot rider. If that were the case today, the medal count would be between Speedo and Nike and other corporations in stead of between nations. We need to return to the ancient traditions. Equestrian events today are full of pomp and splendor. In an cient Greece, horse riders rode naked and bare back. There are some tradi tions that we may not want to incor porate, though. In Greece, only vir gins could watch and women could not participate in the Games. I say let them compete, but they have to be naked, too. The simplicity of the ancient games is desperately needed to restore the greatness of the modem Olympics. If not, these modem Games will become a farce like the ancient games became when the Roman Emperor Nero came to power. By then, it was slaves com peting for their lives against wild an imals instead of free men competing against one another for glory. Today, we are all slaves—spectator and com petitor alike — of the corporate em pire. 4 Nathan White writes every Monday. He can be reached at gamecockview points@hotmail. com Letters African-American doesn’t necessarily mean Democrat To the Editor I agree with Corey Ford’s statement that the minority vote is needed — but 1 would like to extrapolate his idea and com ment on his theory behind it. First of all, everyone needs to become informed and then vote. It does not mat ter what one's race is—voting should not be overlooked. Secondly and more importantly, I find Mr. Ford’s implied assertion that an African American vote is a Democratic vote to be quite assumptive and untrue. Does he then meah a white vole is automatically a Re publican vote? (I think Gov. Jim Hodges would quickly disagree!) Like Mr. Ford, I encourage blacks and whites (and all shades in between) to look at the candidates without bias. Once that is done, then people should ask themselves the following questions: 1. “Which one offers me the chance to make something of myself if I work for it?” 2. “Which one is willing to let me keep more of my hard-earned money and let me decide how to invest it and use it to my benefit?” 3. “Which one does not wish to keep me dependent on handouts?” 4. “Which one will let me raise my family the way I would like?” 5.1 believe that once these questions are truthfully answered, Mr. Ford's as sumption of where certain votes are go ing will be wrong. Darin L. Passer School of Medicine Class of2004 Preston open to all residents, not just privileged ones To the Editor, In response to the editorial in the Sept. 25 edition of The Gamecock entitled “Pre ston College should be open to all stu dents,” I launch the following retaliation: Preston College has received the bad end of the proverbial stick much too of ten. Mow much longer will the ignorant remain uninformed? The Gamecock has been host to many instances of so-called journalists shelling out - to simply put it - lies. The latest in demnity of ignorance was the misunder standing of Preston not being open to all students. § Well, if you were to do some investi gating, you would know that Preston is open to all students. Unfortunately, you have to put effort into fdling out an ap plication to reside in this “experiment.” Some people go to the extent of tracing their hand on the back of the Preston ap plication. And the dining facilities that are fre quently conversed about widiin these pages are completely misunderstood. The food served is the same from the GMP. Does it sound all that much better now? If it does, let Sodexho-Marriott know so you can pay more for reheated cod or turkey supreme. So if you want to label us as “special,” its only because we had “motivation” and “effort.” So, please have your “weekend jour nalists” know something of the subject be fore they write anything. Richard De Leon Public Relations Junior Get printed in %k (BattieCOCk submit your letters, columns and editorial cartoons gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Election 2000 Killing me softly with his views This week, America’s most active serial killer struck again. His name is George W. Bush, and his title is gov ernor, but this is a matter of chance — that he has a ti tle that he was born into a long line of politicians. What makes George W. Bush different from peo ple who kill for money or sex? Is he morally just be cause he murders to win the bid for Jennie Ughtweis is a senior English majpr. She writes every Monday. She can be reached at gamecockview points@hot mail.com the presidency, as an antidote to the al legedly soft-on-crime Democrats? I’ve said repeatedly, in conversations to my friends and family, that A1 Gore will lose because, like Bush, he believes in the death penalty, and will not attack Bush’s blood-splattered record. As much as I dislike Gore, I respect this move — the only of his career — for his own integrity. After a stay of execution to allow for DNA testing, Ricky McGinn was executed for the 1993 rape and mur der of his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Sa lon.com and other news servers are calling the stay of execution “un precedented” because it is that — it is one of the few times Bush had grant ed a stay. (No such mercy was extended to Karla Fay Tucker, a convicted mur derer, who, like Bush, found Jesus in her darkest hour.) Repeatedly, Bush has denied stays of execution with appeals to further DNA testing and has also as serted that there is no way an iimocent person could have been put to death in the state of Texas. With similar fuzzy logic, he calls the death penalty a de terrent, though any informed political scientist would probably tell him oth erwise — and one need only point to our more liberated Canadian and Eng lish allies to suggest that the “deter 1V1IV UIW1J VUV1IVUUO. In 1997, Bush set an execution record 37 dead in one year. With Oc tober, November, and December left, he needs four more sacrifices to beat his own record. I’m sure his constituents are cheering for him. And for those who are keeping track, an annual body count of 33 out-numbers both Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. So, the blood thirsty governor is clearly an under achiever. The Bushes carpetbagged to the state of Texas, but that hasn’t stopped George W. Bush from appearing in a pair of cowboy boots with the Lone Star flag emblazoned on them, and it hasn’t stopped him from enacting vig ilante justice in the style of the origi nal Texas Rangers. Indubitably, he is attempting to mime that folk heroic quality of the hanging judges of the Old West. I prefer the other kinds of heroes — like the man who lost his daughter in the Oklahoma City bombing, and testified on behalf of Timothy McVeigh at his trial, begging the jury to let him live. “If I’m ever going to foigive him,” he said, “I need him to be alive.” Equal ly heroic are anti-death penalty activist Suzanne Bosler, who continues her cru sade despite her father’s brutal murder _i .i_XT-. t„ _ ouu uiv ui^iuuwiuuii nui iii i ’»uuv, a group of families who have lost loved ones to violent crimes, and demand that their murderers not be put to death. Also noble are the men and women of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Prison Project, which uses statistical analysis to prove what many people have always known—that the death penalty is racist and classist in its ap plication, with crimes against Caucasian victims punished far more harshly th;in those with minority victims. These are the sort of people who have risen above the worst possible cir cumstances, yet maintain their desire for real justice. They suffer a grief so profound that I could never pul words to it — and they forgive and persevere. And, unlike George W. Bush, they have no blood on their hands.