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SOUND OFF Create message boards at * bowl-eligible this season? www.dailygamecock.com or YES 54% send letters to the editor to NO 33% gamecockopinions@hotmail.com (INSERT CEREAL JOKE HERE) 13% IN OUR OPINION Leaders must show decency Resident Hall Association President Adam Hark is taking heat this week because of lewd pictures he placed on his personal Web site. The site is full of suggestive pictures, including one of Hark wearing nothing but a strategically placed sock. The images have led one South Quad resident adviser to move for his impeachment. What Hark must realize is that he is a public figure whether he wants to be or not. He represents all on campus students as well as the university. As American citizens, Hark and his friends have every right to post these images on their Web site. As an elected student leader, however, Hark should show better judgment. When Hark took upon himself the responsibilities that come with being a public figure, the option to act like his fellow students is revoked. How can RHA accomplish anything when it can’t be taken seriously by students, much less university administrators? Hark should take the image off of his Web site. When he leaves the elected office, he can put it back up in good conscience. If he continues to give into his instincts, RHA might have a solid base for impeachment. When Hark took upon himself the responsibilities that come with being a public figure, the option to act like his fellow students was revoked. Gamecock Quotables “I just saw the brotherhood, and the minority aspects never bothered me.” JARODD WEBB PHI BETA SIGMA PRESIDENT AND FOURTH YEAR MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING STUDENT ON MINORITY-BASED FRATERNITIES “The Web site says to Housing and USC that at Woodrow, you can get away with this stuff.” HAZEL MATTHEWS FOURTH-YEAR CRIMINAL JUSTICE STUDENT, ON A WEB SITE THAT SHOWS RHA PRESIDENT ADAM HARK WEARING ONLY A SOCK “I want people with Confederate flags on their trucks to put down those flags and vote Democratic, because the need for quality health care, jobs and good education knows no racial boundaries.” HOWARD DEAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND FORMER VERMONT GOVERNOR, ON HIS CONTROVERSIAL REMARK ABOUT THE CONFEDERATE FUG “If I was going to pay for something, I would buy the album.” JOSH BELLAMY SECOND-YEAR POLITICAL SCIENCE STUDENT, ' ON NAPSTER, A MUSIC-DOWNLOAD SERVICE GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS In Wednesday’s editorial, Howard Dean should have been identified as the former governor of Vermont. A story in Wednesday’s paper should have stated that the first . Caucasian member of Alpha Phi Alpha was inducted in 1987. Also, the fraternity has 25 to 30 members. The Gamecock regrets the errors. If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at gamecockopinions@hotmail.com. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK Editor in Chief Charles Tomlinson Managing Editor Adam Beam News Editor Michael LaForgia Asst. News Editor Alexis Stratton Viewpoints Editor Gabrielle Sinclair The Mix Editor Meg Moore Sports Editor Brad Senkiw Asst. Sports Editor Wes Wolfe Photo Editor Morgan Ford Head Page Designer Shawn Rojrk Page Designers Justin Bajan, Samantha Hall, Staci Jordan, Philip Whitehead Slot Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Tricia Ridgway, Mary Pinckney Waters Copy Editors Jessica Foster, Steven Van Haren Online Editor James Tolbert Public Affairs Kimberly Dressier CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com News: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints: gamecockopinions@hotmail.com The Mix: gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Public Affairs: gckpublicaffairs@hotmail.com Online: www.dailygameGOCk.com Newsroom: 777-7726 Editor’s Office: 777-3914 STUDENT MEDIA Director Scott Lindenberg Faculty Adviser Erik Collins Creative Director Susan King Business Manager Carolyn Griffin Advertising Manager Sarah Scarborough Classified Manager Sherry F. Holmes Production Manager Amber Justice Creative Services Whitney Bridges. Robbie Burkett, Sean O’Meara Advertising Staff John Blackshire, Adam Bourgoin, Ben Sinclair, Jesica Johnson, Ryan Gorman. Laytoya Hines The Gamecock is the editorially independent student newspaper of the University of South Carolina. It is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer, vyith 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-activity fees. One free copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $1 each from the Department of Student Media. TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock 1400 Greene St. * Columbia, S.C. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 Not everything needs a label ALLYSON BIRD GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM The ad bug has begun to slowly infect us all. Labeling has gone too far, and I’m not even talking about the verbal, sticks-and-stones type of labeling. I’m talking about the actual la bels on everything these days. News broke about two weeks ago that two area towns, Chapin and Prosperity; are considering placing advertisements on their police cruisers. Bumpers, trunks and hoods of the dreaded cop cars would re flect sponsorship in exchange for cheap replacement vehicles, which would otherwise demand a formidable chunk of the annual budget. Turns out Prosperity is a misnomer. Just who these sponsors will be is still up the air, but imagine finding yourself in the flashing blue lights of what equates to the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile. Also recently, the government began considering encouraging or requiring that restaurants la bel their menus by listing calories for each selection. The goal in mind is helping people eat better. I don’t want the government to help me eat better; I really think I can handle that one myself. Plus, who wants to ruin a nice evening out with the knowledge that each bite of that filet mignon is taking two weeks off your life and adding two centimeters to your waistline? These two examples of label ing madness are merely the tip of the iceberg in today’s world. Our coffee has to be labeled as “hot” so that we don’t sue McDonald’s. Is hot coffee really that much of a surprise? When I was younger, I thought that the “no purchase necessary” label meant that if someone who stole the candy bar had the win ning wrapper, he still got the cruise. These labels are the be ginnings of moral corruption. I think the one type of label that gets to me the most, though, is those little placards cities put on trees in decorative spaces to honor donors. It looks more like the tree is wearing a nametag to me. “Oh look, this tree’s name is Cynthia.” And the little bricks with all the names on them, like on the Horseshoe, are pretty annoying as well. It’s dizzying trying to walk across them if you’re compulsive like me and try to read who you’re stepping on. Gravestones as labels are still OK for now. It’s pretty bad when you pick up something to tally unrelated, like a beer, to read a label that it was manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts. That sure is a buzz-killer. And then there are those signs that just look stupid. The “Slow Children Playing” is a prime example. Couldn’t they just slip a com ma, a dash or a colon after “slow” so that it doesn’t make these places look like neighborhoods of developmentally challenged children? Come on, evil label peo ple, do it for the kids. So labels are there for our own benefit. They’re there to remind us who paid for different elements in the world around us and to make up for our own deficits in common sense. I would say that the next thing to come would be companies paying us to wear then labels. But we already pay them for that privilege when we spend top-dollar to wear name brands. Looks like this labeling bug just can’t be squashed because, based on the brand names on all our butts, we’ve already sat on it, and it sure ain’t dead. Bird is a third-year print journalism, student. IN YOUR OPINION Kearns is innocent until proven guilty Admittedly, I have little faith in the American justice system — or basically any American institution. I no longer own U.S. Treasury bonds. I have paid federal in come taxes only twice. I am not a registered voter (and will likely remain as such — at least until Carl Weathers, finishing out the triumvirate, wins the North Dakota governorship). And while I fully under stand that it is indeed a quintessentially “American” concept that allows me to pen both the aforesaid and the fol lowing (although the Greeks, English and French were all centuries — millennia even — ahead of Jefferson, Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney), I feel inclined, out of sheer judicial compassion for the rights of my fellow man, to comment on the recent duspeiisiuu ui nciucua i-uipuo ad hominem” of one such Timothy Robert Kearns. To the best of my knowledge — and given the barrage of anti Tim Kearns literature now cul minating, including a front page admonition in Monday’s edition of The Gamecock (as if a previous sectional insert, campus-wide e-mails and nu merous dormitory warning posters would not suffice) — myself and nearly 28,000 oth ers are certainly more than knowledgeable; Mr. Kearns has been convicted of no crime whatsoever. To quote The Gamecock (twice), the USCPD Web site, a flyer I saw by the elevator of Columbia Hall and the various other media in which Tim Kearns’ image, stature, license tag and Zodiac sign have ap peared, Mr. Kearns has merely been “charged with kidnapping and sexual assault,” is in fact “free on bond... and awaiting trial” — and, oh yeah, “might be trespassing on campus.” Sure, Tim Kearns definite ly looks like your archetypal sexual predator (but then again, so does half the balding, beer-bellied, Impala-driving, 51-year-old male population living in the Greater Columbia area). Ultimately, I’ve grown rather weary of the increas ingly ridiculous “Kearns sight ings”: “roaming around LeConte after dark — naked,” “enjoying a few laps in the Blatt indoor pool — naked,” “gyrating suggestively in a go go cage at Platinum — naked” (when he should’ve been just topless) and “waiting for a muf fin at Einstein Bros. Bagels — impatiently.” tnougn already. To all gar net-, black- and blue-blooded Americocks everywhere, this mass character defamation of innocent-until-a-prejudiced jury-of-his-peers-proves-oth erwise Timothy Robert Kearns must cease and desist imme diately! If not, then the terror ists, and Ole Miss, really have won. LOGAN YOUNG SECOND-YEAR MUSIC COMPOSITION STUDENT The Gamecock is wrong about Dean As I was looking over the Viewpoints page Wednesday, I couldn’t help but notice the ed itorial talking about Virginia Gov. Howard Dean. My inter est was immediately piqued, as I wondered if this Virginia gov ernor was of any relation to the former governor of Vermont and current presidential candidate Howard Dean. Of course, as I read over the piece, I realized that The Gamecock actually was attempt ing to refer to Howard Dean the presidential candidate and for mer Vermont governor. I’m rarely shocked by the poor qual ity of writing and reporting in The Gamecock, nor am I gener ally shocked by the poor writing and analytical reasoning abili ties of the majority of those writ ing in the editorial section. After all, with a staff composed en tirely of amateur workers, one cannot expect a terribly high quality product. However, I find it exception ally egregious that no one on the entire editorial staff bothered to find out who Howard Dean was before writing a critique on him. If the newspaper can’t even be bothered to check such a simple fact, perhaps you should think about shutting down and not wasting any more student funds by printing this garbage. BYSSHE EASTON FOURTH-YEAR MATHEMATICS AND PHILOSOPHY STUDENT Got something to say? gamecockopinions@ hotmail.com Submission Policy Letters to the editor should be less than 300 words and include name, phone number, professional title or year and major, if a student. E-mail letters to gamecockopinions@hotmail.com. Letters will be edited. Anonymous letters will not be published. Call the newsroom at 777-7726 for more information. 4 kinds ofpeople you can’t live with SARAH ROGERS GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Adjusting to roommate’s quirks can be a struggle. The biggest lesson in college is learning how to live with anoth er person, learning how to share with that person and learning how to tolerate that person. College prepares young people for marriage. Or rather, shows them they’re probably better off single. I have had my fair share of roommate horror stories. Some are far too graphic to put into writ ing. However, I will share four roommate types to watch out for: ♦ The neat freaks. I admit I probably belong in this particu lar group. The neat freaks are con stantly on tl# lookout for some thing to scrub, vacuum, dust, straighten or fold. When you are out of the room, watch out. If they see anvthins on vour side of the room that looks remotely untidy, they will lose all control and at tack the mess, feather duster and all. Cleaning is more important than studying, sleeping or eating. They are only able to relax if in an immaculate room. Make your bed. This will make them very happy. ♦ The caffeine addicts. Identified by bloodshot eyes, caffeine addicts can usually be found gulping down a Mountain Dew, munching on a Hershey’s Bar and chewing on espresso beans. They will always either be tapping their foot, twirling their hair, rocking back and forth or kicking their feet up in the air. Their favorite type of music is punk, which they enjoy jumping around the room to. My cousin, Bert, a prime example of this type, downs about eight Surges a day. After becoming immune to caffeine, he now speaks in mono tone, like the Clear Eyes commer cial guy with the glasses. ♦ The nerds. Probably the most beneficial, the nerd roommates mo tivate you to actually study every once in a while. Their danger comes in mysterious forms. Studying is their lives. Nothing less than an A+ will do on any test, paper or homework assignment. They go by the rule that for every hour in class, a minimum of two hours must be applied to studying the subject. Any distraction, such as the television, computer or tele phone must be eliminated. And don’t you dare commit the No. 1 sin of having the volume up on your instant messenger while they are studvine. which is always. These roommates’ favorite books are a dictionary and the saurus, and they are always sure to carry around a calculator, pen and white out anywhere they go. Their favorite pastime is figuring out difficult math equations and conjugating foreign verbs. They are especially dangerous because they will make you feel like the dumbest person around and will lower your confidence level by about 95 percent. ♦ And finally, the partiers. Always in search of the perfect bash, their favorite beverage is beer, and their favorite food is cigarettes. They do not limit their partying to just weekends but in stead declare every day a party day. They have the tendency to wake you up every single night when they come stumbling into your room sloppy drunk, singing a song that makes absolutely no sense at all. Their favorite music is techno and rap. This roommate type loves wearing sunglasses during the daylight hours because they are usually hungover. Otherwise, you can find them curled up underneath the sheets, taking a “recovery nap” before the next party. Rogers is a third-year electronic journalism student.