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Page 6 Friday, March 18, 2005 IEWPOINTS ONLINE POLL Would you like to see The Gamecock printed five days a week? Let us know at www.dailygamecock.com. Results posted Friday. THP^AMECOCK EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR Michael LaForgia NEWS EDITOR Jon Turner VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe THE MIX EDITOR Jennifer Freeman ASST. VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Patrick Augustine SPORTS EDITOR Jonathan Hillyard DESIGN DIRECTOR Chas McCarthy COPY DESK CHIEF Steven Van Haren IN OUR OPINION America must cease ΓΜ exporting its torture Once again, the Bush Administration has adopted a "do as we say, not as we do" policy when it comes to international human rights. Porter Goss, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stated before Congress on Thursday that the techniques used by his agency "at this time" conform to international standards and do not include torture. However, what is important when the nation's top intelligence man speaks is not what he says, but what he omits. The CLA has been roundly criticized in the mainstream media lately about allegations that it kidnapped European nationals from their home countries and flew them to Syria for interroga tion, sometimes holding them America's greatest asset is to persuade people into adopting its example, a form of "soft power" it risks losing. for years before they were released. These stories are cor roborated by a Canadian man who claims he was tortured before his captors decided he was not connected to al Qaida or other terrorist organizations. Coupled with the scandals from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, clear Indications exist that the United States has flaunted treaty bans * •on torture by exporting its dirty work to the "rogue nations" it 'publicly decries for their human rights records. Also, since the passage of the Patriot Act, domestic guarantees of due process for even American citizens have been in limbo because of the Bush administration's creative reinterpretation of the Constitution. If the United States wishes its status as global superpower to have not only military but also moral weight, it must cease any •practices that follow the letter but not the spirit of international law banning coercive methods from entering into the lexicon of civilized nations. It is ironic that an administration that ran on a platform of public morality chooses to apply a different standard to its own global relations. I America's greatest asset is not its ability to obliterate enemies » "halfway around the world but its ability to persuade people into adopting its example, a form of "soft power" it risks losing if it strays from the high road. If you see an error in today's paper, we want to know. E-mail us at gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu. IT'S YOUR RIGHT Exercise your right to voice your opinion. Create message boards at www.dailygamecock.com or send letters to the editor to gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS ABOUT THE GAMECOCK EDITOR Michael LaForgia DESIGN DIRECTOR Chas McCarthy COPY DESK CHIEF Steven Van Haren NEWS EDITOR Jon Turner ASST. NEWS EDITOR Kelly Cavanaugh VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe THE MIX EDITOR Jennifer Freeman ASST. THE MIX EDITOR Carrie Givens SPORTS EDITOR Jonathan Hillyard ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Stephen Fastenau SENIOR WRITER Kevin Fellner PHOTO EDITOR Nick Esares SPORTS PHOTO EDITOR Katie Kirkland PAGE DESIGNERS Jillian Garis, Staci Jordan, Jessica Ann Nielsen, Megan Sinclair COPY EDITORS Jessica Foster, Brindy McNair, Daniel Regenscheit, Jason Reynolds, Katie Thompson, Shana Till ! ONLINE EDITOR Ryan Simmons PUBLIC AFFAIRS Jane Fielden, Katie Miles CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. The Editor's office hours are Monday and Wednesday from 1-3 p.m. Editor: gamecockeditor@gwm.sc.edu News: gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu Viewpoints: gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu The Mix: gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc.edu Sports: gamecocksports@gwm.sc.edu Public Affairs: gamecockPR@yahoo.com Online: www.dailygamecock.com Newsroom: 777-7726; Sports: 777-7182 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. 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Additional copies/nay be purchased for $1 each from the Department of Student Media. Α 5£ΝΆ7£ 6lU- ALL Ou/S PAT^DN5 iMtH Μ£Α?ΡΝ/5 TD 6A\25 (f· Tuey pot^r p^ink ; — 7,—7~ f He's ^ pf X STiu- rtAv6 A £AC KWoor Xnvs / CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Oh, what they wouldn 'f do for linen ■ Two football players' lust for bedsheets risks Gamecocks' reputation Imagine: Two players on the USC football team — gods on the field and celebrities on campus. They're in the spotlight. They're almost like a rock stars. They hire strippers and pour champagne off their asses. Their teeth are gold. Their shoes are made of solid platinum. GPA is their favorite rapper. Then they get busted for stealing, among other things, a set of bedsheets. Bedsheets? Bedsheets? On Feb. 23, Moe Thompson and Kevin Mainord risked their academic, athletic and legal records, as well as the credibility of Steve Spurrier's already diminished roster, to steal bedsheets. Oh, the humanity. This had to have been a crime of passion. Because the abducted linens were stolen from East Quad, I'm guessing they were twin-size. Premeditated logic fails right there, because a football player couldn't even fit his bicep on a twin-sized bed. I'm thinking full-size, bare minimum, would constitute a comfortable night's sleep for these guys. They should've hit up a cushy hotel. Hey, hey — put those dunce caps away. They stole other stuff. A TV and DVD player were stolen, as was $12 cash. One can only assume they plotted to watch bedsheet-related programming with the TV and DVD player, and use the $12 to buy more bedsheets on the black market. If indeed this was a crime of passion, bcdsheet pandemonium should have gripped the countryside: "Lock up your sheets, and the sheets of your STEVEN VAN HAREN loved ones!" THIRD-YEAR MECHANICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT There was no rioting in the streets, and I think I know why. Most of the other football players would not be so stupid as to risk it all for bedsheets. In an on-campus dorm. Disguised as a 6-foot-4, 200-something-pound defensive titan. I imagine that a defensive end or tackle could sneak around an apartment with all the grace of a sledgehammer. Why'd you do it, guys? This offseason has already been a war of attrition. Stupidity is rampant, and the biggest injustice is that, yet again, most of the football players, as well as USC's other student-athletes, aren't this stupid. They can't be. I would cry. But I've got to hand it to them. Student-athletes get a lot of flak for getting an easy college ride. They're always being accused of getting other people to shoulder their academic workloads. Thompson and Mainord set out to disprove this ugly myth by committing their own larceny. Some bedsheets require personal attention. The thread count must have been astronomical. I can hear Spurrier, in a Southern drawl, say "Damn!" every time he has to boot a player. We've test some marquee Gamecocks this offseason, including Thompson and Demetris Summers. But. there's, something not quite right about all this. Something shady. A glaring double standard. I almost couldn't look past the bedsheets to see it. Six players broke in to Williams Brice Stadium in January, stealing stuff. Blah blah, we've heard this already. One of those players was Syvelle Newton, a guy on the cusp of marquee-ism. As of today, Newton's still on the team. Boot him. Boot him good. He shouldn't be a Gamecock anymore, nor should any players who break the law. What the hell is Spurrier thinking? Does he think his players will strike more fear into opposing teams if they come stocked with criminal records? Honestly, it would work for me. I wouldn't want to line up against a guy who spent 24 hours in the county pen. Wide receiver David Smith just got booted, almost immediately after he broke into his ex-girlfriend's place and tried to strangle her. That brings the casualty list to about nine. Why is Newton excepted? His ass should be dropped, regardless of whether the team will sink. "Thug" is not, as some people say, the proper term. I've met my share of cosmopolitan thugs. "Smart as a tackling dummy" is more appropriate — for those football players, and any other students, who throw caution to the wind for cotton-stripe pillow cases. Γ II try puking in Columbia this year ■ Savannah has been good to me, but it's time to try local revelry Green beer. Green puke. Green dollar bills flying out of my wallet like ticket stubs at the New York Stock Exchange. That's pretty much St. Patrick's Day anywhere you go, but living only two and a half hours away from Savannah, Ga., why not do it like it's the last one you're ever going to see? I heard someone say that St. Pat's on River Street is the second-biggest Patty's Day party in the world or something, and, unfortunately, the only thing I have to remember of last year's is the 64 megabytes full of photos on my friend's digital camera. But that's about it. I do remember driving home from Georgia the next day, though, and how my brain felt like the dry-erase board in your freshman dorm that had a whole bunch of important things written on it until someone walked by and wiped it clean with their sleeve. Or how for the rest of my life, when I'm sitting here banging my head against the keyboard because there's a word I can't remember, I'll have to think back to that two-day trip to Savannah and remember that, because of it, there's a tiny part of my brain dyed shamrock- and street-litter green with a stake in it and a sign that says, "Sold." I'd like to say I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but I think I'm really going to take a year off. I mean, there's nothing like seeing boats blasting columns of green slime into the river, or the girls on COREY HUTCHINS FIFTH-YEAR ENGLISH STUDENT the balconies pulling up their shirts for green glow . sticks and beadstrings. Or how walking from one side of the street to the other takes 20 minutes, but it's OK because not only can you drink on the street, but if you run out all you have to do is tip your head under a rain gutter. Or when it's all over, how the cops form that police line with their batons and just push the crowd off River Street and up the stairs to the city so you can walk, trip, roll and puke your way to the Savannah College of Art and Design or whichever hooker hotel you're staying at. The truth is, though, I've never stayed in Five Points for the St. Patrick's Day festival, and people say I'm missing out. I've gone to college here for three years, and I feel like I almost owe it to Columbia to stick around and vomit green spew onto the Harden Street sidewalks just to say I did it. And really, to be honest, I just have this deranged fantasy of Andrew Sorensen being down there, knee-deep in the pond scum-green fountain wearing a four-leaf-clover bow tie, a green clown wig, emerald spandex and up chucked Guinness all over the front of his Oompa Loompa suspenders. In my little dream, he sees me stumbling by and snatches me up in one of those drunken fraternity bear hugs, slurring into my ear about how now, only now, can I graduate since I finally did the Five Points St. Patty's Day thing before passing out on my shoulder. Even though the last time I told someone about that, they took away my bag of green, um — party favors — and told me I was cut off, I still think, "Why not?" After all, going to Savannah is like going to New Orleans: After a few times you start to get used to it. And when that happens, it's just like most drugs — the more you do it, the more you have to take, and then one day you actually find yourself wanting to move to the place, and you realize it was a lot cooler when you just did it for fun. 1 do, however, totally encourage anyone who hasn't to go this year to River Street. Drink the beer, wear the wristband, piss on the sidewalk, buy those crazy shirts that read, "I Got River Faced On S"t Street" and make them proud. Me, I'll be looking for that tripped out Sore-leprechaun in Five Points, thinking that only now can I leave Golumbia with a clear conscience. RETROPOINTS Editorials and columns from The Gamecock ^past^^sjW ComingMarch 28 -April 1 Rice primed to take over for Cheney, define GOP m Service, popularity show Condi deserves shot at VP nomination If you ask Secretary of State Condi Rice if she's going to run for president, she'll tell you no. She can even say no in a variety of ways, as we saw on "Meet the Press" recently. While many Republicans are in mourning at the loss of a potential presidential candidate for 2008, I am not surprised in the least. However, what I would be surprised of is if she didn't wind up on the Republican presidential ticket for 2008. I think the better question to ask Rice might be if she plans on accepting the vice presidential nomination of the Republican Party? You see, Condi is probably wise in not running for the presidential nomination. There will be several tenured Republicans who take a shot at the top post, and despite her popularity in several circles, her inexperience concerning elected office might hurt her resume and her ability to raise funds. Instead, Rice has opted to stand back and let the so-called "big dogs" of the party fight among themselves for the job of president. Rice is content to sit back and bank on that whomever gets the presidential nomination will be smart enough to offer her the second spot on the ticket. JUSTIN SIMMONS FOURTH-YEAR POLITICAL SCIENCE STUDENT There are sevèral reasons why Rice is suited for the job of vice president. First and foremost, she is an excellent adviser. For more than four years now she has been one of the most, if not the most, trusted adviser of a president facing more challenges than any president in the last several decades. The length of her service speaks to both her value in the president's eyes and her ability to survive the guaranteed criticism that comes with occupying a top political post. Rice's talents are especially suited to the new concept of what the job of vice president entails. John Adams, our country's first vice president, didn't think too much of the job. In fact, he believed it was "the most insignificant office that man ever the invention of man contrived. " However, the current administration has transformed the office into that of a top adviser, in addition to the vice president's job of banging a gavel in the Senate. Dick Cheney has played a crucial role as a top adviser to President Bush during Bush's administration. His guidance was especially needed for Bush, who was foreign to the workings of Washington. Condi could fill a similar role for whoever is the incoming president. This is especially true since, judging by the political landscapes the Republican nominee could very well be a Washington outsider, or at the least someone from a different branch of the government (Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, perhaps?). The presence of one of the former administration's top advisors as the vice president would insure that there would be a certain level of policy continuity. All of the things I have mentioned are excellent reasons why whoever is the Republican nominee should seriously consider Rice as a running mate. But the best reason is still political. Condi Rice would bring something to a major party ticket that this country has never seen, a black female. Should the Republican Party put a black woman a heartbeat from the presidency, the country would be forced to re-examine the long-held belief of which party really is the "party of inclusion." The vice presidency is no symbolic cabinet position. It's one step away from the reins of the most influential democracy in the world. ONLINE POLL Did you enjoy your spring break? Yes 71% No 29% FROM WWW.bAll.YGAMECOCK.COM