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Shuttle Service cut off by university; greeks sticking it out anyway Carl Stokes, system vice president for law enforcement and safety, has said the university will have no further involvement with the Five Points Shuttle started by the rraternity ana sorority councils last weekend. Volunteers will not be allowed to use university vans or buses. The program is cut off. But they are going to try and rent private vans to keep it running this weekend. Calling the use personal and unofficial and possibly hitchhiking, Stokes cited a State Budget and Control Board law prohibiting such use. If the shuttle was definitely illegal, then Stokes' decision can't be contested, but it also should have been made last week. But the law he used to cut off the shuttle service isn't a cut and dry, specific, black and white law. It prohibits personal or unofficial use of state vehicles or equipment. But it allows the transport of "any person ... in any emergency situation, provided such movement does not further endanger life. . ." If this crime situation isn't an emergency, nothing is. The law also says any vehicle may be used when "it is clearly serving the interest of the State," which the shuttle does by protecting the state's citizens and guests (i.e. out of state students). AVhflt is nprsnnal llSP? Tc it HpfinpH frnm thf ctsmHr?rvir?+ of the drivers and operators, because they aren't partying and drinking, but volunteering their time to help other students. Is it defined from the standpoint of the riders? While they go to Five Points for "personal" reasons, they ride the shuttle to keep safe. For that matter, what is official use? Here is a list of a few official, non-personal, approved uses of university vehicles: The university uses ShuttleCocks to cart alumni to the football games from the Faculty House. Is that official use? Apparently so. Is that right? No double standard ever is. And it's just as much hitchhiking as the Five Points Shuttle. The university uses many vans, buses and cars to take students, faculty and staff off campus to attend meetings and seminars. Some of these trips are official, but many, under the guise of business, are for reasons just as "personal" as those of the students going to Five Points ? attend conferences to Hitch meetinoc HrinL- unH party. A specific example. Around 2 a.m. Wednesday, a USC custodial worker was driving around the Davis, LeConte and Preston buildings, honking the horn on his little green "golf cart." Was he at work? No, he was just driving and honking, looking and sounding like an impatient child waiting to pick up his date. That was definitely more a case of hitchhiking than the shuttle. After USC President James Holderman fired former Athletic Director Bob Marcum, it was revealed that the former A.D. had used the Athletic Department's plane to fly to sporting events around the country. Personal use? You bet. But still official. All of these are "official," but only because the university's the one with the keys to the ignition. Are we to believe that a program the university allowed to go on last week with the use of vans is suddenly illegal? If so, why? The fact is that law really doesn't apply. And yet, we're being asked to believe a law ? designed specifically to prevent state senators from flying to the Super Bowl in state planes ? puts students in the path of thieves and rapists? The shuttle drivers last weekend said they saw a girl being chased by three men, and when they stopped and picked her up, the drivers said she was crying and frantic. And a student. This service has already prevented one tragedy. Thinking about that girl, one might also begin to think what The Gamecock's headline would have been Monday if Stokes had made his decision a week earlier. Not a pleasant thought, is it? rp| I Ihe Gamecock Best Non-daily Collegiate Newspaper, Southeastern Region , Society of Professional Journalists, 1987-88 1 Editor in Chief Photography Editors ' STEPHEN GUILFOYLE BRIAN SAULS '< Managing Editor TEDDY LEPP '' SON HA Datebook Editor ' Copy Desk Chief JENNY SHARPE < wAYNfc YANU Graphics Editor < Assistant Copy Desk Chief MICHAEL SHARP 1 KATHY BLACKWELL Comics Editor I News Editor TRACY MIXSON 1 HAL MILLARD Adviser t Assistant News Editor PAT MCNEELY * STEVE PRADARELLI Graduate Assistant * MARY PEARSON PHILLIP MCKENZIE 1 Features Editor Director of Student Media r SUSAN NESBITT ED BONZA Assistant Features Editor Advertising Manager t TOM JOYNER MARGARET MICHELS 1 Sports Editor Production e KEVIN ADAMS LAURA DAY a Assistant Sports Editor RAY BURGOS CHRIS SILVESTRI Assistant Advertising Manager BARBARA BROWN t s Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print letters received. Letters should be, at a maximum, 250 to 300 words long. Guest editorials should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for style or possible libel. The Gamecock will not withhold names under any circumstance. ??????????C f MO CLEAR V/lMMEP EMERSEPFR^MTWI I JWTfc.TW-" zi y*^ From 1981 Editor's note ? In 1985, the space shi prise flew over Columbia on its way t Space Center in Florida. USC alumnus* can was The Gamecock's columnist at, I guess it must have been going a fe miles an hour, but it looked slow, real crawled across the Monday sky over th the Greene Street crowd. For a couple of seconds, my brain di the connection. I just gazed at the thin with surprise and fear too, the way a would look at his first helicopter befort was my first space shuttle, but I didn't b stood there. I had read a sentence or two in a news the Enterprise would be riding a jumt gyback over Columbia on such-and-suc such-and-such a time, but I immedi forgotten the particulars. So when I Letters to i Heat illnesses 0,4:11 ? ~?:i~i~ sun pussiuie To the editor: Autumn days in South Carolina, often with temperatures in the 90s, can be associated with unexpected problems for people involved in outdoor activities. The use of alcohol and certain other drugs can contribute to the development of heat related illnesses. Dr. Kendall O. Fields Jr. of the Thomson Student Health Center states that the use of < alcohol, through a complex set of I mechanisms, combined with high temperatures can place someone at I higher risk of having a heat stroke. I According to Dr. N. Peter Johnson, Coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Studies at the School of Medicine: "The body is trying to cool off in the heat. Alcohol inhibits that process because the blood vessels in the extremities dilate, causing blood to pool in the legs, and the person becomes faint." Fields states that some other drugs can increase risk include cocaine, aspirin, antihistamines, LSD, and t certain antidepressants and r medicines for stomach virus. t Previous athletic training in high i temperatures makes a difference. At c i sporting event, for example, fans a ire at greater risk than the athletes. e Fields explains that under ordinary c :ircumstances, a person who is unac:ustomed to extended periods in the v leat loses up to one liter of fluids per y lour, including valuable minerals. J While athletes trained to perform in a ligh temperatures continue to lose c >ody fluids, they become acclimated v o the conditions more readily and do h lot lose critical amounts of precious b ninerals. f High humidity also contributes to c he problem by inhibiting the effec- p iveness of the body's natural cooling r, nechanisms. Lack of food and sleep tj lso increase risk of heat-related il- r? nesses. "An evaluation by the U.S. o ^rmy clearly points out an associa- b ion between fatigue and lack of leeep and a predisposition to heat e troke," Fields states. r< In addition to the use of alcohol or r< ertain other drugs, previous athletic w 5: Monday ittle Enter- i o Kennedy I Andy Dun the time. w hundred slow as it And e heads of J Duncan dn't make ? g dumbly, i bushman ; bolting.lt olt. We all I?? paper that engine above my head, I >o jet pig- casual glance, not expeci h a day at look down again until the ately had bleary smudge in the sky i heard the the registrar sits. the editor training in high temperatures, fatigue, lack of food and humidity, the following conditions can also place a person at high risk for developing heat-related illnesses: Age - infants and older persons are at higher risk. History of heart problem. History of heat strokes - For some unexplained reason, some persons are more susceptible than others, probably due to something inherent in their individual systems. Along with abstaining from alcohol or other drugs, getting plenty of rest and taking into consideration high risk factors, Fields recommends wearing light-colored clothing during these fall days with very high temperatures. Katie Aultman Division of Alcohol and Abuse ' Doublespeak, apathy typical To the editor: I cannot but smile at the increduliy of The Gamecock towards the adninistration's complacency on the ' >arking problem. Has it not yet sunk n that the administration is not ac:ountable to the students, that they J ire quasi-civil servants who cannot rasily lose their jobs despite gross inompetence and/or apathy? 1 But I must say, they have given vonderfully specific information to t our queries. Take parking director c . Baker, whom you quoted Sept. 19 ( s saying, "We do conduct surveys r f lots, and they have shown us that e ve still have availability." Actually, I ti laven't a clue as to what that means, ti iut luckily senior vice president of acilities planning, D. Rinker, o larified things when he "called the h arking problem 'one of convenience p ather than one of necessity."' Cer- p ainly, sir, but, then again, nothing is si eally necessary, now is it? Neither q ollege, nor food, nor life and limb; N arbaric man was denied these o necessities.' So, of course, verything has an alternative, and fi ather than park near our classes and r< :>oms, we should consider mile-long ralks, increase risk of robbery and it we all got 1 I looked ai overhead ? n have been here: level of my ey< shuttle and no that it was 1:1' bub of student t0 ^00(*t0 ^ was bound tigl I lied about i ^ shuttle go ^?^???J from where I 1 looked up with only a That night, I ling glory, and I didn't but I couldn't r craft had dwindled to a ween me and tl tbove the building where And while I just kept on go rape, missing classes and applying sp tor an administration job (which o\ comes with a parking space), to list a few. so Baker and Rinker are merely reiterating attitudes we've been hearing for years but which were best put by housing services' director of administration, James Smart, who, when asked about the severe housing _ shortage, you quoted Aug. 29 as saying "It's certainly not ideal, but then you have to compare it to the alter- n native, which is no housing." it So stop complaining about lack of housing, parking, football tickets and the like and cease griping that the Tc administration doesn't care or could be doing better. Give them some H< respect. After all, they could be even do worse. Whenever I get frustrated at ye the system, I remember what Mr. un Smart said to me regarding the man- lea datory meal plan: "That's our mi policy. If you don't like it, you're free to go to another school." H< Hard advice from someone who th< :ares... Gr th< John R. Hanson he SCC junior Dc otl Sic 'Shout!': It's ma Co an arlvpntiirp the Ari stu ro the editor: poi I must address the response to Mr. fur Andrew M. Robinson, whose article I leriding Shout! magazine in The jor jamecock Sept. 23, was in slight er- hisi or. Mr. Robinson, I implore you to artxamine the following account of my the ravels Aux Antilles, the good for- it v une of which is due to Shout!. we I had been adjusting the springline ma, if my Morgan 38 at a private dock in hav Jegril for several moments when a spo articularlv slim and well- beli roportioned, dark-haired, bronze- alio kinned woman in her early 20s in- alsc uired about the origin of the mai lagenta Zinc Oxide, which cleverly evei oated my nose. witl "Why, my dear lady, I ordered it env om Shout!'s Spring break issue," I had :plied. Thoroughly impressed, she enticed le into joining her at a local night ?W?VER, Hi H p-me igfcFfe liolt ^ r^\ *^11 % t real high t my watch while the craft was ot by looking down, which would sy, but by holding my wrist up to the ;s so that I could look past it at the t fudge the revelation ? and saw 1 p.m. ., Greene Street was the usual hub:s pounding from English to history I to books; at 1:15 p.m., everybody ht to the sky, not saying a word, the motionless, I guess, because with ne I found myself about 20 yards "irst heard it. picked up a Robert Heinlein novel, ead it. The shuttle kept passing betlie sentences. was lying there, I thought: Icarus ing this time. >ot and later at her hilltop home 'erlooking the beach. Now, my dear Andrew M. Robinn, I owe quite a bit to Shout!. Edward H. Charles Chemistry junior JSC ignores irt majors t HIV VUUUl . How many times will President alderman present a false front? I ? not mean to deride the man, but, t again, he has put the name of the iversity up on a pedestal while iving the students below in the re. My complaint deals with President alderman's recent activities with : Koger Center for the Arts, anted, he has gotten prestige for ; university; however, he has not Iped a single student in the venture. >es a single student, art major or lerwise, have use of the center? Is >an Art College in poor condition, the point of falling down? How tny city blocks are between Sloan liege and BTW? How archaic are : facilities that the art students use? e any privileges granted to the dents of the university that sup"t the Koger Center with their LU5; admit that the number of art mas (graphic design, studio, art tory, music, theater and the other -related majors) do not make up majority of the student body, but vould be nice to have the money paid to come here to go into our jors and our educations instead of ing the Koger Center for the Arts rting the university's name. I eve the university has the right to icate money where it sees fit, but I > believe that President Holderi is responsible for providing ryone, even the lowly art major, t a good education and a proper ironment. It would be nice if we a president who did. Thomas C. Kelly Art sophomore