The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 16, 1989, Page 3, Image 3
Drug czar
Bennett must stress educatic
not rhetoric, in anti-drug fi[
During the 1988 presidential campaign, many of the
didates ? including President-elect George Bush ? advoc
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government's anti-narcotics efforts. Bush's nominee for
position, William Bennett, needs to cut through the rhetoric
has characterized the past few years and examine the facts
is to succeed in curbing drug abuse among Americans.
Bush has made an intriguing selection. Bennett, who serve
secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, has built a rep
tion for being a tough realist. He knows what he wants
knows how to get it.
His background should tell him that the key to fighting <
abuse is education, not legislation. Threatening drug king
with the death penalty is a useless symbolic gesture, and te
Americans to just say no is just not enough. The drug proble
too complex to be solved by simple slogans.
Bennett needs to bring the facts about drug abuse to
American people. They are not stupid; they want sound rea
why drugs can be harmful to their health. Besides that, it is
ficult to just say no when the rest of society tells us to just
yes to every new product that comes off the assembly line.
A perfect role model for Bennett is C. Everett Koop, sur*
general of the United States. During his years in office, K
presented unbiased information about AIDS and smoking,
refused to succumb to conservative special-interest groups
wanted him to pass judgment on people affected by these he
issues.
Koop did his job, and he served his country.
Bennett needs to take an example from Koop and c
Americans the facts and not rhetoric. If he sincerely want
rnrh Hrno ahncp Rpnnptt must Strp? pHiipj?tir?n cinrt plparlv <
^ , ?"U ?1VIU1; .
out the dangers of drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Otherv
the drug problem will continue to grow until it truly becomes
nation's No. 1 issue.
ii i
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r . ?... Advertising Manager
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* . r... Production Manager
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TEDDY LEPP
Letters Policy: The Gamecock will IT) l? prim tall Inters received. letters should be. at a maximum. .
300 words long. Guest editorials should not exceed 500 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for si
possible libel. The Gamecock will not withhold names under an> circumstance.
BIBLICAL I
~>n, locusts
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can
id as
utaand
ims 1 FROGS
pins v
lling
:m is
the
sons
that '
.alth # #
Movie brings
>ffer ?
S to I saw Mississippi Burning this weekend. Friends
spell hac*t0'd me h was a g??d movie, so I looked forvise
warc* t0 * ^ad no idea what it was about.
, , ' For those of you who don't know, it's about the
> me pgj searching for three student civil rights activists
who are missing and presumed dead. It takes place
in a rural, small, racist Jessup, Miss. As one townie
Dut it: "What the rest of America thinks don't
mean jack ? you're in Mississippi now." (His
language was actually a little more colorful.)
I am a Southern white woman who was taught to
dislike and sometimes to even fear "niggers." I
was supposed to fear black men because "they like
to rape ? especially a white woman." My parents
weren't born in the South, but they have lived here
for more than 20 years and have become naturalized
Southerners.
They are wonderful, loving people and would
never want to physically harm anyone. They don't
believe in the Ku Klux Klan or its ideals. Instead,
they show their prejudiced beliefs in much quieter,
unobtrusive ways ? by teaching their children. Little
do they know that it is these beliefs that separate
us.
SMy middle-class neighborhood was all white.
Our friends were all white. Our doctors were white.
Our churches were white.
We were white.
My older sisters were the first in my family to exShopping
sho'
I don't know how women do it. It must be a hormonal
thing.
Women ? not all women, mind you, but most
^ *4 women ? can spend hours and hours in a shopping
mall wandering from store to store with no particular
game plan except just to shop.
If you ask them what they're doing they say,
"Oh, just shopping."
"What have you bought?"
"Nothin'. I'm just shoppin'."
I hate to shop. I suppose if I had a million
>> dollars to mess around with, I would enjoy it a
whole lot more. But as my income is teetering on
the obscure. I have no incentive to hit the tile floors
of the local mall. I can not justify spending more
than a half an hour in any one retail location.
My shopping skills consist of knowing exactly
what I want before I leave my house, parking as
close to the door as possible, going directly to the
store, making my purchase and leaving. It takes me
all of 20 minutes.
I feel completely out of place at stores. I don't
like meandering through the clothing sections,
"just looking." I don't like it because I know at
^ any minute a salesperson is going to descend on me
and hit me with that dreaded expression, "Can I
help you?"
They seem to get a certain crazed look in their
mmm^ eyes when they see me coming into the door. They
\ '
[Letters
' I Schools need qua ity educ
^ accessibility
proper funds jf
r r the state go\
tions of hig
To the editor: must provii
Gov. Carroll Campbell once support for
picsciucu a laiciiLcu aiiu 511 icu siu- aidic 3 luiun
dent who received a perfect score on Also, the ir
her college entrance exam to a their quest
meeting of regional business leaders. sense of r
He was presenting her to extol the students' fir
quality of the state's educational these must
system. blem will re:
The signifigance of this exposition future, an
remains clear; for any state to appeal economic g
to the nation's new high-tech in- state's abili
dustries, it must possess a quality dilemma,
education system. Accordingly, Students
South Carolina's government has higher educt
worked diligently to improve the We are alst
quality of its system. Financial con- South Caro
cerns have become the main obstacle opportunity
to these improvements. As quality is tion. To do
vital to an attractive system, so is ac- affordable,
cess. Accessibility has become a prois*
i? biem 0f affordability. This is the US(
financial dilemma facing many of the
state's institutions of higher learning Special i
PLAGUES...
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JIM AN
back memorii
1 as
perience integration in school. The"? would come w
home and tell of their new and frightening experiences.
They were sent to an old middle school sa
that used to be all black. There was hatred on both o\
sides. One of my sisters told me how she was "felt
up" by a black guy every time she walked down the ol
hall. Riots were common. My sisters were fearful d<
and suspicious. In many ways they still are ? 25
years later. d<
I was fearful, but curious. I wanted to know cc
what made these people so different from me. hi
What made them so threatening and so repulsive. I
made the mistake of asking why. th
"Why aren't there any black kids in our swimm- je
ing pool?" p<
ws difference b
I li ! I d;
til
Shrewsbury m
_________ mJM
_____??? tc
n<
say to themselves, "Here's another goober who w
doesn't know a thing about shopping. Let's see if T
we can make him feel inferior."
They do it on purpose. They know men have no A
shopping skills, and they prey on that. sc
Women, on the other hand, are treated dif- re
ferently by clerks. Salepeople know that a woman h<
has an understanding of everything having to do oi
with the retail business. They know the amount of re
time and effort that goes into shopping for most
women, and they're not about to mess with them. B
They're scared of women. Men are scared of them.
The only store guys feel comfortable in are toy ec
stores, bookstores and hardware stores. You can m
tell when a man walks into a clothing store he's got w
editor
V, i
provide an improving C.'pJJp ?pfj
ration while maintaining CjUlx^ivlV ill U
. The solution to this pro- _
easy, yet it must lie with fllCtnT'td lUf*
^ernment and the institu- 13 KCIK,
;her learning. The state
de increased economic To the editor:
the institutions, for the I swear I'll never talk to
; economy depends on it. reporter! The Gamecock (\
istitutions must balance day, "Most students c
for improvement with a suicide. . .") seriously disto
esponsibility for their interview we had concerning ?
lancial abilities. Each of survey of USC students,
be sought, for the promain
for the foreseeable First, most students have r
d the state's future sidered suicide. Of those si
;rowth rests with the 48.6 percent said they had coi
ty to deal with this suicide. That percentage i
relatively high. Prior estim
also favor quality in suicide ideation in the
ition in South Carolina. population range from 3 to
) concerned that all of cent. The highest estimate I hi
Una's citizens have the was 50 percent among Psy
to earn a quality educa- Today readers in 1971.
this, education must be
The USC survey was a
James A. Franklin Jr. sample of 1,165 students.
: student body president response rate was only 41
Patrick Smith (472 respondents). That 41
issistant to the president probably is not high enough
VJarWB?15*9
THBATUisrrA CONSTITUTION
ES ?,
D TAMMY
I I
Q ^l)
ir < ?
is of racism
"Because black people have different diseases,
jd they're not as clean."
I also learned that my God was a racist one, acting
to the members of my church. Blacks, if
ly, who attended my church sat in the back and
ere invisible except for the obligatory "hello, how
e you." Eventually, one of the blacks attending
:came baptized. The old founding memebers were
an uproar. One old intensely Southern woman
as speeding home after services. When she was
illed over by a cop, she explained why she was
>eeding: "I'm sorry, officer. I'm just so upset,
hey just baptized a nigger in my church." As far
I know she didn't get a ticket. The officer was
hite.
I grew to hate the word "nigger" and those who
id it. The only problem was it was used in my
vn family.
Unfortunately, I am not any better than the rest
' my family ? someone had to remind me that toly
is Martin Luther King Day.
So many families wonder why their children
Dn't come home to visit them. For me, it's hard to
>me home to a way of life I don't understand and
ive grown to be ashamed of.
The hardest thing I have had to learn in college is
at in order to be at peace with myself, I must rect
my own past teachings ? and at times, the
:ople I love most.
afn/aan covoc
I/ITT VV11
look of uncertainty on his face ? like the first
ay of school. But when he walks into a toy store
a hardware store, he's got confidence and swag;r.
He knows what he wants, and he can't be inmidated
by some high-schooler wearing a name
g.
I think this whole shopping skills gap between
en and women stems from the basic fact that men
e just big kids. Women grow up, men get older,
aopping is an adult thing to do, and men have
;ver really grasped the proper technique.
Guys love a toy store because they remember
?ys. Toys are a vital cog in a man'-s life, and one
;ver outgrows that. A man never feels as safe as
hen he's thumbing through the toy gun section at
oys R Us.
Books are books, and men can understand that,
nd hardware stores, well, that's sort of a father>n
thing regenerated. Because every boy
members when his father first took him to the
irdware store to buy paint or something. It sort
r creates a bond between them that they
member for the rest of their lives.
If I had a million, yeah, it might be different,
ut I don't, and I hate to shop.
Maybe as a new high school requirement, public
lucation ought to offer a course in shopping for
en ? the hows and the whys of shopping. It
ould have to be taught by a woman, of course.
1
wmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmammmmmmmmmm
| much confidence that 46.8 percent of
Cie the sample (let alone all USC
students) have considered suicide
(much more needs to be determined
about traits of respondents vis-a-vis
non-respondents).
another Second, we have no way of knowVednes
ing what the respondents meant by
onsider "ever considered suicide." For exrted
an ample, did they think of holding their
i suicide breath, taking eight aspirin or
shooting themselves in the heads with
the .357s they own?
lot conlrveyed,
The very most our suicide survey
isidered suggests is that there is some (weak)
tself is evidence that USC students have conlates
of sidered suicide (in all its vagueness)
general more than the general population
24 per- has. In no way does "the statistical
ave seen interpretation of (the) data mean
chology almost every student has contemplated"
suicide.
random I've got enough problems without
But the being misquoted.
percent
percent Ronald Maris
10 nave Sociology and USC Suicide Center