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Election Voters turn out in high numbers despite predictions of indifference Preliminary reports indicate that voter turnout in Tuesday's election was greater than expected. South Carolina has a habit of ranking close to the bottom when it comes to voter turnout. Although about 2.7 million people are eligible to vote in this state, only half of them are registered votf~\ ?. 1 _. ~ 1 ^ C iU?r,rt rarrictoroH \/Atorc ^11 .. . cis. winy auuui nan ui uiusc ltgiaivi^u ?uius aciuauy vuic, which means 25 percent of those eligible are voting. For the past 13 years, voter turnout in South Carolina's nonpresidential elections has been less than 60 percent of eligible voters. Last month, it was predicted that voter turnout in South Carolina would fall below 50 percent of registered voters. Reasons for low voter turnout, according to the Associated Press, include apathy, feelings of alienation about the voter's role in government and a sliding national economy, which preoccupies many voter's minds. However, voters ignored the predictions and came out in unexpectedly heavy numbers on Tuesday. Some precincts' early reports indicated turnout between 57 and 65 percent. The above-average numbers might be because of eligible voters' tendency to maintain the status quo unless provoked. The reasons cited for low voter turnout might actually be the reasons people voted. Apathy and indifference might have been pushed aside because the State House scandal incited in voters a get-the-rascals-out, anti-incumbency mood. The grim-looking economy might have inspired people to vote for representatives who will try harder to make a difference. Instead of feeling alienated, voters might now believe they must play an active role in deciding who will represent them, rather than leaving that decision to a small minoritv of voters. Although the number of active voters could be much better, the voter turnout in Tuesday's election is an improvement over that of past elections. Perhaps voters have decided to take more control in choosing their representatives. Hopefully, this trend will continue. "MAN,THAT RUSSIAN ECONOMY IS IN TROUBLE" The Gamecock News: 777-7726 _ Advertising: 777-4249 Jeff Wilson Sharon Willamson Editor in Chief Managing Editor/Copy Desk Chief Lynn Gibson Elizabeth Lynch News Editor Carolina Life Editor DougAube Renee Meyer Sports Editor Photography Editor Kelly C. Thomas Viewpoints Editor Elizabeth Fox Sherri Tillman Assistant News Editor Assistant News Editor david bowden kathy heberger Assistant Carolina Life Editor Assistant Carolina Life Editor Brant Long Julie Bouchillon Assistant Sports Editor Assistant Photography Editor Sara Verne Octavia Wright Assistant Copy Desk Chief Assistant to the Editors kristin jkrancis erik collins Graduate Assistant Faculty Adviser Ed bonza Laura S. Day Director of Student Media Production Manager Ray Burgos Renee Gibson Assistant Production Manager Advertising Manager Kyle Berry Carolyn Griffin Assistant Advertising Manager Business Manager Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should t>e, at maximum, 250 to 300 words long. The writer must include full name, professional title if a USC employee or South Carolina resident, or year and major if a student. An address and phone number are required with all letters sent. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit letters for style, possible libel or in case of space limitations. The newspaper will not withhold names under any C'rcumstance. TH1R Twenty-some Sitting around The Gamecock newsroom, I can talk to different people with different philosophies about life, relationships and just about any other subject imaginable. I have come to the conclusion that there are only two things we all share in common ? we're all members of the twenty-something generation, and we're all confused about the future. This is an epidemic of the twenty-something generation. We live in the shadows of the baby boomers and balk at their values and ideas. Time magazine (July 16, 1990) called us the baby bust generation. I think that is true not only because there are less of us, but also because our ideology is so ambiguous. Time said we have trouble making decisions, have few heroes, few anthems and few styles that we can call our own. This is true, and it has a lot to do with the way we grew up. One time it was a rarity to know people who had divorced parents. Today, it is a rarity to see people our age whose parents are still together. For that reason, I believe many of us are scared LETTERS TO TH President not such a failure president's < matter as inc To the editor. Now I pi I write this letter to help David jen I am i Bowden regain some of his lost am'j Writin trust in our president. In the Nov. grammed st 2 issue of The Gamecock, he ini- ever> wrjte 1 tiated a typical leftist smear against ^ s^n(j you the President by giving us his in- what he is p terpretations of recent events to il- feel the nee< lustrate how he feels Bush has iess editorial failed. To begin with, Bowden insinuated that the president supported the massacre in Tiananmen Square. * TT^ ( In the realm of international poli- AlUk tics, the Chinese are a very impor- # # tant player on the world scene. At misir the time, the Cold War was still going on, and it would have been To the edito silly to isolate China under the cir- This lette cumstances. We can do more to Johnson's help the Chinese people diplomati- which his tl cally than by cutting thern off from States, Cana the world and leaving them to suf- United Kin fer under their dictators. Health Orga Bowden then condemns Bush conspiracy 1 for doing nothing to support the "attack and revolutions in Eastern Europe. vilization" I America, under Reagan and Bush, virus and d had been applying pressure to the that continei Eastern Bloc for years. When com- Mr. Johns munism finally started falling, that ways than o kind of support could have resulted Genetical in conflict with the Soviet Union. crete biolog Besides, the Warsaw Pact was possible foi quite capable of falling apart by it- causes AIE self without any help from our from a mor quite capable president gests that h And now the real crux of the the nature 0 mollpr thp KllHfTft T ptiillnnno oni; *' inuuvi, u?v uuu^vv. i viiuiivii^v anj puiaiC CI1L1L1 one of you to read your Constitu- hosts, anima tion to find out who is responsible Viruses are for government spending. No, cycle deper never mind. I will tell you. The le- ferred from gislative branch is responsible for Various hos the budget. (That's Congress to differently you and me.) Unfortunately, that AIDS is no branch is controlled by the Demo- for green m crats, and those are the real cul- mans. Virus prits behind higher taxes and runa- cies. HIV i way deficits. have done s The sad losers in this kind of a human o thinking are the armed men and monkey, women in the deserts of Saudi Ar- If this gc abia. While leftist writers like son's "rese< Bowden are degrading the leader consider ra of our country, they sit only mere spread by i rr I I 11 ?IH "T 1 iV } i *^<^> ahstrtit?!^ ^S^s&q&a TY SOUNp BITES OYER R4GHPAP. thing generati J I JEFF WILSON of real commitments and life-long relationships. Thirty years ago, people in their early 20s were getting married and having children. I know few people my age who are even talking about marriage. I think a lot of us are afraid of marriage be cause we are afraid of having children. We grew up in an era where "latch-key kids" and "quality time" became buzz phrases, and I don't think the quality time worked. But our parents had to work. We are the products of the television babysitter and computer games playmates. A survey in Time said that 45 percent of us tBf PiJi I un from the Iraqi army with little acknowledg merica's interest in the mammalian species boun< /den has mistaken the- He then tells us of the ireful patience in this Dr. Theodore A. Strecki iecision. ' documentary evidence cl omise you, Mr. Bow- HIV was created at For reither Republican nor Maryland by combining ig this on any mono- B and smallpox. There i? ationery. I will, how- of "The Strecker Memora Mr. Bush and ask him the Cooper Library. In 1 a step-by-step guide in is no mention of the go lanning so you will not in The Science Citath i to write these sense- whatsoever. Work was dc Is anymore. patitis and smallpox at Fl Darrin Wilcox but at the time of this res English junior 1970s, virology was in it' Even today, it is que Z? 4- ^ mm whether such viral jugglii > writer rh,.? _ . . ?. w - il/lVi X IIVJV bill W ? IIUU^ ? ? completely different that II OF 111 CO log?us 10 combining ap oranges to make people, r: ally, according to a res< r is in response to Mr. ologist at the USC Schot letter of Oct. 29 in dicine who worked at F lesis is that the United (name withheld by requ ida, West Germany, the one can investigate the v gdom and the World there. The books are c nization have formed a there is no evidence to su of epic proportions to Johnson's irresp< destroy the African ci- proclamations. >y inventing the AIDS Finally, if HIV was it isseminating it through smallpox and hepatitis, p it. their genetic codes would ;on is mistaken in more within the manufactured ne. They are not. ly speaking, his "con- HIV has been around i ical law" that it is not ger than most people r HIV (the virus that While AIDS only >S) to be transferred epidemic proportions in t ikey to a human sug- blood samples from the 1 e does not understand tains AIDS antibodies, ar f viruses. They are se- recent evidence that ar es that live in various sailor died from AIDS-ri il, human or otherwise, ness in 1959. But it con parasites whose life- older yet. A prototype of ids upon being trans- plex gene sequence cc one host to another. HIV has been isolated in it species are affected mans and chimpanzees, s by the same viruses: that an early form of the more than a bad cold vaded and was incorpoi onkeys but it kills hu- the genome of an ancestr; es can jump host spe- before humans and chii :ould most plausibly diverged. (Nucleic Acids o via a monkey biting 6481-6854, Sept. 1989).. r a human eating a Mr. Johnson then p World Health Organi >es against Mr. John- smallpox immunization p irch," then he should the agent of infection o bies, a viral disease Africa. He claims, "It is infected animal bites tain that who introduced ion puzzling spent more time watching television than we did with our parents, only 43 percent spent more time with our parents. I think the biggest difference between my generation and my parents' is career goals. Who really knows what they want to do with their lives anymore: i Know i warn 10 oe in journalism, but what in journalism and where I want to live and work is still indecided. And I'm not by myself in my confusion. The way the job market is working, we may be the first generation to be less well off than our parents. Another change that has occurred with the twenty-something generation is activism. We want to be involved, but they are too many causes and too little time to do everything we want to do. Granted, there are some 20 year olds who are committed to causes such as the enviroment, but there isn't a national issue that has a significant number of us riled up. Are we a lost generation? I hope not, but sometimes I really don't know. ?-??? ' ement of cines that contaminated east and iaries. central Africa, (sic) with the AIDS : scientist, virus." By selectively citing a Loner, whose don Times front page article (May laims that 11, 1987), he conveniently ignores t Detrick, statements that the vaccine may hepatitis have merely awakened the "unsuss no copy pected, dormant-human immuno indum" in defence virus," about the origin of act, there which "Central African States od doctor were implicated." 3n Index >ne on he- Also, the Times article only ofL Detrick, fers the hypothesis that the vacciearch, the nation program catalyzed AIDS s infancy. from its historic sta e as a "minor stionable endemic illness of the Third World lg is feas- int0 the current pandemic." This is js are so worlds away from treating this it is ana- possibility as an proven fact. What pies with is stated with confidence is that Addition- "the 13-year (smallpox) eradication jarch vir- program ended in 1980, with the d! of Me- saving of two million lives a year t. Detrick and 15 million infections." est), any- Mr. Johnson finally claims that v'ork done the U.S. government infected the ipen, and male population of the Tuskegee pport Mr. Institute with syphillis. As Dr. Bo3 n s i b 1 e lander pointed out (letter, Oct. 31), the experiments carried out were lade from on previously infected men whose ortions of symptoms had gone into remission, be found Anyone who wishes to learn more genome, should consult Sexually Transmitted Diseases, K. Holmes and coenuch Ion- ditors, 1990 McGraw-Hill. realize. It Is arrogant and false to prereached tend to know all there is about the he 1980s, origin and spread of AIDS. It is a 960s con- complex disease that is constantly id there is evolving and whose origins appear i English to go into pre-history. According elated ill- to Bosko Postic, a M.D. and proild be far fessor at the Division of Infectious the com- Diseases at USC's School of Melding for dicine, Dr. Robert Gallo, the disboth hu- coverer of HIV in this country, at uggesting 28th annual meeting of the Invirus in- fectious Diseases Society of ated into America (Oct. 25-26) stated that al primate the origin of HIV is not known, mpanzees AIDS is perhaps one of the most Res. 17: serious threats to human civilization today, and attempting to find a osits the racial scapegoat only sows confuization's sion and fear, deflecting attention rogram as a?d energy from the real issue: f HIV in understanding and curing AIDS, now cer- Shepard W. McAninch the vac- biology senior