The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 07, 1990, Page 3, Image 3
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
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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