University of South Carolina Libraries
Oops! Loss of USC financial records humiliates university in press Just when USC seemed to be leaving its long history of bad public relations behind comes the news that USC's Carolina Research and Development Foundation destroyed financial records A A 1 1 A.1 rr 1 J _ ? -J .11 n t uemanueu uy me press, inese records were accidentally destroyed in 1988 when university maintenance workers threw them away. The records detailed the foundation's spending for the years 1981-85 during the Holderman administration. The Associated Press and The Greenville News had sued to look at the records to investigate any improprieties in spending, and the state Supreme Court ruled Monday that the foundation must open its records. The investigation by the news organizations has been stymied thanks to the mysterious destruction of the documents. On top of all the controversy, real and imagined, that has surrounded the university for years, it is unfortunate that the press has one more reason to drag USC's reputation through the proverbial mud. Gov. Campbell has said he is ordering SLED to investigate. If SLED turns up information that anyone in the university ordered these documents destroyed, those persons should be immediately dismissed, if they still work for USC, that is. USC's prestige must he. rlefenrlerl from those individuals who would rover nn their nn ? ? ??~ ??. - ?~ ~?? savory deals. True, the documents could have been destroyed by accident, but this seems like an incredible coincidence. And why such a threeyear delay in finding out the documents were missing? Bad memories of the Iran-Contra affair come to mind when one hears that USC destroyed documents. All we need is a lieutenant colonel heroically manning a paper shredder, and we'irbe in business. An r\f HA/>ntYi??nto pViauM Kn o i/apHrr/a of Dmni/lant Don uwu Uviivyii ui vawwuin onuuiu u^y a \ji 1 iv^aiuv^ni ixt/agan's administration, not President Holderman's. USC should be beyond reproach, yet the university continues to set itself up for embarrassment. "FRIENP YASSIR HAS SOME 600? IPFAS4' a ARAFAT WEAPON SYSTEM The Gamecock News: 777-7726 Advertising: 777-4249 Kathy Blackwell Robyn Thompson Editor in Chief Managing Editor Chris Silvestri David Bowden Copy Desk Chief Viewpoint Editor Lucy Soto Kathy Heberger News Editor Carolina Life Editor Steve Johnson Renee Meyer Sports Editor Photography Editor Aaron Sheinin Tige Watts Assistant News Editor Assistant News Editor Oct a via Wright Patrick Villegas Assistant Carolina Life Editor Assistant Sports Editor Jennifer Jablonski Julie bouchillon Assistant Copy Desk Chief Assistant Photography Editor Eric Glenn Wayne Williams Darkroom Lab Technician Comics Editor Ed Bonza Erik Collins Director of Student Media Faculty Adviser Laura S. Day Ray Burgos Production Manager Assistant Production Manager Renee Gibson Kyle berry Advertising Manager Assistant Advertising Manager Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should be, 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 circumstance. Valentine p OK, it's over now. How did you i ladies? Honestly now. You know ho tine's Day is. One of those hit or miss Many say it's a holiday created by ing card industry so they can make a all those love-stricken saps out tb knows there's enough of us). Well, gi gentlemen . .. psst, I've got a secrei It's not. It was created by women. That's right. We scheming ferm created this holiday as a test. We wan the object of our infatuation is a ere; giving genius or a completely insensiti You see, we don't pick out what w< Valentine's Day like we do for bin Christmas. And the theme of this wc sappy holiday is love, passion, roma means no practical gifts, either. I knov refuse to make this easy. Because no one has written a manua gifts to give what women, we ladies sort of randomly end up with either t est gift imaginable, or a cruel joke tl where cupid is collapsing into giggles ? Now gentlemen, if you gave candj or a sweet card then you did pretty w -1 c" i i i c* n o "t* / i ? I I r n o I ' mtm wmm mw m Letter racist, not factual To the editor: , One would have thought that after the thorough lambasting he received in the columns of The Gamecock, Mr. Spiros Papleacos would have spared the entire campus from a second venting of his spleen. It was heartening to see, though, that Mr. Papleacos was unable to respond to even a single argument of his detractors, i.e. all the sane people of USC, and instead accused them of "ideological doctrination." I suppose, he wants to portray ' himself as the objective voice of 1 reason versus all us ideologically ! motivated poor souls. However, we beg to differ from another one of Mr. Papleacos' baseless conclu- ' sions. In fact, we think he is the ' voice of prejudice and a long- ; discredited tradition of racism. If ( anyone is motivated by ideology, it is surely he. As for his single-handed dismissal of Egyptologists and scholars of African history, Mr. Papleacos should probably acquaint himself with the admirable works of these ' people, instead of picking out 1 some outrageous statements to condemn the entire field. He should also know that in the 19th Century, many scholars claimed that contemporary Greece and Italy were inhabited by an "inferior and darker" race and Northern Europeans were the true descendants of the ancient civilizations of these countries. That the above claim is nonsense is obvious to everyone, but that does not make me dismiss the entire field of western civilization as useless and false. ; Mr. Papleacos himself shows a great deal of confusion in speaking of race ? note his "whatever the hell that is" after "the white/black man." Most scholars agree today that it is very difficult to talk about "races" and even to define "race" in an academically satisfactory way. For an easily accessible book on this subject, I would refer him to Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasurement of Man. If the favorite pastime of 19th century pseudo-scientists and ra- , r HEY, R^NT Go confUSiN' VB vir resents ra holidays. qu| the greet- " ?* * On I killing on ere (God uess what t for you. traditional gifts that sh tie types 0ut her. Give yourself t to see if if you brought her itive gift- simple piece of jewelr ve lout. then you are one of thi e want on geniuses. Stand up ar Lhdays or didn't have to spend inderfully time doing something nee. That love that stuff. v, we just But then there are tl gave one of these babi 1 on what the only thing answerii generally ment today is the macl he sweet- Cheesy lingerie iat some- called Leathers and Fe over. are nice. But black lei . fl/Mim?*n r\?r* 1 r\/sr\ finm fy iiuwwa pniiv iav^ unit uiai, aay -ell. Nice, a matching feather b( ? - ?0 THE EDITC cists was the measurement of human skulls to illustrate an hierarchy of human races according to intelligence (determined by the largeness of the skull), today it is to do the very same thing by making IQ tests a basis for racial intellect. Mr. Papleacos is fond of repeating the Bible according to Murray and Herrstein in this connection. However, he should realize that IQ tests as a standard for measuring "racial" intelligence is highly disputed. How do we know that a person's race rather than his/her class, background and many other factors such as the schools one attends etc. determined the result? I am certainly less inclined than he is to accept the words of Murray and Herrstein as Gospel truth. A word of advice for Mr. Papleacos ? it is easy to find justification for our deep-seated views about the world with any number of texts. Ask any social scientist who is daily confronted with a myriad of conflicting interpretations on any given subject We are well aware the Devil can quote the scriptures. However, it would be more honest to frankly admit our prejudices instead of presenting hem in the guise of facts. Manisha Sinha USC graduate research fellow WUSC never phones people To the editor: Hi! My name is Jami, and I am the music director at WUSC (yeah, that's right. The university's WEIRD radio station. You wanna make something of it?). This is just a brief, factual and oh-soimportant bit of information about our radio station. OK, folks. It comes down to this, we don't hassle you to listen to us ? it's your choice. But one way we try and get you to make that choice is to give away tickets and even prizes. We have tickets to the shows at Greenstreet's and Rockafellas daily. Occasionally, we have tickets to the Township, Carolina Coliseum and other larger venues. We sometimes even give away prizes over the air. But that's just the ted for thoii you a squea Jewelr ELLEY MAGEE mot^nno) quence all t rings, altho die-for gift Jewelr owed her you thought ab- gaudy ever a pat on the back. breath. Rii on a picnic, gave her a rhinestone 1 y, or made dinner for her Run DMC 1 z aforementioned creative may some! id applaud yourself. You romance, a lot of money, but just Flowei to spoil her. We ladies Wild Kingd A potted Yi he nightmare gifts. If you tlingly brigl es, you might have found fake Ming 1 ng the phone in her apart- Get the i une. wnere you that came from a store this to you athers. Pretty underthings tell her yoi ither underpants with hot her happy. Hot Stuff and come with mare gifts, Da will probably not get you lout. i. I ? IIII H III I > . ! ! ? ! ' IM IIIIII ?!<<; * M O M1111111 ?: ! [.? . ^ * * ? - - 'I'd* * '*> < ' ' IP - point. The giveaways we have are always announced over the air (frequency 90.5), and you call us to win. We NEVER CALL YOU. We NEVER hassle you. It's your choice to listen and your choice to call for prizes or tickets. That's why we call it alternative, folks. So if somebody calls you up, identifies themselves as a member of WUSC and tells you that you've just won a pair of Sting tickets or a new car or a trip to the Bahamas . . . hang up the phone. That's all we ask. Jami McKinnon WUSC music director Letters mean, not informed To the editor: This letter is not to state my opinion of the gulf war, nor is it to blast anyone else's opinion, as recently has been done. Rather, I am provoked to write by the Feb. 11 letter from Mr. Holland and Mr. Alexander. Is not the purpose of the Viewpoint section for people to express their opinions, questions, insights, etc. on events? Yes, they may occasionally refer to another letter, but to write a letter for the sole purpose pf paragraphically bombarding and name-calling others has no point. I, for one, enjoy opening The Gamecock and reading the letters and opinions of my fellow citizens, whether they differ from mine or not. As for criticizing The Gamecock for printing these letters and articles, well, Mr. Holland and Mr. A IpvQnHpr Qf lAQct tliACP xi/ri fir* rre i livAuuuvi) i4i> ivuoi in\jo\s miuu^o had a point. The Gamecock did you a service by printing yours. A large city newspaper of much caliber probably would sooner not print your letter than the others. Tara Surratt Elementary education graduate student Valentine ad insults women To the editor: The Feb. 6 issue of The Gamecock contained an advertisement ightfulness 1 of "Oh honey, just what I wanted." y or accessories that light up. A Bud with a heart shaped brim that has ing little red lights that flash in se he way around it and matching earugh novel, are somehow not a toidea. y that, although expensive, is so I Liberace would have caught his rigs delicately hand-crafted with frogs on them, or chains so heavy vas sporting them in their last video how miss catching the spirit of r arrangements on special order from om. Three simple red roses are nice, lcka tree, or an entire garden of starit oversized blossoms stuffed into a /ase may overwhelm her just a little, dea? Well now you have an idea of stand, guys. If you did well, show r girlfriend with a proud smile and II really are attuned to what makes Now if you gave one of the nightI'm glad you're not my boyfriend, &*** * '' ? :' * v 51 > for FID, the national floral delivery company. The ad presented some "terrific strategy" for Valentine's Day. Upon receiving FTD flowers in honor of this holiday, a woman would ostensibly be so moved with passion that "she ; (might) ask (the sender of the> flowers) to stay late." The larger issues implicated by;! this sort of advertisement are those ! of a woman's self-worth and the " horrors of date and acquaintance 3: rape. The advertising section of.The Gamecock did a grave disser-\ vice to the Carolina community by. 1 printing such a message. The message that the ad puts forth about women is that all wo--, men are slutty and cheap: buy her '.a nice floral arrangement and get*set for a night of passion dnd plea Tt r i i \ sure, ine raise iaea tnat a woman*, will give in to anything, such as an expensive dinner or a few drinks, leads to the notion that a woman "owes" something to a man after;* he has spent money on her. This ad gives no credit to women as human beings. The attitude expressed about sex by this advertisement is insulting.; * Sex is depicted as something to be bargained for; the phrase "terrific strategy" used by the advertisers ; contributes to this view of sex as a ; game. This sort of prevalent thought * leads to the nationwide problem of date and acquaintance rape. Sex is ' an equal partnership; if a woman ; wants to participate in this partner- ; ship, bargaining or "strategy" is unnecessary. Organizations on the USC cam- ! pus are working to educate college ; students about the existence of ? 1 L ' L date ana acquaintance rape, wmcn ? is a problem present on every uni- ! versity and college campus in the nation. This crime is no laughing mat ter, this horror leaves a permanent O flH tr/iftirt Afl O m/\ anvi ua^ic lilipi^ddiun a wu" ? man's life. Valentine's Day is set * aside to recognize loved ones and ; special people. It is a holiday to * tell the woman you love how spe- . cial she is to you as a person, not , as an object. ; Amy C. Chapman ; Art education senior Jennifer Chambers * Women Students' Association ! President ;