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Issues Student Government must work on problems it can control Now that the dust has settled in the USC Student Government elections, it is time for the winners to make good on their campaign promises. Looking over the big issues concerning students, the outlook is pessimistic. Crime on campus is a consistent problem at USC, but there is little more that can be done about it now. With callboxes and regular police patrols, the campus is protected well. Student leaders won't be able to reduce crime much more unless they encourage students to never leave their dorms. Tuition is ever-increasing, hut again, the student leadershiD will not be able to affect financial decisions made on the state level. Similarly, it is doubtful the student president and vice president can make the Carolina Research and Development Foundation clean up its act. However, the students' elected leaders can make a difference, as former S.G. President Marie-Louise Ramsdale proved with her aggressive leadership. Student Government leaders can prevent the worst excesses of power by the Board of Trustees (as shown by Ramsdale's negotiations with the board over opposite-sex visitation). President-elect Manish Shrivastava has some fresh ideas, such _1 ? _ lit -f 1!.!-! ...1 _1 1J 1 . - J J as ms pian 10 maKe a nil lisi 01 politicians wnu snouiu oe vuieu out of office because of their lack of support to the USC system. This is as close as the student president can come to influencing the amount of money the state allocates to USC. Vice president-elect Shine Brooks received a lot of attention for his proposed programs. These could turn out to be good ideas if he can persuade faculty and administration to implement them. His idea for a grade-forgiveness policy might be especially difficult to get through the powers-that-be. In summary, our student leaders are hardly symbolic figureheads, but they will have to work to gain influence in a university dominated by the good of boy network. GREAT MOMENTS IN GOVERNMENT The Invention Of The / \ & i ft? I ruacy ( g V 1 The Gamecock i News: 777-7726 Advertising: 777-4249 Kathy Blackwell robyn Thompson ?<#tor 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 Vellegas 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, pro- < fessional 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 I space limitations. The newspaper will not withhold names under any ] circumstance. I President hurl Jim Bakker and Jim Holderman: long lost wins? Think about it. Same first name, same moral consciousness, >oth belong in jail and both deserve to have to ;ell plasma monthly to put themselves through :ollege. Who should we start with? Most everyone cnows the crimes to humanity Jim Bakker has :ommitted in his tenure as No. 1 butt-head. Poor little old ladies who actually find comort and security in their religion are turned igainst it by the likes of Bakker. As Hank Wil iams Jr. said, 'They're asking you to send your noney to the Lord, but they're giving you their iddress." Does this make sense? And why is society lefending such a con-artist? Oh yeah, fry the ;uy who got fed up with the hand society has lealt him and robbed the local Circle K, but put t heart-stomping, faith-stealing (at this point, I ;uffered a severe anxiety attack by trying to hink of a non-expletive strong enough to get ny point across) jack-ass like Bakker back on he street, because the judge gave him a piece )f his mind. Where is the justice in this? I better move on to Holderman before I pop a )lood vessel, die and not get to thrash that basardizing ex-president. First, let me make it clear that Jim Holderman did do some things to benefit this university. He has helped us get on the front row of academia in state universities, and he propelled several programs to national acclaim. Holderman's goal of being a top 10 school by 2001 is within reach. However, with the recent discoveries of his inexcusable spending and outrageous salary Bush guaranti This article is a shameless rip-off of Rich raylor's Chip Shots column in our beloved Sports section. My column is a compilation of various ideas floating around in my head that I have been meaning to rave about. . . . Now that President Bush has locked up another term as our exalted leader, the Democrats should run somebody out of the political mainstream who they can use to raise dozens of neglected concerns Bush has been overlooking. Jesse Jackson would be ideal. Maybe he can embarrass Bush into doing a better job domesti?11-. Litliy 111 111S SCCVJ11U LH 111. . . . Speaking of the presidency, the Republicans may stay in power for the rest of the decade. General Schwarzkopf in 1996 is a real possibility. The U.S. loves to elect generals (Washington, Jackson, Grant and Eisenhower come to mind). Hope that trend doesn't start in the USSR. . . . The Peace Prize going to President Gorbachev may be the Nobel Prize Committee's biggest mistake since giving Pearl Buck the LETTERS TO Tl Soldier writes coalition fo in tt7 around our OH CjUII Wnr army units Foreign Le To the editor: ^Pf frorr Normally at this time of year, I 1 States i would be a student at USC. Instead simP'y beCt I am just inside the Saudi/Iraqi n wc car border waitine for the eround war _ .must to begin. (This letter was written au "er ar on Feb. 15, but was just received niC(j_ c ean 1 Monday, ed.) I have just finished e*c ang'ng reading the edition of Jan. 25 and a 011 Li c find myself highly irritated at the v^ar' ey letter sent by Lila Faulkner and 1 e Nicole Berrv a duSty' w bers of th They state that "the United They are U States has rushed into an unneces- ever met. 1 >ary war." This is wrong. The U.S. are here, gave Saddam every chance to sur- These m render before attacking. We did kings fight not rush into anything. they are ev Also, the U.S. is not the only want to go LOSER* ; USC more th rfr" 1 ' * AARON SHEININ supplements, he might want to adopt a new goal for 2001: not being in jail. Many of his "supplements" were reported to never have been entered on his taxes: uh-oh Jimmy, that's a no-no. I remember when I was a freshman, during Carolina Preview week, I saw slides of Holderman. I remember thinking, "This dork is the president of our university?" I soon found out however, through my work with The Gamecock, that he was not a geek, just a crook. How is it possible, that $3.3 million in scho larsnip money couia oe spent on paying me ivoger debt? How is it possible to justify a $32,000 Hawaiian vacation, Jimmy? How, Jimbo, could you defend why in the hell you sent a $3,000 Excalibur doohickey to Bill Cosby for speaking at commencement? I'm sure we paid him plenty anyway. $400 for a pair of cowboy boots for the late Joe Morrison, James? I could maybe understand Jim Morrison, but not this. Holderman is now living in Jacksonville, Fla. This doomed town lies right off 1-95, the interstate that leads to Daytona, where many college students will be heading this weekend. I have a request for all USC students headed that way. Stop by his house, sit on his front porch and ask for a dime because you didn't get that scholarship you were counting on. See if he tells you not to fret because you have a worldclass arts center to sleep in at night. eed to win, G f%?f DAVID BOWDEN 1 prize for Literature. Gorbachev will be lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you see it) if he is still in charge in 1992. The onerous job of running that mess called a country may soon be in the hands of either a reformer like Boris Yeltsin or a military dictator. . . . The Bowden Early Pick for the next Nobel Prize goes to F.W. DeKlerk, prime minister of South Africa. In one speech before the South African parliament, he set the wheels turning for the end of apartheid. . . . One of the more amazing things in 1991 happened almost unnoticed because of the Persian Gulf War. The Warsaw Pact has officially disbanded, leaving NATO as the only military HE EDITOR h troops here. This is a was taken away by a n rce. In just a small area war will be won when camp, there are French this. , units of the French Jim gion, Saudi troops and Operation D i Bangladesh. The UnIs of course doing more AlllfTHIl ?1 luse we can. To do less ? i would be wrong. p j ~ op J| ( be quite easy for Ms. HIvII id Ms. Berry to sit in a classroom or apartment To the editor: cute political cliches Surely, Mr. Watts, non-necessity of this response to your edii should remember one Feb. 27 issue of 77i< jy are not here. I live in comes as no surprise ti indy place with mem- labeled as "apathetic e Kuwaiti resistance. conservatives" is not c le finest people I have for, but quite judgmei rhey are the reason we part. Being graduates o ten are not princes or High School and supp ing to regain a throne, actions taken by Princ eryday people who just denbaugh, we have back to the home that where were you whei > STILL DM an he helped That's another good idea. I hereby propose that every USC student should march on the Koger Center, rip out a chair and take it with them. Hell, I might even get one of those nifty things out of the lobby as payment for the scholarship I should have gotten. Now, this isn't to say that this is the only reason I didn't get a scholarship from the university. It also is partly because I screwed around in high school. However, I have chosen to champion the cause of all the poor saps who did get robbed. And that's what it is: robbery. And we, the students, in order to form a more perfect school, should show our anger! All you in-staters out there, write your legislators, tell them you want Holderman's butt in a sling or their head on a platter. Out-of-staters send hate mail to the Board of Trustees and SLED demanding Jim Holderman be tarred and feathered. We deserve and must start demanding better than this. No matter what he did to increase the credibility of this university, it couldn't have been done without us, the students, for God's sake, and to think the administration has started to forget this. It's our job to cattle-prod their memory and force them to start serving the needs of the students instead of the needs of their wallets. What it comes down to is I'm pissed off. Jim Bakker and Jim Holderman are both despicable, and neither one of them really deserves the time, work, stress, ink and paper it has taken to make this column, but I think this needs to be addressed. We have a voice! Whip out the Chloroseptic and oil that sucker up. I implore every single student or faculty member out there who is not happy with the present situation, to get off their behinds and take some intiative. Let's get them both. orby to lose organization in Europe. If anyone didn't already know, this is the final proof that Communism is dead. Somebody should tell Fidel C-astro and Deng Xiaoping. ... An editorial in The Christian Science Monitor called for the disbanding of the costly Selective Service Administration as it has been proven that our volunteer military does a great job without draftees. Being a 20-year-old male, I couldn't agree more. Seriously, the draft as a necessary part of our military machine will probably never be used again, so why bother? ... It is sad that Japan, a country I greatly admire, showed so little intestinal fortitude in the gulf war. Japan has a huge military machine that should have been put to use defending its own oil interests. Protecting the stability of the Persian Gulf should fit any Japanese definition of "selfdefense." For a country with such a long military tradition, Japan is really being a . . . how shall I say it, a member of the feline species? ladman. The was united under yellow ribbons? they can do Why only report the diversities within the school? Where was your i M. Cherry "judge and jury" journalism then, esert Storm Mr. Watts? We are very much aware that coicf this has been a "personal hell" for many people, but everyone has a finl right to express their opinions ? liUl even the ones protesting the pro testers. Mr. Watts, we have had nothing but respect for your jourthis letter in nalism in the past, but you have torial in the crossed over the line this time. ? Gamecock As a final statement expressing o you. Being 0pjnjon Qf at two Lexing: puckerbutt tQn School graduates (and rnly uncalled peace-loving, patriotic Americans), n on y?ur Mr. Watts, you can kiss our white apathetic puckerbutts! f Lexington John A Benson >orters of die Lexington High Class of 1986 ipal J?e Be~ Joanne L. Benson to as you. Lexington High Class of 1990 n the school