The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, August 23, 1993, REGISTRATION ISSUE, Page 14, Image 14
EDITORIAL
Tuition
Six percent increase amounts
to pickpocketing students
^nee again the shallow pockets of the
f 1 stu(^ent anc* their hardworking parV_>/
ents are being picked to make up
^for a shortfall in higher education funding.
The 5.89 percent tuition increase from
the spring to the fall semester for in-state
undergraduates represents an almost 10 percent
increase from the prior academic year.
All during the spring semester, when the Future Committee
hearings took place, the administration said the point was
being reached where higher tuitions could no longer be supported
or endured by students, their parents or even the board
of trustees. Yet, the board passed the tuition increase unanimously,
and USC is suffering from raids on faculty from other
schools.
Will it come to the point where the state's college-material
students are scared away in droves?
It may already be happening.
Will they decide not to come because of fewer faculty and
overcrowded classes?
Take a look around the campus once classes start.
Will your degree be worth anything when you graduate?
There's always the paper it's printed on.
And if it's not worth much by itself, then maybe you can get
the other members of your graduating class to give you theirs,
so you can get them recycled.
This may all sound depressing, but it's the grim reality we
face, and the solution will be hard to come by.
If the legislature is going to be made aware of the need for
full-funding of higher education, it will have to come from the
Carolina community, and that community will need a leader.
Is our leader USC President John Palms or SGA President
Carl Solomon? They have made their attempts at tuition rollbacks
and lobbying the legislature but neither one has shown
us the a vision for Carolina. Athletic Director Mike McGee
has provided more leadership in making USC a community
again.
If a leader is to emerge and bring this institution back to
prominence, that leader must realize the difficulty of bringing
this far-flung community into focus.
Universities are not what they used to be, with 80 percent of
students living Off-campus.
It takes longer for the average student to obtain a degree.
Sometimes they are here when they have money, other times
they take a semester off.
USC lacks any type of vision or any type of comprehensive
plan mapping out the university's future and where it is
heading; something that faculty, students can cling to and say
without hesitation this is what the University of South
Carolina stands for.
Sidney Park?
Housing development
will hurt public access
If the City of Columbia has its way, Sidney Park could see
some new additions within the next few years.
No, it won't be the concert stage that was proposed earlier this
year. Instead, Governor's Hill, a high-priced land development,
is being placed within the zoning limits of the park.
The land in question, a 5-acre spread connected to the park,
will contain up to 30 houses. The congestion of houses and traffic
will make the occupants realize it isn't what they hoped for,
then Governor's Hill will be nothing more than an abandoned
subdivision.
The need for better, high-cost housing located near the governor's
house seems ludicrous. The nicer sections of town, like
Shandon and the Northeast, should suffice. And while downtown
needs an economic boost, Governor's Hill will prove to be a
bust. The additional property taxes gained by the development is
unsound economically, and it would be foolish of the- city to
allow the project to continue.
The Save Sidney Park Coalition has spearheaded a massive
petition campaign to push for a citywide referendum on the
future of Governor's Hill. Construction of the first house is slated
for November.
However, it appears that their efforts may be in vain. City
bureaucrats have been stonewalling the coalition's efforts by
demanding that they need to have 5,233 registered voters.
However, the process of identifying petition signees as registered
voters has taken an exceedingly long time, perhaps long
enough for the completion of Governor's Hill.
Are city officials stonewalling because they have something to
hide, or is it simply the usual inept process of bureaucratic
paperwork that city government's are thought to be?
If the coalition is successful in obtaining enough signatures,
they must then submit them to the city's election commission,
which is likely to ignore them. The responsiveness of this city's
elected representatives to their constituents is lackluster at best.
The S.C. Bill of Rights guarantees the right to petition, implying
that the government, at all levels, will respond to the people's
wants.
lr uovernor s hiii is even ouiit, me pane win oecome less
public, and will be policed to "keep out undesirables." The likely
occupants of Governor's Hill will be white, upper-class, conservatives
who would probably define the "undesirables" as any
minorities, even USC students.
Sidney Park would become their park, not ours.
As for Sidney Park, which was built and funded with taxpayer's
money, it belongs to the citizens of Columbia, not to an elite
set of people who desire it to be their backyard.
Mall etiquett*
I've been in the woods for three months now,
and I'm beginning to get used to the feeling of
working at a Boy Scout camp.
I've noticed how quiet the outdoors can be,
and I'm really starting to appreciate the polite
respect most of the scouts and even the scout
leaders give me; they've basically shown me the
priori sirlp of hpinu human
We get the weekends off, however, and I
entered the "real world" last Saturday to visit the
mall. My visit has convinced me that shopping
with hundreds of other people in a huge covered
space is designed to bring out the bad side of
being human.
When we got inside the mall, we moseyed
over to the food court, that wonderful conglomeration
of fattening eateries that graces the center
of nearly every "good mall," if there is such a
thing. I sidled up to the counter of Chick-Fil-A,
home to the chicken sandwich of the gods, so I
could order some dinner. A tall lady (and I use
the term "lady" as loosely as humanly possible)
in a yellow dress rushed back up to the counter
as I attempted to place my order.
The yellow lady, who kind of looked like a
very tall, walking lemon, bellowed to the harrowed
girl at the register, "I asked you to leave
off the pickles. I want my money back!"
Register girl told lemon woman that she
would open the register when she took my order,
so that she wouldn't have to take time to get the
register key from the manager.
Lemon woman yelled, "Why don't you just
Malls challenge
I have become what all malls loathe: the professional
bargain shopper.
Any shopping I do now must be paid for from
my meager paycheck. Now that I've been making
my own money for awhile, I tend to pay special
attention to price tags. I only shop with a
purpose, and my budget, in mind. Who would
have thought that I actually picked up a tip from
my practical dad? And let me tell you, I do very
little shopping, unless I really have to.
For those of you unfamiliar with professional
versus amateur bargain shopping, let me explain.
The regular browsing shopper ? one who shops
on an unlimited budget and without a purpose ?
is not offered much of a challenge. It's easy to do
and is especially dangerous. I have ended up
with such impractical fashions as an electric-blue
suede jacket, which is rarely worn and still being
paid for, and a white linen dress, which is currently
residing at my dry cleaner ? again.
Professional bargain shopping has become like
an Olympic sport to me. While I'm still a novice at
it, I think I've devised the rules to this new game.
Rule one: Head straight to the back of any
store and scour the sale racks for the perfect halfprice
outfit. You'll be able to find it because it's
Conservative glos
According to the latest surveys, the average
American student is woefully misinformed about
most aspects of American politics, or as the
experts put it, they are "dumb as dirt."
Therefore, I present a brief glossary designed to
help students understand words and phrases used
on highbrow cable channels like C-SPAN:
Gridlock: When members of Congress disagree
with the president and neither side can
accomplish anything. During a Democratic presidency,
gridlock is good.
Compromise: The only known cure for gridlock.
Usually it involves the use of tax dollars to
create things like the multi-millionaire dollar
Senator Robert Byrd Animal Flatulence
Research Center in Nutter Fort, West Virginia.
Rush Limbaugh: The leader of the free world,
based on the fact that his ratings are consistently
higher than Bill Clinton's.
Tax Retroactivity: As you know by now, the
problem with America is that the evil Republican
administrations before Clinton did not tax people
at a high enough rate. To make up for this, the
IRS will immediately start taxing you AGAIN
on money you've already earned for 1993, based
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give me his five dollars and give him his chang
from the register?"
She was pointing at me!
When I first saw lemon woman complaining,
just thought it was a little dispute that was non
of my business. But when she dragged my five
dollar bill into the equation, I was forced to mak
some rather quick decisions.
Decision one: I wasn't going to say anything
for fear of a brutal lemon attack with only th
mall cops protecting me.
Decision two: If someone takes a pickle o
their Chick-Fil-A sandwich that seriously, the
you should probably avoid the food court al
together and take a bag lunch to the mall.
Anyway, lemon woman got her five bucks, an
I placed my order again after she left because reg
ister girl was too scared to remember what I'd saic
When this kind of thing happens, I always fee
guilty for being the same species as the offendin
party. When I ordered, I tried to be as gentle an
? professional b
the one that no one else seemed to care for, bi
you adored it. No one thinks of starting in th
back and moving towards the front of the ston
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they will try to play off your naivete.
Rule two: Buy out-of-season clothes. Bu
summer fashions at the end of summer, and sav
them until the next year. Use your best judgmen
Of course, this is where the professional ca
outdo the amateur. Pros wouldn't end up wil
platform shoes, knowing that it will not be tf
rage next summer. Amateurs will easily b
fooled into such a perilous mistake.
Rule three: Avoid small boutiques. Usuall
they are too expensive, and they have cling
sary fosters politi
aPatrick
McNeill
c -w g
Columnist
on the higher rate you SHOULD have been pa]
ing all along. Plans are already underway t
make higher taxes retroactive to January 2(
1981, the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.
Dan Rostenknwiki: Congressman froi
Illinois who is facing criminal investigatior
Apparently he likes to take checks made out t
his campaign fund and take them to the Hous
Post Office to buy stamps. Amazingly, when yo
use a $20,000 check to buy a $5.80 book of Elv
stamps, that leaves you with $19,994.20 in unr<
ported, tax-free change. You or I might call th
"money laundering" or "tax fraud," but o
Capitol Hill it's just "the way we do business."
Dan Quayle: Former Vice President of th
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non-difficult as possible. I just told her to give me
whichever soft drink was easiest to reach.
Afterwards, I was hanging out with a friend of
mine that works at a Hello Kitty store. We were
holding a Barney dinosaur doll and singing, "I
hate you, you hate me, I just ate your fam-i-ly,"
when a fairly young kid walked into the store
and wandered over to the candy counter.
As far as I could tell, he was experimenting to
see how many pieces of candy could fit in his
pockets without being overly conspicuous. At
e first, I thought he could be browsing, but how
many people pick up a piece of candy, check the
price, turn on the engine, check the muffler, and
I lift the hood before they decide that they don't
e want to buy it?
As the kid walked out the door, I told my
e iriena mat some or ner store s canay naa just
been stolen, but she shrugged much like the reg;,
ister girl had, as if to show theft was an ordinary
e occurrence.
Is it really ordinary that people yell at each
n other and steal stuff? Are the little scouts, who
n shake my hand at the end of the week because
II they want to politely thank me, not doing the
right thing? Are the friendly "howdys" that I
d give people I don't know incorrect? Maybe I
should sit in the mall and learn how to be a good,
i. bad human being.
:1
g Chris Muldrow is a columnist
d for The Gamecock
>argin shoppers
salespeople. In the clothes dryer, socks cling to
sweaters because of static electricity. I think
physicists at MIT are still investigating what
makes salespeople cling to customers.
Rule four: Never buy from the front of the
store displays. Yes, rule numero uno for professional
bargain hunters is to avoid those highpriced
outfits that are placed perfectly, as if by
some divine miracle, near the entrance. Take it
from me, you will need to wear these fashions
until you're six feet under before you get your
Jt money's worth. Few college student budgets will
ie allow for such a luxury.
Scorekeeping in mall shopping is really quite
simple. Whoever can get the most stuff, while
obeying the four rules and without filing for per,e
sonal bankruptcy, wins.
t By playing the game correctly, shopping can
in be a fun sport, thereby making the crowded mall
h an almost pleasant place to be. And you might
ie have just enough money to pay off your dry
ie cleaning bills.
y Tanya Stroman is a columnist
f? 77, ? n ?i.
y jut m f?v v/u^tcti/t/v
cal understanding
United States. Strongly resembles Pat Sajak.
Much funnier than Pat Sajak.
A1 Gore: Current Vice President of the United
States. Strongly resembles a sheet of plywood.
Much funnier than a sheet of plywood.
C-SPAN: A cable channel devoted to covering
our government in action. Twenty four hours a
day of congressional debates and committee
meetings, press conferences, speeches and briefings
designed for insomniacs and people without
lives.
0 Bob Dole: Senate Minority Leader and peren^
nial Republican candidate for president. Will be
running in '96 on a platform of "I opposed
^ everything Bill Clinton ever did, including his
1 birth."
0 George Stephanopolous: Top Aide to
;e President Clinton. Recently demoted from White
lU House Communications Director to Executive
is Assistant in Charge of Calling Domino's and
?_ Tipping the Delivery Guy. Formerly seen on
is "Sesame Street" as Big Bird's imaginary friend,
n
Patrick McNeill is a columnist
ie for The Gamecock
who s(
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