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"?a Servii J.T. Wagenheim, Editor in ( Edit Wendy Hudson, Carsi Melissa Ti Character Cruel attack on Kerr celebratory spirit of Since ancient times, the Olym] brate the highest physical achieve Participants in the contests spe day they will get a shot at Olymp It's for this reason that Nana inspirational at the same time. When Kerrigan was injured t\ concerned ? not so much for fea in Lillehammer, but that such a public one day before the nati berths. Thankfully, Kerrigan was givei and her attacker has apparently tx The worst part of the story is t] to her immediate rival, Tonya H on the entire team and the U.S. rc Adding insult to injury, new U.S. Figure Skating Association attack. Is this what the sporting world Instead of working for the g] now seem more concerned witJ putting forth the effort it takes to one's opponent. Even if Harding wasn't directl Ue to show any concern for Kerr slot. Harding appeared to be more ment than in showing any suppor volumes about her character. The spirit of the Olympics sug very least, sent her immediate su] herself in if she is involved in the Harding is being questioned, bi harder to defend. The Olympic Committee sho innocent as she claims before all nowevei, ouiers migiu ai&uc ui court of law before she is convi< ion. There is more to an athlete th? acter and compassion must be c seriously called into question. Clinton civil i deserves criti In a speech given to a Howa University audience Monda President Clinton praised the R? Martin Luther King Jr. for 1 heroics in the '60s, but said Ki would be disheartened at the irn tion of the past 15 years. Clinton said it's the country duty to continue King's unfi ished struggle, especially addre: ing the extreme violence that 1: plagued the black community. However, many civil rigl activists say speeches li Clinton's are the problem: H< all talk and no action. And in many ways, they' right. Clinton has been quite sl< at taking initiative in the ci rights area. Urban issues ha been neglected during his fi year in the White House, and still hasn't made appointments two key civil rights posts in I Justice Department. Clinton diq announce Mond; .^ Hpoinnm~ _ <- 44 ? me i/v6??"?iig 01 an empoweni"zone" community developme program, while he also signed executive order on housing di crimination. Whether these init tives are more substantive th superficial, time will only tell. But even though these criticisi are deserved in some ways, Clint has been making strides to help Americans, including blacks. New handgun laws and an crime programs, universal hea coverage and a revived econor can help everybody in society a should make life in America a 1 tie bit better. And contrary to what some c il rights leaders contend, t increased push for welfare refo mntiuatpH Tt'o isn i raciaiiy a j an attempt to fix an ineffici< system, one which doesi encourage work and educati enough. Besides, welfare is u; by all segments of society. 1 l(5aiflcock Student Media Russell House-US J.T. Wagenheim Tony Santor Editor in Chief Sports Editor Lee Clontz David Mandr Viewpoints Editor Photo Editor Carson Henderson Chris Muldrc Copy Desk Chief Graphics Editor Gordon Mantler Nora Doyle Copy Desk Chief Ass,. News ifeock ig use Since 1908 Zhief Lee Clontz, Viewpoints Editor orlal Board an Henderson, Gordon Mantler, ennen, Tony Santori igan tarnishes Olympic Games pics have been an opportunity to celements among humans. :nd years training, all hopeful that one ic glory. / Kerrigan's story is so tragic and so vo weeks ago, the entire country was tr that we wouldn't win the gold medal heinous act could even take place in onal competition to decide Olympic n, by appeal, a place on the U.S. team, ;en found. hat her apparent attacker is tied closely arding, which casts a scandalous light )le in the figure skating competition, reports indicate that money from the might have been used to help fund the has come to? lory of the United States, contestants ti individual recognition. Rather than be No. 1, the easy route is to take out y involved with the attack, she did litigan as she happily skated into the top concerned with denying her involvet or interest in Kerrigan, which speaks gests that Harding should have, at the jport and regrets to Kerrigan or turned situation. ut her position is becoming harder and uld make certain that Harding is as lowing her to skate on the U.S. team, at Harding should be convicted in a :ted by the committee or public opinm muscles and sweat. Harding's charonsidered as well, and hers has been rights record cism, praise i I c f's Gordon Mantler ^?? iaS COPY DESK CHIEF US ke stereotype of the single black s mother just doesn't hold water. Civil rights activists say re Clinton is avoiding "liberal" 3w issues in order not to alienate vil white suburbanites. And in some ve ways, this is true but necessary, rst To have any chance to win rehe election in 1996, Clinton must to keep white suburbanites, the [he majority of whom voted for Reagan and Bush in the '80s, ay happy enough to re-elect him. :nt If he doesn't, the Republicans nt might win, and any reasonable an chance of civil rights progress is. will go down the drain. When is [a- the last time a progressive an Republican in race relations had a chance to win the presidency? I us think it was N.Y. Gov. Nelson on Rockefeller in the '60s. ail Even though Clinton should have filled the two Justice ti- Department positions and should Ith have been more proactive conny ceming civil rights during his first nd year in office, the objectives he's lit- trying to accomplish will help minorities and whites alike, iv- But Clinton must stay smart he politically. If he doesn't, white rm suburbia might go for the eleust phant party again. How does int President Limbaugh sound? 11 Gordon Mantler is a copy desk ?n chief of The Gamecock. His column appears every other he Wednesday. AdvV77*7?6 F&8 49 Da, ill-6482 Production Manager 0 Columbia, SC 29208 Jim Green Asst. Production Manager 1 Darby Lackey Gregory Perez Asst. News Production Asst. e' Nancy Salomonsky Brian McGuire Asst. Features Graduate Asst. IM Matt Hanley Renee Gibson Senior Writer Advertising Manager Jimmy Debutts J. Taylor Rutland Senior Writer Asst. Advertising Manager "We all went into the doorways, stoppec It was pretty scary for a second there. T] calling everyone and lighting candles ani Society must seel H.L. Mencken, that irrepressible curmudgeon, once wrote, "It is estimated that perhaps 50 percent of the American population votes, come election time. It is also estimated that only 50 percent reads a newspaper regularly. One can only hope it is the same 50 percent." Mencken was called many things in his day, j but "optimist" probably never figured among them. Even so, both of the figures he cites are in? nee maniacally optimistic by contemporary standards. ' JJJJf1 Ours has become a society in which newspapers vie for the public's attention from w machines designed to resemble television sets; news, such as it is, comes to us in segments and clips, spots and bites. The business of elected whi officials has become a vaudevillian spectacle, in 11 h which the sensational takes precedence over the bet\ substantive, because the sensational wins a stay greater audience. We live our lives with fingers vet poised over the remote control, ready to switch tion our attention to something else, anything else, aud the instant any subject drops below a given 1 entertainment threshold. our Clearly, exceptions exist; they abound, even, met But they exist against the odds in a world where scrc quick and dirty is the rule, rather than the the exception, and the odds against them are woi increasing every day. We are slowly condition- us. Columbia should c Name one thing (JSC students do together. I" There is one: football games. That's six or eight Saturdays in the fall semester when everyone can relax and have fun. Now, what do we do for the rest of the year? Maybe a day at the zoo or movies or the occasional Bombers game, but there's really no cheap, fun time that everyone can enjoy. of i Charleston was the same way until this past witl winter. Then, hockey came to town. "Za Columbia and Charleston have a lack of unity ii that seems to be common to many S.C. commu- T nities. Nothing except high school or college feat football games really brings the community out. to b The S.C. Stingrays began playing in the North / Charleston Coliseum, a beautiful building that to h has siphoned most of the decent concerts from stro Columbia, this season as part of the East Coast thei Hockey League. 1 Who would ever have imagined hockey in mei South Carolina? The prospect once seemed are laughable. T More than a dozen sellout games later, no one is 2 is laughing. con T ? A_1 I 1 i:ira L cmariestonians nave taKcu iu iiueKcy hmthey've known it all their lives. Within a matter hoc Should Tonya Hardii P^L "No. because she was wrong. jjjHfc,. involved. It made me think abo ^HI The Olympics are a very big e1 else's opportunities should not be \ t Management Informatioi Viewpoint s H ...MR. BUTWUO 1 fcNTENCKYO ||^ * QiKiEWiw '' droPPed and rolled and stuff lil f.n ]iShts went out and we w, 'ooking at the stars. It was an ir University of California k substance o1 individuals to expect that everything they d to know will be served up to them [haste in appealing sound bites, flashy segits and summaries, a society of individuals > believe the world owes them a good time, "he reason is clear. People have become so ituated to being entertained that anything ch does not offer the immediate prospect of as virtually no chance of bridging the gap veen awareness and attention, much less ing an itchy trigger finger on the hand of a :ran channel surfer. We are making a transifrom being a culture to being merely an ience. 'his evolution poses an immediate threat to capacity to think and act for ourselves. The lia are so eager to stoop to any level for a ip of our attention, we risk falling prey to grievous misconception that the whole Id will fight for the privilege of playing to As members of an audience, we may be apitalize on ho< VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Si! j_mvJ|Ts ???????????? nonths, conversation has become littered i terms such as "icing," "hat trick" and mboni." :'s like nothing Charleston has ever seen, he coliseum's capacity, 10,480, is a regulai , especially on weekends, when tickets have e purchased days in advance, md when the 'Rays score, every person leaps lis feet and does a peculiar form of the backke, fitting in nicely with the mascot's aquatic ne. 'he coliseum was quite an expensive investit for the people of Charleston, but tickets still between $5 and $10. he sole bone of contention for the attendee; t $4 parking charge, but for a carload, tha les out to be about a buck a person. lc if that isn't pnnnoh whpn rnnrprls n: key or basketball games aren't being played ig be allowed to skat I know she was ut Monica Seles. 1 vent and somone taken away." Keya Brown i Systems freshman (q-mft court m u 16 $i* iaoniw* ||g oop fin6,?np__ * |SP ce that. We all got up and freaked out. ere kind of bummed, so we were just iteresting night. It was fun." Jeffrey Harris - Santa Barbara philosophy major and earthquake survivor eer sound bites kings in our homes, but the real world is much less willing to play the sycophant. Our attention there is no longer a commodity, but a necessity. It is far too easy to be persuaded by the barrage of cleverly presented, pre-packaged information we are spoon-fed each day that society owes us something, that if we stand back, the whole world will present itself to us and we can pick and choose from an infinite number of - cushy existences as we like. If information has not been properly couched in an easily palatable, quickly digestible form, it simply isn't worthy of our attention. All of this is, of course, rather apocalyptic. In truth, what is occurring is the natural result of technological advances in a free market economy. It would be good to bear in mind, though, the "Brave New World" of Aldous. Huxley's imagination, in which the ruled participate in their own domination, a society in which entertainment and leisure are the most noble pursuits. One can indeed hope the few who trouble themselves to be informed are the same few who trouble themselves to vote. Of course, if ptllipr arrtnri chrinVc mnrh hpunnrl u/hal if VllllVi V/U^/ OUAAIUVvJ 141UV-A* \J \* J VIIU ?Y?*C*V It 1 already has, it won't matter much anyway. Patrick Sharbaugh is a columnist for The Gamecock. ckey's popularity the rink is open for public skating. Hockey has revitalized the people of Charleston in a way I haven't seen in my 20 years there. The reason for bringing the issue up is the notion has been raised that maybe Columbia should get a hockey team. City Council is skeptical, but it should reconsider. One would assume that the Coliseum might be convertible to ice, though I'm no architect. It - might be expensive, but if the space is properly used, it would be ultimately profitable. Building a new rink would definitely be cost1 ly, but people would come out. No one would have thought it would work in Charleston, but it's a truly amazing experience. I hope everyone involved in the decision travels to Charleston. One game, and they'll be > hooked, too. ; Hockey in South Carolina ? stranger things t have happened, eh? r Lee Clontz is Viewpoints editor of The Gamecock e in the Olympics? >u're innocent until proven guilty, so the only g we can do now is to let her skate." Andrew Matthews History junior