Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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? S<rvin Lee Qontz, Editor in Chief EdH Erin Galloway, Wendy Huds< Jimmy DeButts, Ryan Wilsoi , Students onboard Four current re, no power to dei The S.C. House of Represen an issue very important to U! lowing a student to have a vo You might be thinking to yc some representation on the bo The Student Government p members of the student body dent representatives to the be source of four students to turr These four students, howeve ^1 vital power of voting is retaine ed interest in the university sti dents can merely sit and lister est are at stake, but the board representatives. The Legislature, therefore, board of trustees. Invade fen fnv fw/\A f/\i 1UI 11CC 1UI DREW STEWART Columnist , i" kl I had a very interestin evening Sunday night. I got to b on a major radio station here ii Columbia, Kicks 96. The folks out at Kicks hai what was called a "Replacemen Players" weekend, meaning the; had their listeners come in fron around the area of Columbia am announce the songs on the air a Kicks 96.1 was amazed. The folk at Kicks had all of the musii pulled out in advance and hac everything I was to say writter down and scripted, which is com pletely different than what I ex pected. But I was happy it was scripted. If it hadn't been, I prob| ably would have told Summerton stories until I was off of the air. The afternoon before my brush with fame, I was at my family reunion in Santee, S.C. (I'm not sure of the population, but there are probably more people in the class you are ignoring to read this column right now than in all of SnnteM No one in the family is from Santee or has ever resided there. I guess the reason for having it there is to make everybody have the same long ride rather than sparing one lucky person who gets to have the reunion at his or her house. Depending on which family I reunite with, the Stewarts or the Martins (my mother's family), my distant relatives always get me confused with either my dad or my brother, Seth. They always come up to me and say, "Seth, I heard you was playin' football. How many tackles you made, sonny?" Also, all of them ask me how Clemson is. When I explain that I don't go to Clemson, most of them tend to lose interest in my college experiences. The ones that are interested in the fact that I go to Carolina always talk to me like I know every athlete at the University of South Carolina like a dog knows his favorite fire hydrant. They say, "I heard that Steve Tanneyhill is gonna start next year. You talked with him about "tSaifllfod? ? Let Clontz Jimmy DeButts Editor in Chief Ryan Wilson Chris Muldrow Sports Editors Viewpoints Editor Kim Truett Carson Henderson Photo Editor Radhlka Taiwan! Ethan Myerson Copy Desk Chiefs Ryan Sims Erin Galloway Graphics Editors Wendy Hudson Gregory Perez News Editors Design Editor Susan Goodwin All Ansaar Allison Williams Jaaon Jeffers Features Editors Cartoonists The Gamecock is the student newspaper of the University of South Carolina and is published Tuesday through Rriday during the fall and spring semesters, with the exception of university holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of the University of South Carolina. ?i : I -Hi. i. fflmDCR If USC Since 1908 Chris Muldrow, Viewpoints Editor torial Board on, Susan Goodwin, Allison Williams, i, Carson Henderson, Radhika Talwani need vote of trustees vresentatives have I. fend students tatives is preparing to take a vote on 3C. Lawmakers are considering alting seat on the Board of Trustees, turself, "Don't students already have ard?" Well, sort of. resident and vice president and two appointed by the president are stu>ard. This mean the board has a re1 to for opinions on policy decisions, r, do not get a vote on the board. The d by people who don't have the vestldents have. Without a vote, the stui and try to jump in if student interhas free reign to ignore the student needs to give students a vote on the oily reunions r\rl nVi nirvn JU) piiuiuo that?" or "Next time you see Steve Tanneyhill, will you get his autograph?" I don't know Steve Tanney? hill personally, and I don't think he knows me. I have seen him g around campus once, and he probe ably doesn't have the slightest n idea what this little ol' country boy looks like, d But yet, my family assumes I t am as close with every single athy lete as a dead possum to a roadi side. i A family reunion is also no t place to go if you are very sensi3 tive about your weight. When I c first arrived, despite my recent 1 10 pound weight loss, nearly every i relative said, "You been hittin' . the ol' cheeseburger joints, eh' Seth?" i I guess it has something to do with the way old people think. I believe they think that obesity is i the key to health, and if you looked at them and saw what i they ate, you would agree with me. Family reunions are great places to find great food. Every time I run out of money, I always go down to Riverfront or Sidney ' Park, where most weekends, there is some family reunion going on. I usually just jump in the food line without asking questions. If someone asks me who I am, I just say I am Uncle Bill's son (every family has an Uncle Bill). I usually just mingle until picture time. If I get close enough to the family, I usually jump in the picture, too. So far I have been at the family reunions for the Canteys, Ansels, Bleases, Tillmans and Leibowitzes (and in the pictures of every one of them too). Hie only time I got caught was the time I tried to sneak into a black family reunion, but that was stupidity on my part. Even though most of them have very good offerings, every : ^ -l- -i j ? uute 111 <x wiiiie, a ncn oiu aunt will show up with her share of "donkey balls" candy (I DIDN'T MAKE THAT UP, EITHER) which taste like another part of a donkey, but I have to eat them or else face certain disownment. If I ever see another donkey ball, I'll puke. Drew Stewart is a journalism junior. 777 777A Chris Carroll Liz, Director of Student Media ?rt^ing: 7T7-4249 Laura Day k: 777-6482 Creative Director Jim Green Art Director THefT. Harper Elizabeth Thomas Tina Morgan _ , Asst. News Adv- Graduate Asst. James Ponce Renee Gibson Asst. Photo Marketing Director Ben Pillow Christopher Wood Stephanie Sonnenfeld Asst. Advertising Asst .Features Manager Larry Williams Erik Collins Asst. Sports Faculty Advisor Keith Boudreaux racutty Advisor Circulation Editor Letters Policy The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should be 200-250 words and must include full name, professional title or year and major if a student. Letters must be personally delivered by the author to The Gamecock newsroom in Russell House room 333. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit all letters for style, possible libel or space limitations. Names will not be withheld under any circumstances. The Gamecock VIEWfji - n Quote Unquote "I feel that the House made a very United States i Three years ago today the war in Bosnia begs On that day the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegc ina was recognized as an independent state, and < that same day it was invaded by neighboring S< l: ^ D xi ii i i IT -I uia. r or tnree years now, me woria, including tJ United States, has stood by while a multiethr democracy was being conquered by a foreign stal In these three years have been seen some of the m< heinous acts of our times, the massacre of civiliar indiscriminate shelling of civilian populaces, the ci ation of death camps and subjugation of women sexual tools. Thus far, 200,000 people have be< killed, 50,000 women raped and 3 million people e pelled from their homes. United States action to; leviate this situation, to at least allow the people Bosnia to defend themselves, is now long overdii For at least 500 years Bosnia has been a symt of peaceful coexistence and cooperation. Its thr major ethnic groups, Muslims, Serbs and Croat lived, worked and loved together in peace and t< eration. Almost a full quarter of its marriages we between members of different nationalities. Sar jevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is tl only place in the world where one can find Musli Mosque, Eastern Orthodox Cathedral, Roman Cathol Cathedral and Jewish Synagogue within 100 m ters of each other. During the holy days of each r ligion, members of the other denominations wou rejoice with their Bosnian brothers and sisters. Tl i. L ! 1 i.1 A T - * t* 1 1 puyuitiLiuii is su niLertwinea tnat no division 01 u country on an ethnic basis is possible without for ing hundreds of thousands of people from their horn or killing them all together. In 1991, the Yugoslavia's communist system b gan to collapse, and the country disintegrated. T1 leader of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, refused to agr< to a decentralization of power in Yugoslavia or re ognize the Yugoslav government. In response, tl republics of Croatia and Slovenia declared ind pendence. Milosevic, in control of the Yugoslav Arm moved to annex parts of Croatia inhabited by Serb He declared that all Serbs should live in one com Death penalty str Monday I received a letter from my pen pal, Mar ion Pruett. Marion, a.k.a. SK-907, resides on Deatl Row in Tucker, Ark. We've corresponded for abou a year. For 12 years he has lived behind the bars o the maximum security unit awaiting society'! vengeance for his checkered life of violence. Marion is a serious bad ass, a criminal with i long history of armed robbery, jail breaks and minder. He started riding as a teen-ager with a bik< gang on the East coast and along the open road: ended up on the FBI's Top Ten list of people yoi aon i warn to sneer at in a restaurant. Had we met then I really doubt that we would have hit it off wel amid the Harleys and tattoos. He arrived on Death Row from the convictior for the double-murder of two mob hitmen who killec his wife in retaliation for Marion's testimony undei the Witness Protection Program against their crimf family. Suffice to say that somewhere in his developmental process he went bad in a big way. He has now found peace with Christ, and ours is an interesting relationship. The strange shadow that hangs over this warm exchange of letters and photos is that our friendship will cease when the state of Arkansas puts him to death. This seeming!} inescapable finale lends a decidedly odd twist to out discussions of crime and punishment, gun laws and common places we've visited. It has also irrevocably changed my perception of capital punishment. Regardless of the evil within a person, I don't believe that any society that remotely considers itself even moderately civilized can justify the taking of another individual's life for any reason. Compounding a previously tragic and unnecessary loss of life via an equally violent dose of homicidal retribution is morally and ethically wrong. The United States and South Africa stand alone among Western countries in retaining capital punishment. It is an interesting coincidence that the United States also has one of the most violent societies on earth. While it may be impossible to confirm a causal relationship between the existence of the death penalty and an elevated violent crime rate, this would make for an interesting study. What capital punishment does is provide the ccsgimunity with communal revenge. It is group NTS I TOu> YouX TO JO Raj LEfT ) AT THE EMflSrny BBSsBb ^ ^ bad mistake. I think [the cuts] send a bad mess? Harrnll larl/enn Senator needs to interven in. ? ?rn j|L rf NEIL BAUMGARDNER I Guest columnist lie JVv ' try, just as Hitler declared for the Germans. In ear )S ly 1992, Bosnia, wary of encroaching Serbian dom Js' inance of what was left of Yugoslavia, held a refer e" endum in which 68 percent of the population votec as for independence. The Bosnian government movec 3n to implement this desire, and on April 6,1992 th< European Community and much of the rest of Eu "" rope recognized the Republic of Bosnia and Herze ?* govina as an independent state. On that same daj ie- 100,000 men of the Serbia's Army seized 70 perceni )0' of Bosnia's territory and began the "ethnic cleans ee ing" of Muslims and Croats in those areas it seized <s, People were expelled from their homes or sent tc concentration camps for extermination. Women anc re girls, from the ages of seven to 70, were sent to "rapt a- hotels" for the pleasure of the Serbian Army, ie In the months and years to come the U.S. anc m European powers organized numerous conferences lie in order to end the war. The multiethnic Bosnian e- government, which includes the representatives ol e- Bosnia's Muslims, Serbs and Croats, has been forced Id to negotiate with people who claim to be the repreie spnt.at.ivps nf Rnsnifl's Sprhs fnr PYnlipit niimnoo nf le dividing the country along ethnic lines. This has rec peatedly failed as most of the "peace plans," accepted es grudgingly by the Bosnian goyernment, have been rejected by the "Bosnian Serbs." The U.N. Security e- Council has passed numerous resolutions, all ol ie which have either been ineffectual or ignored. ;e Serbia claims to have withdrawn from the conc flict but even today continues to send supplies and ie troops for its war. Meanwhile Bosnia, despite being q. a member of the United Nations, has been denied y> the right of self-defense the U.N. Charter guarans tees. This has been done through an arms embargo j. that was applied to the old Yugoslavia and never ange punishment ; .fra t 1 t "mUf NIGEL RAVENHILL f Columnist 1 bloodletting to absolve individuals from the personal responsibility of pulling the trigger. We may have ' the Internet and global satellite navigation, but in 5 many ways we have hardly evolved from a cave in 1 the Pyrenees. Carrying out a death sentence is the ultimate and finite example of societal vdouble standards. The lesson here is that while an individual cannot mur[ der another, if they do then society curiously reserves the justification to execute the miscreant. This is simply state-sponsored murder. The gov5 ernment summarilv iudcres who. when and how tn kill selected individuals. State legitimization of violence through executing its own is a practice that 1 has fortunately disappeared in most countries generally considered to be civilized. ^ Justification within proponents is fascinating. ! The cost argument is often raised along with the ' "well, you broke the ultimate law of nature so we can too" claim. The "some people just don't merit a ' continued existence" thesis is also raised and places a rather heavy burden on the divine guidance of 1 mere humans. One of the most common arguments is the cost factor of keeping killers locked up for life. Writing in the Washington Post magazine author David Vondrehle noted in "Why the Death Penalty Doesnt Work" that "there are hundreds of prisoners in America who have been on Death Row for more than a decade. Every cost study undertaken has found that it is far more expensive to carry out a death sentence than it is to jail a killer for life." This is the financial argument against capital punishment. The appeals process driving this arises from the judicial process of assessing the trial procedures and the importance of ensuring that the guy executed last week was indeed the right one. The death penalty support among Southerners given their well-documented and powerful backdrop * > 3 ? ? >30?w ? Vl\ ? $ V I i ige across the state of South Carolina" ie in Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state. The embargo has been decried by the International Court of Justice and the U.N. General Assembly as a grave violation of Bosnia's right to self-defense under international law. Without the ability to ob-1 tain arms, Bosnia is forced to attempt to oppose tanks with rifles. The result is a one-sided war and the mass atrocities that are seen today. If this situation is allowed to continue the war will widen and j probably draw the United States in. Unless stopped, j Serbia will spread the war to Kosovo, an Albanian ? province of Serbia, which would draw in Albania [ and Turkey, and Macedonia, which would draw in Greece and Bulgaria. The allowance of Serbia's agj gression against Bosnia is setting a new standard ? of international law in Europe that might makes . right. Unless it is stopped, it will have potentially horrible portents for the rest of Eastern Europe and ) the world. I Thankfully, many have urged the lifting of the 5 US arms embargo on Bosnia. Sponsored by Republican Robert Dole and Democrat Joseph Lieberl man, legislation is now before the House and Seni ate that would allow the people of Bosnia to defend i themselves and possibly restore the beautiful, peace* fill country it once was. The passage of this legislal tion is far from certain, and our congressional representatives need to hear our concern for the Bosn* ian people's fate. On this, the third anniversary of this horrible war in Bosnia, please call or write your representatives (at 1-202-224^3121 or U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20515 and U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20510) to urge them ' to support lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia. The fate of Bosnia and the future of the world is in our hands. "The greatest tragedy is not the brutality of evil people, but rather the silence of good people," said Martin Luther King, Jr. Neil Baumgardner is the president of Americans for a Free Bosnia ofS.C. and Students Against Genocide ofUSC. I - of Christianity has proved to be the most puzzling. The strange dichotomy of Christians who quote scripture in defense of their anti-abortion stance and yet strangely ignore these same words of God when they come out in favor of executing convicted killers seems rather odd. It makes for a peculiar triad ? Christian/pro-life/pro-death penalty. I faintly recall that in my Christian education I was taught to uphold the Ten Commandments as a strict model of proper conduct and thought ? things like I shall not covet my neighbor's wife, nor steal, nor do eight other equally heinous things. How strange, then, to live in a culture where so many followers of Jesus gloss over the tenth, "thou shalt not kill." It must be quite a thrill to selectively ignore in all good conscience major tenets of one's faith. Supporting capital punishment while simultaneously following the Lord must be a strange rush. But do you think that God is smiling from the hypocrisy within his flock? Havinor nKan^nno/1 tVio *U J..? ***?> v?mmiiv?viivvi wxc v/ui louaii laiblI uurillg the past two years, I was very intrigued by last fall's race for governor. Both candidates piously fell over themselves as believers in the Christian faith. Which Christ do David Beasley and Nick Theodore follow? The carpenter who refrained from judging others and preached compassion or the man from Galilee, his name embroidered on a patch, throwing beer cans at the TV? Marion and his peers have committed some horrible acts. That is uncontested. I'd prefer to be able to watch them bust rocks on a chain gang in the summer's heat for 50 years than give in to a primal desire to dismiss their lives as easily as they dismissed those of their victims. Executing prisoners is more barbaric than their crimes because I'd like to think that our visions of civility are more than skin-deep. Nigel Ravenhill is a graduate student in public relations.