The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 15, 1996, Page 3, Image 3
Thursday, February IS, 1996
*
Serving VSC Since
Wendy Hudson, Editor in Chief Rya
Tina Morgan, Brent Seeliger,
Editorial Bo
Chris Dixon, Martha Hotop, Karen Layne, Robt
Ryan Sims, Stephanie Sonnenfeld, Cece von Ko
?
Arrest, SG i
should be n
In case you've been [ SSvpij
asleep for a few days, here ^HUhLU
are a few things you might There are <
like to know. things hap1
First, one of USC's in the w
finest talents, starting around
tailback Duce Staley, was MVff!V!rT]
arrested early Sunday
morning and charged with Hope yoi
disregarding a traffic paying ato
signal, driving without a
license and resisting arrest. What ol
does this mean? Well, it can mean b
that one individual made a mistake, n
Or, in light of Warren Moon's recent
trial, it could be a sign that football d
players are trained to be too
aggressive. If you want to, you could ?i
even remember some of the other c
USC football players that had run- j
ins with the law, such as Steve
Taneyhill and Matt Campbell, and ^
make a general statement about the t
USC football program.
Another interesting tidbit of news t
is that Phil Gramm, former
Republican hopeful, has withdrawn
from the presidential race. You might. 8
be asking yourself, "Who cares?" 8
besides Bob Dole, who probably did *
a cartwheel when he heard the news. *
c
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Commissioner r
To those of you who may be fed up
with the endless flyers, speeches,
handshakes or other tactics the SG
candidates have used to solicit your ,
vote, I encourage you to put an end to I
this campaigning and cast your vote ,
today! To those of you who claim SG
has no power, I encourage you to also
cast your vote today. To those of you
who are either running for an office
yourself or know someone who is, I urge
you to vote today, as well. Finally, if
there are any of you who have somehow
not noticed bulletin boards covered with
campaign fliers, I just want to tell you
that today is the day of the 1996 SG
elections.
Why should you vote if you're fed
up with campaigning? Cheer up!
Candidates are required to remove their
flyers after the campaign ends, which
is today for most candidates! At least
youVe noticed the fliers, which obligates
you to vote. Since you know that there
is an election, I am sure you are a
concerned student who believes that
the right to vote is also a responsibility.
So, stop reading this and go vote!
Why should you vote if you believe
SG has no power? I can't think of a
better reason to vote! SG will never
have as much power as the students
desire until more students actually
vote. The lack of a mandate creates a
lack of power. If you believe SG has no
power, then today is your lucky day. It
is the day to put the power back in our
hands by voting.
Why should you vote if you are
runninff vouraelf or know someone who
is? Well, having met so many of you
over the past three weeks, I am confident
that you will be the first in line at the
polls.
The election is today from 9 a.m to
6 pm. everywhere except at the Medical
School, which will run from 10 a.m.
until 5 p.m.
"iSaffcodt
Student Media Russell House-USO Co
Wendy Hudson Robbie Meek
EAtor in Chief Matt Pruitt
Ryan Wilson Spotti Editors
Managing Editor Allison
Tina Morgan Williams
Brent Seeliger Special Projects
Viewpoints Editors Ethan Myerson
Martha Hotop Graphics Editor
Cece von Kolnitz Karen Layne
Newi EdUors Deanna
Chris Dixon McLendon
Stephanie Copy Desk
Sonnenfdd Ryan Sims
Features Editor Online Editorr
The Gamecock is the stadent newspaper of the
Univeraty of Sooth Carolina and is published Tuesday
through Friday 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 thoM of the University of
South Carolina.
The Board of Student Publications and Communications
la the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of
Student Media is its parent organization.
-* ' r'' -If*'V: v~' '
i
\
ck
1908
n Wilson, Managing Editor,
Viewpoints Editors
ard
?e Meek, Tyson Pettigrew, Matt Pruitt
lnitz, Robert Walton, Allison Williams
ION |
slections
loticed
You might want to give
UmH that some thought
2 lot of because this man could
pening have been your
or Id president.
you. Yesterday was
pwvjiw Valentine's Day. In case
you missed it, your local
2 are drug store will have
ention. cheap candy for at least
a week. Take advantage
f the bargain-priced sugar. It is the
eginningof midterms, and you just
light need it.
In case you need something to
o on a lonely Thursday night, the
iussell House Union is showing
Get Shorty" at 9 p.m. Where else
an you get John Travolta and Gene
lackman together for only $2?
For all of you living on campus,
be housing sign-up sheets are due
o your area office today. Don't forget,
r youll get stuck camping out on
he Horseshoe next year.
And, oh, by the way, in case you
ee some etuvs all dressed up in ties
ind nice slacks running around
landing out stickers and shaking
lands, SG elections are today. Why
lon't you get out of bed and go vote?
eminds voters
Julye Johns
Elections Commissioner
Generation has many
defining moments
In response to the article "Future
lacks defining moment for generation"
(Feb. 13), I have a few questions. Why
does a generation have to be "defined?"
What is so terrifying about the possibility
that our generation may be made up
of individuals rather than clones? Do
we have to have the devastation of
something like Vietnam to make us
legitimate?
Our generation has experienced
many memorable events. I pity you
and your friends if all you can remember
is "90210" and MTV. As you mentioned,
we had the Challenger and the fall of
the Berlin Wall. We also had the Gulf
War (although short, it was a victory),
the fall of Communism and the breakup
of the world's largest country,
recession, the tripling of the national
debt, the efforts to form a unified Europe,
Koresh's Cult, Exxon Valdez, AIDS,
the Greenhouse Effect, gay rights and
abortion protests, hurricanes, floods,
fires and the hostage crisis.
Yes, television and radio (pop culture
in nanatiall unit# lie and reflftrt whfl
we are as a generation, but we are also
influenced by global events and the
economy. Don't our elders say we are
slackers and that we won't be able to
do as well as our parents economically?
Doesn't the hopeless view of our future
as depicted.by the media affect all of
our attitudes? Don't let us prove them
right! We have a histoiy, and we have
a future. We have to discover it and
make the most of it.
Kim Stogner
Psychology sophomore
777-7726
tising: 777-4249
777-6482 Chris CarroU
lumbia, SC 29208
Laura Day
Tyson Pettigrew Creative Director
Robert Walton Jeff A. Breaux
Photo Editora Alt Ditertor
Adam Snyder Sue McDonald
Jennifer Stanley Jim Speelmon
Aast. Newt Graduate Assistant
Dipka Bhambhani Marilyn Edwards
Jennifer Hansen Taylor
Ami. Features Marketing Director
Achim Hunt Erik Collins
Asst. Sports Faculty Advisor
Keith Boodreaux Jason Jeffers
Circulation Editor Cartoonist
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 321.
The Gamecock reserves the right to edit all letters for
style, possible libel or space limitations. Names will not
be withheld under any circumstances.
TEWPi
QUOTE,UNQUOTE
J "If you I
It (cri
Republicans ha
Ah, yes. It is political campaign season, o
and treason is in the air! What a glorious b
time to be a political watcher! I have n
been a campaign junkie for a large c
portion of my life, and I believe the *96 b
elections will be the most interesting ii
in the latter of half of this century, h
The potential in the American s
electorate for three (and maybe four)
major political parties is astonishing. A
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Internet that there will never be i]
a significant third party in the United a
States, but we stand on the brink of t
seeing that come to pass. i:
What has changed in the American r
electorate? I believe there are several t
factors that lead to this massive change, s
The first reason is that I believe a a
significant voter realignment/ t
dealignment has taken place. These I
two words, realignment and
dealignment, are fancy political science 3
words that mean a massive number of t
voters either went to another party or i
have become independent Mary political <
observers have been predicting such a '<
realignment (they occur about every <
30 to 50 years), and I think the '94 1
election might fit the bill. <
I can hear the collective jaws of the {
liberally minded dropping, but let's i
take a look at the election results. Many
liberal political observers want to tag i
the $4 election as an "anti-incumbent" ]
election, but that simply is not the case. 1
Of all the elections for Congress, only 1
one (count 'em ONE) Republican ]
incumbent lost, whereas upwards of
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first time, a sitting Speaker of the House,
Tom Foley, was ousted from office. Also,
the Republicans won two-thirds of the
Bad words are no
Fart. If s not exactly a curse word, i
but what vulgarity! Is there any human
experience more base, more uncouth, 1
more universal and more equalizing
than intestinal gas? I bring this
discomfiting word to the forefront of
my discourse, for I intend to explode
the myth of vulgarity as being the
ignorant speaker's last resort.
Vulgarisms cause uneasiness because
they are such powerful words; they
speak about things society tells us are
not acceptable, and yet these things
are fundamental to our lives. In our
inability to deal with these unsettling
ideas, we then resort to euphemism
and outright denial. This is not meant
to be a defense of four-letter words shing
for the sake of insult, nor the crude
anatomical slang intended to degrade.
Vulgarity refers to common language,
as opposed to ornate, stylized language.
Sometimes this means the use of fourletter
words. And why not? They are
short, to the point, and almost always
sound like what they mean.
Vulgarisms resist euphemism. If a
person means to take the name of the
Lord in vain, he should do it without
resorting to watered-down versions like
"Goldam." The intention is still there,
but for the sake of propriety, the
phonemes have been altered. But back
to the F-word. In a 1991 workshop, a
poet spoke about powerful words. Words
have the power to turn heads in crowded
rooms, he told us, and some words are
more potent than others. He told us
the third most powerful word in the
English language was AIDS, the second
cancer. What, then, could the most
powerful word in the English language
be? What concept could surpass the
greatest killers of our time; what word
could turn more heads in a crowded
room than cancer or AIDS?
Fart. On a more serious note,
ignoring vulgarisms does have
deti^mental effects on society. It is
pint;
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lay down and shut up at
me) is going to get wor
SG President Amy Bigham
ve a chance
pen seats. I I Irian I
elieveifthe | QAMBWELL |
lood in the
ountry had
een antiicumbent,
then that number would
ave been more balanced, not obviously
lanted in one direction.
By the same token, I don't believe the
anerican people have changed their
arty loyalty. There has been a huge
acrease in people not identifying with
iny party. In my humble opinion, I
hink a part of the electorate (primarily
11 the South) has undergone a party
ealignment from the Democratic Party
0 the Republican Party. There is also
1 part of the electorate that underwent
i party dealignment, and in this election
hese people identified with the
Republican Party.
What has this got to do with anything,
rou ask? This is an election year, and
his mass movement of political loyalty
vill have an impact on die presidential
ilection. The largest impact will be in
i) who the Republicans nominate as
heir presidential candidate, b) who is
Perods stooge in the "Reform Party"
md c) whether or not Jesse Jackson
joes through with his long-threatened
ndependent run for the White House.
A lot of people, especially in this
newspaper, have been thrashing Bob
Dole recently. I will admit the fact he
does not inspire a great deal of
enthusiasm within the electorate, but
his campaign really hasn't started yet
[ think he would provide firm,
experienced leadership, but I don't think
he is what the surly American voters
want. Steve Forbes is a paradox. He is
an extremely wealthy populist who is
t an ignorant sp>
important to I amy
understand that [ harris
"bad words" are I
not bad. They
may make us uncomfortable and causs
friction in social circles, but they ar<
only a collection of phonemes. The sigi
is arbitrary; it is only a matter of chana
a particular collection of phonemes wil
come to signify a thing we frown upon
If a word signifies something taboo
like sex, bodily functions or blasphemy
it becomes "bad," like its referent, am
we try to ignore it. We can't stand t
hear die truth in all its flagrant ugliness
This is when euphemisms, a littl
linguistic lacquer, come in handy.
Euphemisms prevaricate; they avoi
the heart of the matter bv beine les
descriptive than the words for whic
they are substituted. Who would hav
the need to facilitate such a
adjustment? Well, the first thing t
remember is that we humans are
symbolic species: our distinguishin
feature is that we function almos
exclusively by manipulating symbol
Whoever controls words controls idea
Consider the AIDS epidemic. Th
disease (one) can be transmitted sexual
(two) and causes a drawn-out, painf
death (three distasteful aspects of life
AIDS discourse faces considerab
obstacles, one of which is the resistam
to any discourse about AIDS at a]
Precedent has shown that ignorir
AIDS will not make the dying sto
silence promotes ignorance, whi<
promotes the spread of AIDS, a top
bound up with fundamental aspects
life: sexuality, death and drug abus
Behind the steadfast silence of apathel
government officials, fearful scho
administrators and embarrassed parer
are millions of terrified, furious, dyii
people. The AIDS issue became cloud
by a linguistic smokescreen, and write
who grappled yith AIDS violent
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in '96 election jj
financing his own run for the White
House. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) a
Forbes has a good set of campaign o
advisors, lots of money and no political ti
strings, which make him a good o
candidate. But, he has no political t
experience, and I think the American d
voters will hold that against him. The
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never gained wide popular support is I
that people recognize that political s
outsiders are lately ineffective in the I
presidency. c
I think the American voters see that 1
Clinton is not the reformer he said he
was. Also, I believe Clinton is not the j
reformer he said he was. I also believe i
Clinton and his advisors will fall into 1
a classic election strategy trap. Because <
of his weak record, he will have to run
"against Congress." While the polls \
(and I love polls, but that is for another (
day) say the country is scared of Newt (
and ready to thrash Congress again, ;
look at the approval ratings of the I
individual Congressmen in their districts. |
One constant of politics in the U.S. is
that the Congress as a whole has a poor !
approval rating, but the individual i
ratings are sky high. Most of the sitting
Republicans have approval ratings in
the 80 percent range. i
I don't think the Republicans are going
to lose the Congress. In fact, I boldly i
predict they will actually gain seats in
both the House and Senate (and maybe
become veto-proof). I think if the
Republican contender runs an effective
i campaign the Republicans will take
i the White House. And then, the real
1 fun begins.
eaker's last resort
1 resisted this whitewashing trend.
"Decorum," wrote Paul Monette in 1988,
"is the contemptible pose of the politicians
and preachers, the hypocrite slime
} whose grinning hatred slick the dying
3 land like morning dew." A weapon
1 against decorum is the rawest language
^ we can muster, language that refuses
^ to conceal. Common words that are
terse, blunt and invariably sound like
I what they mean need not necessarily
j be dismissed as ignorance. These words
o have the power to unequivocally,
). efficiently communicate strong ideas,
e meriting a rightful place in our
vocabularies. They strip away the veneer
d of civility that would deny the pain and
s beauty of truth. "[The poetry of AIDS]
h is about dying and fucking," writes
e Rafael Campo in a statement resisting
n ornamental language in favor of
0 vulgarity and, in its ugliness, assumes
a power.
Sometimes it is more important for
g language to be beautiful rather than
g honest?maybe even flattering?when
the propriety of the situation is
is understood by all involved. Think about
ly eulogies, commencement speeches,
1 flirting. Shakespeare's Lear was
s). infuriated when his daughter Cordelia
le broke the formality of courtly language
? and failed to "draw a third more opulent
ll- tnan inerj sisiers.
'6 But in other cases, vulgarisms serve
P' as the most honest, direct means of
conveying an idea. We use language to
^ impose sense and order onto the
nebulous chaos of the objective,
[jc unspeakable universe. By denying the
0| kind of language that is crass, raw and
rta grating, we acquiesce to propriety ?
that damnable, lying decorum of soed
called civilized society that wishes to
srs gloss over fundamental truths about
ly sex and death an?* suffering.
3^
eturn of old
V show
rings a smile
drew I Folks, I
stewart | have spent this
past week in
grand exul
tion. My greatest desire has come to
iss.
No, folks, Ronnie Milsap is not coining
Carolina Hie reason I feel like a new
an is because The Dukes of HazzarcT
is returned to television.
Yes, Bo and Luke once again grace
le television of this resident of
ummerton (pop. 975). And not a
oment too soon.
However, the Duke boys were not,
ad never will be, what many nonoutherners
presume them to be:
outhern Gentlemen.
Just as the Grand Strand
dsrepresents the rest of South Carolina,
o and Luke Duke are as close to
outhern Gentlemen as Ford is to
hevrolet.
Although the Dukes were somewhat
livalrous and would have turned the
eneral Lee into a New York taxi cab
efore speaking rudely to their mother,
ley still lacked many of the qualities
ecoming of true Southern Gentleman.
For instance, Bo and Luke were
Iways dressed like farm workers. Even
n days when Uncle Jesse would send
hem into town to get Daisy a new pair
f shorts, they still dressed in clothes
hat looked like they had come from the
lumpster.
Another Southern man often mistaken
or a Southern Gentleman is Rhett
Sutler. Although he had the look,
wagger and speech of a gentleman,
Sutler was as low and dirty as a piece
if cotton dropped in the bottom of a
atrine.
However, Rhett could act like a
jentleman with the best of them. His
latural charisma could make a nun lose
ler religion faster than the weather
:hanges in South Carolina.
But I think the reason these characters
vere so popular here as well as up North
which includes south Florida and the
Grand Strand) is because they served
is a form of escape for Southern
Gentlemen to live out the Redneck
growing inside of them.
Whether he admits it or not, every
Southern Gentleman has the ambition
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Lee and get Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane
in a car chase throughout Hazzard
County before finally jumping over an
old mill pond to safety as Roscoe falls
straight in.
Also, ask any Southern Gentleman
his preference in "Gone With the Wind"
Most of them would say the old scoundrel
Rhett Butler.
And why not? The leading Gentleman
of the picture, Ashleigh Wilkes, was a
wimp. He was as tough as a wet paper
bag. Why, he couldn't fight his way out
of a paper bag.
But Rhett Butler was a man for all
men. Although he was lowdown and
dirty and as much a Southern Gentleman
as Joey Buttafuoco, he still had a way
with words and could make even the
most lady-like lady swoon like a schoolgirl
(even though it took him until the end
of the movie to get Scarlett into his
arms).
However, while most Southern
Gentlemen like myself aspire to emulate
the Dukes and Rhett in our daydreams,
I must point out that these two are not
one in the same.
Whereas Rhett Butler tried to portray
himself as the type of gentleman fit to
eat barbecue with Miss Scarlett at the
Wilkes party, Bo and Luke Duke tried
to act like Southern Gentlemen with
all of the chivalry of Andrew Dice Clay.
So, as you can see, Southern
Gentlemen act like Ashleigh Wilkes to
impress the ladies, satisfy their mothers
and to put on airs for the high society
their wives and girlfriends often try to
impress.
Buenever Southern Gentleman are
alone, with the deer club or out in the
middle of Rimini with nobody but the
road and a pickup, we all tend to attempt
to live out our wild fantasies of behaving
like Bo, Luke and Rhett.
VOTE!
Your activity
fees are
watching
you!