The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 08, 1999, Page 9, Image 9
Quote, Unquote
‘We did enough to win. We just didn't put it in
the end zone.’
Cleveland Pinckney, USC football player
Pags 9
fflie (5amecock
Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08
Editorial Board
Sara Ladenheim • Editor in Chief
Kenley Young • Managing Editor
Emily Streyer • Viewpoints Editor
Corey Ford • Assistant Viewpoints Editor
Brad Walters • Editorial Contributor
Kiki McCormick • Editorial Contributor
Congress should
enforce Internet tax
' * -j-f a consumer in Michigan buys a book from a company in Seat
I tie that maintains its Web site in California but its stock in Ten
-Lnessee warehouses, who gets the sales tax?”
James Ledbetter asked this difficult question last year in The
New York Times. Unfortunately, it will be awhile before he gets
an answer. The Internet Tax Freedom Act, passed by Congress in
October 1998, assures that we won’t have to pay Internet sales tax
until at least 2001. This act also assures that Congress won’t have
to address Ledbetter’s question for a long time.
This is an unfortunate situation. States and local governments
depend on sales tax for basic things like the salaries of teachers
and police. Increasing Internet trade is already draining funds from
states, and it promises to take huge sums in the future. Because of
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Consumers like the convenience of Internet shopping. They al
* so like avoiding sales tax. But these benefits, petty as they are, are
not shared equitably. The poor are less likely than the rich to have
computer access and are therefore more likely to have to shop in
local retail stores, where they must pay sales tax while their
wealthy neighbors do not.
The most absurd thing about the ITFA is the reason lawmakers
say it is in place: to prevent the stifling of a relatively new type of
business. Yet even the government can’t keep up with Internet
growth. We think it’s safe to say that the Internet is in no danger
of being stifled and that any company sophisticated enough to be
online can figure out a system for returning sales tax to the states,
once the federal government finally offers guidelines.
Local communities, however, are endangered when they lose
their sources of revenue. We hope that Congress will do the right
thing the next time the issue comes up, enforcing the collection of
sales tax and its return to the states where the purchase is made.
S.C. cleaner thanks
to Holtz, Hodges
South Carolina’s highways and interstates contain a disgusting
amount of litter. As any South Carolinian can attest, the state’s
natural beauty has been blemished by trash scattered about the
landscape.
Of course, environmentalist groups have worked to clean up the
roadways. But the state government has not attempted to improve
this situation. Only with the appeal of USC head football coach Lou
p Holtz has the government worked on cleaning up the interstates
and highways. And if the Gamecocks upset Georgia this weekend,
Holtz might have as much power as Gov. Jim Hodges.
After Holtz expressed his disgust with the litter, Hodges took
action to beautify the state’s landscape. Seeing the response of
South Carolinians to Holtz’s outrage, the governor formed a task
force to better the circumstances.
Apparently, Hodges’ plan has worked. Any frequent driver of
the state’s roads can see inmates from the South Carolina Depart
ment of Corrections picking up litter, along the interstates, espe
cially. Hodges, along with support from Holtz, has undoubtedly ini
tiated a successful program for the state of South Carolina. The
government must continue to clean up our beautiful, natural envi
ronment/or future generations.
ABOUT US
The Gamecock is the student newspaper of The University of South Carolina and is published Monday. Wednesday and
Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer 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.
The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is
the newspaper's parent organization. The Gamecock is supported in part by student activities fees.
Address
The Gamecock
1400 Greene Street
Columbia, SC 29208
Offices on third floor of the Russell House.
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Submission Policy
Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome
from all members of the Carolina community. Letters
m m should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be an
opinion piece of about 600-700 words.
Both must include name, phone number, profes
sional title or year and major, if a student. Handwritten
submissions must be personally delivered to Russell
House room 333. E-mail submissions must include
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The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel,
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lished. Photos are required for gu^i 1 columnist and can
be provided by the submitter.
Call 777-7726 tor more information.
I ME vaAMECOCK
Sara Ladenheim
Editor in Chief
Ken ley Young
Managing Editor
Emily Streyer
Viewpoints Editor
Kevin Langston
Brock Vergakis
News Editors
Clayton Kale
Associate News Editor
Kristin Freestate
Copy Desk Chief
Rachel Helwig
EtCetera Editor
Todd Money
Jared Kelowitz
Sports Editors
Sean Rayford
Photo Editor
Rob Lindsey
Encore Editor
John Huiett
Student Media
Ellen Parsons
Director of
Student Media
Lee Phipps
Advertising Manager
Susan King
Creative Director
Sherry Holmes
Classify Manager
Carolyn Griffin
Business Manager
City Desk Chief
Will Gillaspy
Online Edita
Corey Fqrd
Asst. Viewpoints
Editor
Ann Marie Miani
Asst. EtCetera Edita
David Cloninger
Asst. Sports Edita
Casey Williams
Asst. Online Editor
Greg Farley
Asst. Photo Editor
Brad Walters
Graphics Copy Edita,
Editorial Contributa
MacKenzie Craven
Charlie Wallace
Philip Burt
Senior Writers
Betsy Martin
Julie Burnett
Kris Black
Kathy Van Nostrand
Creative Services
Erik Collins
Faculty Adviser
Jonathan Dunagin
Graduate Assistant
College Press Exchange
National Issues
McCain, Bradley court young voters
I al elec
X tion of
1998 undoubt
edly brought the
nation some
surprises. With
a sitting Demo- j
cratic president,
that party won s '
seats in Con- Corey Ford
gress in an off- is a sophomore
year election, political science
This political major. He writes I
“upset” has oc- a weekly column
curred only on Wednesdays,
twice this cen- Hecanbe |j
tury . reached at
™eb^es‘ prescef®
surprise, of t
course, had to yahoo-com’
be Jesse Ventu
ra’s successful
bid for the Minnesota governorship. Run
ning as a definite political outsider, Ven
tura’s success was largely because of sup
port from the youngest voting bracket (18
to 24-year-olds).
Now, the presidential race of2000 finds
two candidates who eagerly seek to gamer
support from young voters. Republican
Sen. John McCain and former Democra
tic Sen. Bill Bradley, both seen as the al
ternatives to their parties’ front-runners,
hope that this group of voters will push
them over the top to win the nomination.
Bradley could appeal to young people,
especially males, because of his days as a
star athlete with the New York Knicks.
Phil Jackson, head coach of the Los An
geles Lakers, has already'campaigned for
Bradley in the L.A. area, while rumors as
sert that a concerted effort to get Michael
Jordan on the campaign’s bandwagon is
under way.
Many young people support McCain
for his image as a senatorial straight-shoot
er who never turns down a request to speak
his mind on why Washington is so corrupt.
The senator also hopes that his image as a
Vietnam War hero will secure support not
only from veterans, but also front young
adults.
But why should young voters choose
McCain or Bradley? Bradley’s only claim
to fame was winning an NB4 championship
with the Knicks, right? And will McCain
not exploit his trials as a prisoner of war
in a Hanoi death camp? Besides these per
sonal narratives, what else do McCain and
Bradley have to offer the next generation?
Bradley and McCain have come to a
consensus on one issue that affects the en
tire electoral process: Both candidates of
fer monumental plans to reform the
campaign finance system.
By collecting huge sums of cash, es
pecially “soft money,” presidential hope- .
fills concentrate their resources on fund
raising instead of focusing on the issues.
Therefore, young voters feel that corpo
rate America and affluent contributors
drown out their voices in campaigns. A re
cent poll found that nearly 63 percent of
voters in the 18- to 24-year-old bracket
desire campaign finance reform.
During a summer press conference,
Bradley unveiled a specific plan for reform
in one of the rare times he has given a spe
cific campaign proposal. Bradley’s plan
calls for the prohibition of soft money —
unregulated donations to national and state
party committees — in federal elections.
He also wants to ban corporations, unions
and political action committees (PACs)
from running “issue ads” on television and
radio. More often than not" these ads at
tack candidates who do not agree with par
ticular groups that run the ads.
Bradley promotes public financing for
elections and giving candidates free, broad
cast time to run commercials and ads for
their campaigns. Creating free access to
television and radio allows politicians to
center on the issues instead of laboring to
raise cash. Bradley promotes same-day reg
istration, a process that certainly helped
Ventura in Minnesota, meaning voters can
register to vote on Election Day.
McCain, the outspoken leader for re
form in the Senate, joined ranks with the
Democrats in that chamber to correct the
finance system. Like Bradley, McCain ad
vocates prohibiting soft money contribu
tions to party committees. His bill also
would have banned issue ads from labor
unions and other R\Cs. McCain thinks that
candidates should disclose how much their
contributors give to the campaigns.
Meeting both Bradley and McCain this
spring certainly made an impression on
me. Bradley’s relaxed appearance and Mc
Cain’s fervor for honest reform give a di
rect contrast to the campaigning style of
President Clinton. The two have airs about
them that suggest they’re serious about
improving the lives of young people.
Bill Bradley and John McCain face
doubtful, uphill battles against Gore and
Bush, respectively. But with the support
of young voters, Bradley and McCain hope
to knock off the front-runners and to strive
to end the corruption of our electoral sys
tem.
Washington Post
SWAMPED
smSnau*Amr
Questions & Answers
How do I get my own radio
show on WUSC?
It's a bit late for this semester, but for next
semester, your first step to your own show
is attending the new disc jockeys’ meeting,
which fully explains the process of becom
ing a WUSC DJ.
Next, a month-long training session shows
you how to use the library and the board,
and under the care of experienced DJs, you
start off with a training show. Upon suc
cessful completion of a test at the end of
the month, you get your own free-format
show.
After a successful semester-in-training, you
can request a specialty show, provided you
can demonstrate enough knowledge about
the genre you want to play.
Do you Imve questions about anything on campus? E
mail us here at GCK VIEWS@sc.edu or bring a letter
to Russell House 333, and we 'll answer your ques
tions.
ft .
Social Issues
Heaven:
Not what
it seems
In my 20 brief 5 '
years in the
Bible Belt,
I’ve been told
countless times
by countless
Christians that
within seconds of
death, my soul
will make a one
way trip to the
hottest and deep
est comer of hell,
where it will rot
for eternity.
Having heard
this on literally
hundreds of occa
sions, I often ask
my accusers for
the cause of their
guilty verdict. The typical response is as
follows: “You’re going to hell because
you haven’t accepted Jesus Chrjst as
your lord and savior.”
Many groups nave meet to save
me, but I don’t know if I will ever be
willing to accept the detractions of the
dogmatic denominations of Christianity.
It is my opinion that organized religion
fails on principle alone, because when
erring humans (like myself) try to orga
nize the most personal facet of human
life, failure is inevitable.
Since I don’t believe in either of the
two most popular afterlife resort destina
tions, idle threats of eternal banishment
rarely ruffle my feathers. Even rf I did
believe in heaven, I wouldn’t want to go.
Heaven eliminates what I feel is the
greatest of all goods: free will.
In theory, members of heaven aren’t al
lowed the freedom of choice. Since
everything in heaven is perfect, every
choice has one and only one solution—
the perfect one. In all his glory, the Big
Guy forces his perfection down the
throats of his chosen ones.
What if you want to go see Black
Sabbath and Metallica play at St. Lu
cifer’s Bar and Tavern on Cloud Nine,
but God decides that the perfect choice
is going to see Kenny G in concert with
the Choir of Angels at St. Peter’s Youth
Center. Sure there’s going to be a little
drinking and sinning at St. Lucifer’s,t>ut
who wants to gp see Kenny G and the
Choir of Angels?
I think we humans often misunder
stand the concept of sin and the impor
tance of evil. Like everyone else, I have
pains and sorrows caused by the evils of
human life, but the bad times make the
good times that much better. As Henry
David Thoreau once wrote, “We cannot
well do without our sins; they are the
highway of our virtue.”
Just think about college football. If
Florida State won the national title this
year, I’m sure it would be very happy.
However, FSU has been ranked in the
lop d lor 1U consecutive years, winning
the national title would not mean as
much to them as it would to a school like
ours that has struggled of late.
For those of you like me who are
mathematically minded, let me give you
the following example. Think of the y
axis as a measure of our happiness, so
that any part of a function above the x
axis represents happiness and any part
below the x-axis represents sadness.
Then consider the following functions:
(y = sin x) and (y = Isin xl). The graph of
(y = Isin xl) has an absolute maximum at
y = 1 and is similar to a life in heaven in
that it is never negative. The function (y
= sin x), on the other hand, has a mini
mum at y = -1, but also achieves an ab
solute maximum at y = 1.
Which one do we choose? Personal
ly, 1 would choose (y = sin x) because it
has twice as much range as the other and,
conversely, twice as much appreciation
for happiness.
That’s why 1 don't want to go to
heaven, because perfection is the ab
sence of true emotion. As the Italian po
et Cesare Pavese wrote, “If it were pos
sible to have a life absolutely free from
every feeling of sin, what a terrifyiiig
vacuum it would be!”
Think about it—if evil did not exist
(as in heaven), could we really under
stand the concept of goodness?
i ■