Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Quote, Unquote ‘We’re not asking people to walk through the club to get to church.’ Michael Robinson, director of promotions, Ken Wood Enterprises c Page 7 Whe (Bamccock 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 Out to Lunch can be awkward for students Cut to Lunch, the program implemented by university Hous ing and Marriott Dining Services that allows students to treat their professors to a free meal on campus, has been in place since February 1998. The program is intended to help foster a more personal relationship between students and their teachers by allowing social interaction outside the classroom. But Out to Lunch is drastically underused, according to USC Dining Services District Manager Liz Bohlke. By her estimate, on ly about 20 people took advantage of the program last semester. Housing and Marriott obviously have good intentions in contin uing this program. In fact, for students in smaller classes who have developed close relationships with their professors, Out to Lunch provides an interesting way to maintain those bonds and make them stronger. But the formality and distance inherent in most teacher/student relationships make it awkward for many students to develop such open relationships with their professors. A student in a class of 200 isn’t likely to even approach his professor, much less invite him to lunch. And if that student should somehow work up the nerve to extend such an invitation, his professor is likely to suspect him of brown-nosing. A strong teacher/student relationship is important. We applaud the efforts of Mariott and Housing, but we also think they should continue devising easier and more realistic ways to reinforce that relationship — programs with which both students and teachers can feel more comfortable. Delegation right to honor Shoeless Joe South Carolina’s U.S. representatives have jumped on the po litical bandwagon to get “Shoeless” Joe Jackson back into baseball almost 50 years after the slugger’s death. Jackson, a Greenville native, was banned for life from baseball when he and seven Chicago White Sox teammates allegedly threw the 1919 World Series. Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig agreed last May - at the request of Iowa Sen. Tom Hankin - to review Jackson’s case, and he has promised to make a decision soon. The representatives wrote a collective letter to Selig last week encouraging him to allow the slugger his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, joining such supporters as presidential candidate Bill Bradley and U.S. Sens. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings and Strom Thur mond. And we hope the letter does its job. Given that Jackson was arguably the most productive player in the Series that year - he batted .375 and committed no errors - and that he accepted his ban with both grace and dignity, it’s time to honor Shoeless Joe’s legacy properly. Jackson was acquitted of all criminal charges after the incident, and it’s not anyone’s job to decide his guilt or innocence today. But after eight decades, it’s time to remember the slugger for his accomplishments and not for a scandal in which his involvement was never proved. If Selig can sort the facts from the myths, he will make the right decision and allow Jackson his rightful place among the greats in Cooperstown. 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. Adoress The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia.SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Student Media Area code 803 Advertising 777-3888 Classified 777-1184 Fax 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803 Editor gckedasc.edu 777-3914 News gcknewsasc.edu 777-7726 Viewpoints gckviewsasc.edu 777-7181 Etc. gcketcasc.edu 777-3913 Sports gcksportsasc.edu 777-7182 Online www.gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Submission policy Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome from all members of the Carolina community. Letters 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 telephone number for confirmation. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub lished. Photos are required fa guest columnist and can be provided by the submitter. Call 777-7726 for more information. The Gamecock Sara Ladenheim Editor in Chief Kenley Young Managing Editor Emily Streyer Viewpoints Editor Kevin Langston Brock Vergakis News Editors Clayton Kale Associate News Editor Rachel Helwig EtCetera Editor Todd Money Jared Kelowitz Sports Editor Kristin Freestate Copy Desk Chief Sean Rayford Photo Editor Rob Lindsey Encore Editor Student Media Ellen Parsons Director of Student Media Susan King Creative Director Kris Black Julia Burnett Betsy Martin Kathy Van Nostrand Creative Services Will Gillaspy Online Editor Corey Ford Asst Viewpoints Editor John Huiett Asst. News Editor Ann Marie Miani Asst. EtCetera Editor David Cloninger Asst. Sports Editor Greg Farley Asst. Photo Editor Casey Williams Asst. Online Editor Brad Walters Graphics Editor, Copy Editor, Editorial Contributor MacKenzie Craven Charlie Wallace Philip Burt Senior Writers Lee Phipps Advertising Manager Sherry Holmes Classified Manager Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Jonathan Dunagin Graduate Assistant College Press Exchange PARbC*lME. BUT bo you prefer. GOREoR-■> BRAMJEYf / PLEASE bOKV ASK fAE. THAT (Question while. rMbftJVltf&OR OPERATING HEAVY MACHINERY. CTO**** r-\«Tw* Social Issues Computers no substitute for M.D.s Most ratio nal peo ple would argue that modem medical treatment owes a great debt to the computer age. Nearly every area of health care has been enhanced by the memory and processing power of comput ers. Computers are hardly in danger of replacing physi cians (as machines did many factory workers in another era), but I fear they have already begun to cloud some doctors’judgment. According to a recent Newsweek ar ticle, an emeigency room physician tele phoned the regular doctor of woman he’d just treated. He wanted to hospitalize her to be on the safe side. Her regular doctor, however, didn’t think that was so safe; he had a prognosis calculator. “By punch ing in a few basic facts about the woman, he determined that her odds of dying would be 2.2 times higher if she checked into the hospital.” A “prognosis calculator”? Since when was a prognosis something that could be calculated? Sometimes, symptoms may be quantified - a temperature, a white blood cell count - but many times, they must be described. You can’t perform a statistical analysis on the itchiness of a rash, or the severity of pain. Emily Streyer is the Viewpoints editor. She can be reached via The Gamecock at gckviews®scedu Here I was, thinking of dropping a hun dred grand on four years of medical school, when I could be spending that money on a prognosis calculator. Have these doctors set up practice in a “Star Trek” episode? If prognoses were a matter of “punch ing in a few basic facts,” doctors wouldn’t be particularly useful to sick people. Do the doctors who use InfoRetriever’s prog nosis calculator realize how inexact com puter modeling is? The quantification of a qualitative property is not always mean ingful. Just because a number can be placed on something doesn’t mean it provides use ful information. And furthermore, what are the chances of an “otherwise healthy” woman “in no immediate danger” dying anyway, either at home or in a hospital? Is a multiplier of 2.2 really significant in this case? I can’t say. I’m not a doctor, and on ly the “basic facts” in this case were pre sented in the Newsweek article. It seems that the doctor made the right de cision about the woman’s treatment. But what concerns me is that, according to Newsweek, the woman’s doctor used a computer to make his decision rather than his experience and knowledge of medicine and the woman’s histoiy. And the ER physi cian responsible for her release dischaiged the woman based on that number, which might or might not mean anything. It might be tree that patients with iden tical symptoms for an identical condition sometimes receive quite different care from different physicians. The admirable aim of InfoRetrie ver, a computer program that compiles research information and us es the data to answer health care questions, is to standardize health care, but its dan ger lies in the often unknown feet that, for any computer program, the algorithms that make it work are not infallible. And in accuracy in medical care can cause death. It’s one thing to assign numbers to the health care process for the purposes of cre ating policy (for the data must be presented for judgment by people who otherwise would not be capable of evaluating it), but shouldn’t doctors make diagnoses one pa tient at a time? Broad generalizations, such as the as sumptions that go into any computer sim ulation-type program, are for making laws and policy. And more importantly, laws and policy should be flexible enough to al low individual decisions to be made on an individual basis. Would we be impressed, for example, if a judge could punch sta tistics into a computer and come up with the proper sentence for a criminal? And these are our lives at stake. It’s true that no physician could pos sibly stay on top of all the research pub lished - but this is one reason we have spe cialists. And a means of oiganizing this information so that more physicians have access to the latest findings is no doubt valuable. But isn’t letting a computer pro gram make a diagnosis going a bit too far? ■ InfoRetriever is reputed to be pow erful enough to transform the practice of medicine, should it take off. (Right now, only about 200 physicians use the palm top version.) Let’s be careful what we cel ebrate. Letters " - - « -ll, I,. I ill I 111 ..III I—_■ evosuooniecDerpiaguea with false assumptions To the Editor I am writing in response to a letter to the editor on evolution, “Evolution not accepted as proven, scientific fact,” Sept. 24, in which I feel the author, Don nie Pritchett, is mistaken on several points. The first is his definition of a theory. A scientific theory explains an observation that is supported by a considerable amount of evidence. It is definitely not an “un proved assumption: conjecture.” Open any science textbook; you will find that there are many theories in all fields of sci ence, not just biology. Atomic theory, big bang theory, relativity theory, and the heliocentric theory (that the sun is the cen ter of our solar system) are just examples. Not many people question the existence of atoms or that the earth travels around the sun, yet these are “just theories.” The second mistake is that evolution is “plagued with assumptions,” pointing specifically to uniformitarianism. All sci ences are “plagued” by this same as sumption. Uniformitarianism is the idea that the physical and chemical laws and geological processes have remained rela tively constant throughout time. For ex ample, gravity works the same now as it always has, and chemicals react the same now as they did in the past. Without this assumption, science cannot work. What would happen to the field of chemistry if tomorrow salt no longer dissolved in wa ter? Finally, Mr. Pritchett ends his letter with a pair of poorly researched comments. He facetiously states that “science KNEW” that the earth was both the center of the universe and flat, which of course were later proved wrong. The only person who is wrong is Mr. Pritchett. The idea that the earth was the center of the universe was based on theology, not modem sci entific method. Copernicus (i.e. science) was declared a heretic by the church when he proposed that the earth revolved around the sun, coincidentally marking the birth of modem scientific thinking. I agree with Mr. Pritchett that science can be wrong. Nothing is ever proved in science; findings are simply supported by repeated observations. However, in telligently thinking about “theories” is more beneficial than repeating unsub stantiated rhetoric. MattGilg Biology Graduate Student ■ m ■■ ■ m uarnwgauaiieaiQ cover pertinent event To the Editor Representatives from Alpha Lamda Delta Honor Society have attempted to make arrangements with you and mem bers of your staff over the last few weeks regarding our Sept. 17 Order of the Torch Reception (Outstanding Chapter in the Na tion). Prior to the event taking place, agents from the organization issued two press re leases about the significance of the event to The Gamecock. These press releases were followed by several phone calls to your office so that we could confirm that a small article publicizing the event would be run prior to Friday, Sept. 17. It is our understanding that because of that week’s severe weather, some articles were not used in their originally intended slots to make room for hurricane cover age. While we understand the importance of covering major national, state and local events, we also think that it is important that The Gamecock fulfill its commitment to cover issues and events relevant to stu dent life at USC. Prior to the event, a representative from our office once again contacted mem bers of your office after we had failed to receive any. inquiry regarding our previ ous press release. This time, we were in structed that if we took our own pho tographs of the event and submitted them to you by Sunday afternoon, a write-up and picture would be included in Mon day’s edition. It was also our understand ing that if space was limited in Monday’s paper, the article would be run Wednes day, Sept. 22. In reviewing the Sept. 22 edition, we sadly note that Alpha Lamda Delta and its national award have yet to be mentioned in The Gamecock. If you refer to the letter “Students not the focus of The Gamecock News, in Sept. 22’s “Letters,” I think you will see this to be a strong example ofthe argument made by Ms. Seivig. Alpha Lambda Delta is a student oiganization that consistently and successfully promotes academic achieve ment among freshmen students to the point of receiving an award of recognition from the national oiganization. Unfortunately, that student oiganization is unable to get coverage in the student paper, even when they go out of their way to work with the paper by making multiple press re leases and phone calls, and supplying pictures. We ask you to review this incident and take the appropriate actions so that your paper serves the students of USC in an in formative and meaningful manner. Patrick M. Heaton David Rielley Alpha Lambda Delta Graduate Advisers Local Issues Changes needed for DMV I spent Wednes day, trying to transfer title and Ugs after buy ing a car. It took four hours and four government build ings; it should have taken one building and 10 minutes. Trouble was, no one whose job it was to handle such transactions agreed on the process. So I started wonder ing: Are there ac tually laws con cerning title and tags transfers.' ft so, are they written down anywhere? If so, have they been provided to people who actu ally work with those transactions? If so, why don’t they hire people who can read? This isn’t the first time I’ve had prob lems with the folks in the general “cars and driving” category of the law. The story you are about to read actually happened, though it never ever should have. Basically, I had my license suspended over a string of pa perwork errors. I’ll start at the beginning. One day in the mall, I was writing a check when I realized I didn’t have my dri ver’s license in my purse. I had taken it out the night before in a bar in observance of our asinine drinking laws, and had left it in my pocket. Naturally, being a law-abid ing citizen, I interrupted my busy day to drive home and get my license. On the way home, I was pulled over. Apparently, my tags were expired. “Well, officer, I paid my taxes, and the Highway Department failed to send them to me. Do you think you could find out what the prob lem is?” n..* . . j •. _i_t* * ii .1 KUd McCormick writes a column every Friday. She can be reached via The Gamecock at gckviews©sc.edu uui iiu, uu) puuut oci vam vvuuiu lauici give me a ticket for his colleagues' mistake. He also fined me for not having my license, of course. He did say that when 1 showed up on my court date, I could bring my tax receipt and he would drop the no-tags tick et, as that would prove the situation was n’t my fault. ■ So, weeks later, my daughter had to miss her music class so that Mommy could haul her all the way to Lexington for court. Lo and behold, court wasn’t even being held that day. This didn’t faze the moron cop. He happened to be hanging around the court’s lobby, so 1 showed him my tax receipt. He insisted that I still had to pay. And I said: “No, I have proof in my hand that I paid my taxes on time.” Him: “Uh, uh, you just got your tags.” Through an arduous process that in volved teaching him that those little num bers with slashes indicate dates, and that this particular date indicated taxes paid months ago, I introduced him to the light and he dropped the ticket. He said, “I’ll take care of this,” and put the ticket in his pocket. Of course, he didn’t take care of it; his wife probably found my ticket crumpled and washed free of ink when she dried his laundry. In any case, I got a notice in the mail informing me that because I had “failed” to come to court, my license was going to be suspended, and I had to pay ad ditional fines. Solcalledthe courthouse and informed them that they were mistaken. “Ma’am, if the computer says you haven't paid it, you haven’t.” I replied: “I don’t have to pay it because it no longer exists.” “Yes it does, the computer says so.” And on and on. So I tried to get in touch with the of ficer. He didn’t call me back. In the mean time, I spoke with supervisors and super visors’ supervisors, all of whom were convinced of the omniscience of electronic devices. Cinullw I nrrxt tKo nffionr Un knM correct the problem. So I relaxed. A few weeks later, I had no license and a bigger fine. And on, and on, until one day, I walked him through the process of actually chang ing the information in the all-knowing com puter. (By the way, they sent me my tags, which they said must have been destroyed when the mail returned them for some rea son. Why destroy them? And why not no tify the person to whom they belong?) I have no solutions. I’m just recording the problem and wondering why the peo ple we pay to serve us can’t or won’t. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on here, and how it can be fixed?