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Quote, Unquote ‘You don’t have to be rich or smart to step onto the pages of history.’ Cleveland Sellers, civil rights movement veteran Wat (5amcock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Edi+orial Board Kenley Young • Editor in Chief Brad Walters • Managing Editor Brock Vergakis • Viewpoints Editor Peter Johnson • Assistant Viewpoints Editor Emily Streyer • Editorial Contributor GMP makes positive step toward service he Grand Marketplace has taken a small step that is yielding great improvements in its quality of service. Heeding calls to alleviate the congestion around the hot line, the Healthy Choice sandwich line has switched places with the grilled cheese line. This simple change has made a great improvement toward re ducing congestion during peak eating hours. The GMP is to be commended for being willing to make a change to benefit stu dents. There is less congestion now, reducing the irritation of stu dents in a rush to get their food. The GMP doesn’t have a wonderful reputation for service, but with innovations like changing where the lines are, that might change. It must always remember that we are its customers, and we can and will eat elsewhere if this progressive attitude toward providing service changes. We should demand no less than excel lence from dining services. Although this small change has already made a difference in lunch-line congestion, there is still room for improvement. The confusion created by the placement of the salad bar and hot line needs to be remedied. Half of the congestion problem has been solved; now the GMP needs only to fix the salad bar and hot-line fiasco. The momentum toward positive change in the GMP’s service is increasing. Now is the time to act upon it. Fill out those comment cards and demand that the salad bar be moved. You have a voice — let it be heard. Death penalty should not mean electric chair In a 5-4 vote Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by a death row inmate to Alabama’s use of the electric chair as the only means of execution. This decision is a step back from the precedent being set by the rest of the country to phase out the electric chair and move toward lethal injection instead. Alabama, Georgia and Nebraska continue to offer no alterna tive to electrocution for putting inmates to death. Of the 98 death row inmates executed across the nation in 1999, 94 were killed by injection. Three were electrocuted, and one was killed by cyanide gas. Clearly, most states are coming to a consensus that electrocu tion not only borders on “cruel and unusual punishment” as de fined in the Constitution, but is also a more costly way to kill in mates. The nearly split decision by the Supreme Court puts an even darker cloud of doubt over the constitutionality of the elec tric chair, and we imagine that the court will hear similar cases against electrocution in the near future and perhaps will vote one day to ban electrocution. In the meantime, the Alabama, Geoigia and Nebraska legisla tures should push to allow lethal injection as the primary means of execution — even if only because the chair is antiquated and expensive. A B O U T U s 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. Adoaess The Gamecock The Gamecock *'"'*» **"« Am, Colliding 1400 Greene Street LJ™ ■ Columbia. SC 29208 ®rad Wa"'" Pboto Mtors Managing Editor Will Gillaspy . Office on third floor of the Russell House. Brock Vergakis Online Editor Student Media Area code 803 Viewpoint Editor Peter Johnson Advertising 777-3888 Kale ^sst. Viewpoints Editor Classified 777-1184 News Editor Kell, Haggerty pax 777-6482 Brandon Larrabee Patrick Rathbun Offjce 777-3888 Associate News Editor Asst. News Editors Rebecca Cronican MacKenzie Craven GAMECOCK Area code 803 Ann Marie Miani Asst. EtCetera Editor Editor gcked@sc.edu 777-3914 EtCetera Editors Elizabeth Rod News gcknews@sc.edu 777-7726 David Cloninger Asst. Sports Editor Viewpoints gckviews@sc.edu 777-7181 Shannon Rooke Rob Fleming Etc. gcketc@sc.edu 777-3913 Sports Editors Asst. Encore Editor Encore! gamecockencore@hotmail.com 777-3913 Kristin Freestate Charles Prashaw Sports gcksports@sc.edu 777-7182 Copy Desk Chief Shawn Singleton Online www gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Renee Oligny Charlie Wallace Submission Policy Cop, Editor Senior Writers J t . . . Kevin Langston Emily Streyer Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome £ncore E‘tor Editorial Contributor from all members of the Carolina community. Letters Student Media should be 260-300 words. Guest columns should be an „ t c. * cnn inn a Ellen Parsons Business Manager op,n,on piece of about 600-700 words. Director Sherr, Holmes Both must include name, phone number, profes- Susan King Classified Manager sional title or year and major, if a student Handwritten Creative Director Erik Collins submissions must be personally delivered to Russell Kris Black Faculty Adviser House room 333. E-mail submissions must include Julie Burnett Jonathan Dunagin telephone number for confirmation. Todd Graduate Assistant The Gamecock reserves fie right to edit for libel, u 6 Kathy Van Nostrand Gir f McKelvey style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub- Creative Senices Melissa Mi|ten lished. Photos are required for guest columnist and can Kenton Watt Brantley Roper he rtrm/irWj hv the ^nhmitfpf Arh/prtisirur Manappr Nicole Russell College Press Exchange National Issues S.C. reputation still embarrassing : Brock Vergakis is a journalism junior and Viewpoints editor. He can be reached at gamecock viewpoints® hotmail.com: One of the benefits of my job is that I lit erally get to travel and meet people from all over the coun try and the world. This past weekend was no different as I traveled to Washington, D.C. I got to hang out with kids from Cali fornia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Ten nessee, Texas and even some crazy lowans, among oth ers. Because this was the first time most of us had met, we only had the geogra phy of one another to go by. It didn’t mat ter where we were all originally from or what school we went to; each of us iden tified the other by the state we went to school in. I’m not originally from South Car olina, nor do I plan to live here after grad uation, but suddenly I became a spokesman for this state. And believe me, I did my best to break as many stereotypes about this state as possible, as I often find myself doing when around people from other states or countries. At first, I just laughed off all the stereo types about South Carolina and its resi dents, but after a while, it became annoy ing and I fell victim to saying the same stereotypical statements about kids from other states. I made fun of someone from Wisconsin for going to “Cheese U” and having wild fraternity parties that result ed in a raucous night of cow tipping. I was quick to make fun of someone from a California school for being the on ly person to set off a metal detector and be searched by security guards. And I was sure to make fun of two girls from the other USC for being snobby California pri vate-school kids. Nothing that was said about anyone there was meant to be taken seriously, but it just goes to show that a million stereo types exist about people from all parts of the country, particularly the South. Whether anyone here wants to admit it or not, the rest of the country still thinks this is a backward, redneck place. They perceive this state as one completely op posed to change and progress, where the people talk slowly and think even more slowly. They know our education system is the worst in the country and are quick to call us out on it. Fortunately, all those I’ve been around know that for the most part, this isn’t re ally the case, but many do not. The only knowledge most of the country has about South Carolina is what is shown in newspapers and on television. hr regards to coverage of the state Leg islature, South Carolina is coming off as the racist redneck state it’s always been perceived as. Even in the presidential pri mary, political commentators have said a large reason that Bush won is because Mc Cain was too liberal for this state, and change in South Carolina even among Re publicans is traditionally a bad thing. In movies and television shows, South Carolina doesn ’t exactly get a good repu tation, either. Remember the movie “There’s Something About Mary”? This is the state where Ben Stiller gets arrest ed and interrogated by cops too stupid to figure out the truth after being arrested at one of our lovely rest areas known to be a hangout for homosexuals. And for a little school pride, it does say “Go Gamecocks” on his jail cell wall. Many might think that nobody seri ously thinks that this state or the South is really like this. I guarantee you’re wrong. Until people are proved otherwise, stereo types are the only source of knowledge many have. Most people come here only to go to the beaches, and Myrtle Beach is n’t exactly known as the classiest place on the East Coast. I know that some people here could n’t care less what the rest of the country or the world thinks of them. However, each person here should. We’re all stu dents of the University of South Carolina, and our reputation goes hand in hand with the state’s. If South Carolina is perceived as a state of uneducated rednecks, so will our school. After all, 85 percent of the students here are products of South Carolina’s educa tional system. And the farther away from our borders we go, the less impressive a degree from here looks to prospective em ployers. To someone from Chicago or Dal las, USC and S.C. State might as well be the same school because our reputation is n’t strong enough to stand out on its own. We must always be careful when around others from different parts of the country or world, or stereotypes will per sist. I know that this is not the place oth ers would make it out to be, but trust me, the rest of the country does not. Letters USC students show their good side On Feb. 19, Republican primary day, a group of M BA students from USC spent much of their day performing some com munity service that probably will go un recognized but, hopefully, not unappreci ated. The students methodically worked a stretch of south Beltline Boulevard be tween Rosewood Drive and Shop Road, picking up trash that easily filled several dozen plastic bags. They also found a tire, old five-gal lon buckets and a hubcap. The students waded through muddy ditches and prickly weeds to rid the roadway of the unsightly trash that coach Lou Holtz so appropriately noted was a major problem in this state shortly after his arrival. Some passing motorists unbelievably chastised them for their efforts. On behalf of residents who live in southeast Colum bia and travel along Beltline Boulevard, a tip of the cap and heartfelt “thank you” to those students. Bill Robinson Columbia Police resources should go to real crimes, not parking OK, imagine the scenario: You have just gotten back from spending the week end at home. You have four huge loads of freshly washed laundry to unload from your car. You park in front of your dorm, put on your emeigency flashers and start hauling up all of your stuff. After your fourth and final trip to the room, you come back down just in time to see a meter maid standing behind your car, writing you a parking citation! This just happened to me no more than fifteen minutes ago. Now, I owe $25 more to a school that I already pay thousands of dollars to at tend. 1 have observed, time and time again, these meter maids writing tickets. Yet si multaneously, I am reading stories in The Gamecock about muggings, rapes and thefts that are taking place on our campus. There are several solutions to this prob lem: (1) Fire all of the meter maids and invest the money used to pay their salaries into the campus police department to hire more police officers. (2) Let them keep their jobs, but make them do some thing constructive like walking around the campus or in the garages at night to ward off potential predators. (3) Just make more parking spaces that are closer to the build ings so parking problems would be elimi nated and there would be no need for me ter maids! If even half of the effort put into writ ing ridiculous tickets was put into pro tecting and serving the students at USC, we wouldn't see most of the parking ci tations or crimes that we see now. Jennifer K. Frommer Psychology Freshman Campus Issues use standard of living too low Nathan White is a political science junior, H a can be reached at gamecock viewpoints® hotmail.com For the first 18 years of my life, I had a room to myself. For the past two, I’ve had to live with another per son. At this rate, I’ll be living with two people when I’m 36. Some times I feel as if my “standard of living” has de clined since I came to USC. When I was a baby, my mom fed me blueberry buckle (good stuff). Now, I go to the Grand Marketplace and get reconstituted food and dehydrated water. When I was a little kid just learning to use the “grown-up” toilet, I indulged my behind with double-ply toilet paper. Now, I use single-ply on my bottom, which has since become callous and leathery. When 1 was in high school, I would get up in the morning and walk barefoot to the bath room where I would shower, and if I dropped the soap, I would pick it up. Now I walk with sandals on and let the soap go if I happen to drop it. I mourn fully watch as it hits the shower floor and grows hair in a sort of instant puberty be fore my eyes. Please tell me I am not the only stu dent living on campus who thinks my liv- , ing standards have regressed since com ing to college. Mediocre housing, mediocre food and mediocre everything, etc. I have often won dered why. Why? Here is my answer. The reason we all live in mediocrity is not because of any “college experience” or crap like that. It’s because most college-age kids could not care less about how they live. USC gives us cells to live in; we live in them. They give us fake food; we eat fake food. They give us single-ply; we have chaffed bottoms. We live in mediocrity because we don’t realize that there’s abetter way. You think the faculty and the administration are go ing to call for double-ply — no! We must empower ourselves with the knowledge ' that there is abetter way. Listen, I am not talking revolution here, I’m talking reason. I grew up in a nice, clean house with a clean bathroom (with all the modem tech nologies — double-ply toilet paper, etc.), and I ate decent (edible) food. So why can’t I have all those things here? Recent studies have shown that col lege students prefer apartment-style dorms to the traditional prison cell-style dorms. Ya think? The day I was bom, I had a room to myself. Now, I share one. Not that I don’t like my roommate, I just wish that I had a room and no “mate.” I wish I had my own bathroom, or at least a bathroom that looks less like the ones at the Coliseum. ^ j? And what about the food? The GMP, Pizza Butt, Taco Hell, oh my! When I ate on campus, I decided where I ate by what food I hated the least. The reason I say “ate” is because 1 don’t have a meal plan and I don’t eat on campus any more. Pure genius. Not getting a meal plan this semester was the smartest thing I’ve done in 2000. And what about double-ply? Need I say more? I happened to go home recently. I used some double-ply with aloe. Wow. It was ecstasy after the single-ply torture I’ve endured for so long. Listen, my fellow college students. There is a better way, and we must em power ourselves so that we can realize it someday. In the weeks to come, I will show you how we can empower ourselves and tde-,^ vale our standard of living. Until then, i*lpe softly and carry a big stick. Send your letter to qamecockviewpoints @ hotmail.com