Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Quote, Unquote ‘I think a lot of it [student senate] was dead weight. That was unfortunate.’ Adam Dawkins, Student Government senator Whe 0amcock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Editorial Board Kenley Young • Editor in Chief Brad Walters • Managing Editor Brock Vergakis • Viewpoints Editor Peter Johnson • Assistant Viewpoints Editor Emily Streyer • Editorial Contributor Positive crime numbers don't tell whole story Che Gamecock’s look at campus crime statistics from schools around our region has yielded encouraging numbers. Of the six schools we surveyed - Clemson University, the Universi ty of Florida, the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina, USC and the University of Tennessee - USC ranked lowest in violent crimes per 1,000 students and second-lowest in property crimes per 1,000 students. While the statistics are certainly encouraging, they don’t quite tell the whole story. The numbers for USC don’t include crimes handled by the Columbia Police Department, which include any thing that happens in Five Points, a hot spot for criminal activity. And they don’t include crimes under the Buckley Amendment, which was intended to protect the confidentiality of student records and allow administrators to block from the media student disciplinary records and information about most campus judicial proceedings. So in short, plenty of crimes go unreported in campus crime statistics, both at USC and at other state-supported institutions. Still, there’s no denying that we’re doing well compared with oth er schools. Despite the fact that we’re in the center of a 110,000 person city, our campus crime rates fall well below that of cam puses in smaller cities. Just like at other schools, law-enforcement administrators on our campus try to get the word out that people should do whatev er it takes to be safe. And these numbers are no excuse for us to drop our guard. Rescue worker treated unfairly A volunteer animal rescuer has allegedly been accused of racism and ordered to temporarily stop his work on cam pus. Dave Johnston is a retired Vietnam veteran who has been trapping and rescuing stray cats and dogs on the USC cam pus for more than five years. Johnston said he was accused Thursday of racism by a student who observed him trapping a black cat near Bates West. It is un derstandable to be upset at someone trapping stray animals with the intention of bringing them to the pound to be euthanized; however, it is unwise to jump to a conclusion so quickly without getting any facts. To turn unwarranted anger and frustration into a racial situation is unnecessary. Why would someone go around trapping only black cats? It would be ridiculous to think that someone would do such a thing. Johnston volunteers his time working for Pets Inc., the largest pet adoption agency in the Midlands. The USC Police Department is handling the matter too timid ly, telling Johnston he must stop rescuing animals until the matter is cleared up. One misinformed comment allegedly labeling this man a racist could mean that he might never again be able to volunteer his time to saving these stray animals on our campus. People should n’t point fingers and assign labels until they know some of the facts. The Gamecock is the student newspaper ot The University ot South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the tall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer with the exception ot 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 8oard 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. The Gamecock A°°"ESS Kenley Young Amy Goulding ;"*yAmecoc*. . Editor in Chief Travis Lynn 1400 Greene Street Brad Walters Photo Editors Columbia, SC 29208 Managing Editor Will Gillaspy Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Brock Vergakis Online Editor A rnHgt am Viewpoints Editor Peter Johnson • Me Ar d S07„ ,RR8 Clayton Kale Asst. Viewpoints Editor 777 n84 News Ed,tor Kell, Haggerty C|a“lf,ed '' Brandon LarraBee Patrick Rathbun 777 ootyj Associate News Editor Asst. News Editors 0ff,ce 777-3888 Rebecca Cron>can MacKenzie Craven Qamecock Area code 803 Ann Marie Miani Asst. EtCetera Editor Editor gckedOsc.edu 777-3914 EtCetera Editors Elizabeth Rod News gcknewsOsc.edu 777-7726 David Cioninger Asst. Sports Editor Viewpoints gckviews0sc.edu 777-7181 Shannon Rooke Rob Fleming Etc. gcketcOsc.edu 777-3913 Sports Editors Asst. Encore Editor Encorelgamecockencore0hotmail.com 777-3913 Kristin Freestate Charles Prashaw Sports gcksportsOsc.edu 777-7182 Copy Desk Chief Shawn Singleton Online www.gamecock.sc.edu 777-2833 Renee Oligny Charlie Wallace SOOMBS,OMPOUCV , , Kevin Langston Enuly Stroyer Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome f/Kore £djtgr Editorial Contributor from all members of the Carolina community. Letters gnyoeMT Media should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be an ^ Business Manager opinion piece of about 600-700 words. Director Sheny 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 subm.ssions must include julur Burnett Jonatfron Dun*,^ telephone number for confirmation. Martin Robyn Gombar The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, Van Nostrand Gina McKelvey style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub- Creative Services Melissa Millen lished. Photos are required for guest columnist and can Kenton Watt Brantley Roper be provided by the submitter. Advertising Manager Nicole Russell Call 777-7726 for more information. Carolyn Griffin Advertising Stan College Press Exchange f 0O WOO THINK- \ ^MART TO tei^rrpiS I Prp p Social Issues Happiness not so hard to find To quote one of my favorite bands: “Happi ness, more or less, is just a change in me, something in my liberty.” For those of us searching for a quick fix of happiness, I have a piece of advice - happi ness lies within that which you overlook in your haste to tind it. After I read Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” last spring, I became happier than I had ever been. That happiness and frame of mind have carried over since then in many ways. I didn’t just read it; I lived it out in this crappy little town as best I could with what I had. Those who have been close with me since I arrived here at USC have seen a change from the boy they once knew in to the person I am today. I am still just as fun-loving and childlike on the surface, but there is a maturity that broods just below that had never been there until the mild enlightenment that I experienced last spring. I was rejuvenated. My line of sight was no longer fixated directly ahead. Some might think that I am the lazi est person they know. Well, 1 guess some people don’t know me as well as they think they do. I get excited over things, where as throughout the duration of my first two years here at USC, that passion was lack ing. There was no fire within me, no flare. A spark was lit in me through the inspira tional words of another, and the chain re action it caused was like my own person al big bang. I used to thrive on my laziness. I took pride in it and claimed to be more “laidback” than others. 1 was lying to my self. Despite the fact that I am still un motivated in many areas, I have a sense of passion and a zest for life that I have only recently discovered. I can get high on the smell of a flower in bloom. My heart can flutter at the feel of a gentle breeze when mixed with the perfect amount of sunlight. It’s a very delicate chemical equation. This transformation that came over me was strange at first. It was shocking that I could feel so differently toward some of the things that I had held in the same re gard for so long. I began measuring the climbing po tential of trees and wondering about the exact number of grains of sand on a beach and stars in the night sky ... I had never thought that way before, and hav ing those thoughts excited me to a point that I can’t put into words. I was thinking in a different realm. My mind seemed to have opened a door to another previous ly undiscovered room. Once you can dis regard everything you think you know, on ly then will you begin to actually feel that you can learn anything about yourself or the world. I couldn’t sit idly any longer. I became jumpy. I had a new energy. Thoughts that I had never even come close to thinking before were working their way into my mind. I began taking a more philosophi cal approach to life. Everything was under the microscope, and I was curious about how things worked and, more important ly, why they worked. Simple words in spired me to see the world in a new light, a light that gave me wonder again. Why is it that people lose their sense of wonder as the realities of the adult world start to set in and we “grow up”? I have promised myself that if I end up in a business suit someday (God, I hope I nev er do), 1 will find the time to roll down a grassy hill and stand up just to fall over dizzy. There is a hill in my town on the grounds of the John J. Daly Elementary School, where I spent many wonderful post-lunch excursions. Every day at recess, all of the kids would nm screaming toward it, arms flailing. Every kid wanted to be the first to get to the play ground at the bottom. The hill was the pas sage to bliss, but every kid rolled down that hill. There was no sense of competition; we were children. Today’s mentality as blossoming adults would be to push the others down and run as last as you can to be the first one to stand on the big rock at the bottom. This is what we have been taught in our passage into adulthood. The aggressive and mean-spirited people come out on top because they have the balls to step on every one who gets in front of them on their way to the top. Sure, I wanted to be the first kid to stand on that rock, right in the middle of the sands of the playground, but I NEVER sacrificed rolling down that hill just for the sake of being the top dog. And you know what? I kept my eyes open the whole time down. No matter how much it sickened me, I kept my eyes open to see the world spinning around me. And 1 stood up and the world kept going around, and I let it. 1 didn’t spin the opposite way to try to soft en the dizziness; I let it run its course. 1 feel now that I have reattained part of that childlike sense of wonder and amaze ment that we try so hard to lose when we are growing up. It’s easy to walk around every day with blinders on to the world, overlooking what is going on around us. That sense of amaze ment allows us to take those seemingly routine, simple things and rediscover them. Remember: To attain happiness, you have to be accepting of who you are. That is the major goal. As it is for many of us, the hoop is small, and it is very much on fire... soon er or later, we will each have to take our turn and jump through it. Many of us spend our whole lives wor rying about failure and questioning the rel ativity of our own existence. It is about time we start to believe in ourselves. Pete Johnson is a journalism senior. He can be reached at game cockviewpoints ©hotmail.com Letters Russell House security too lax This past weekend, March 17,2000, the members of my band, the Power Star, did a live spot on WUSC. We brought some of our CDs and some CDs of our friends’ bands. We spent about two hours up there talking on the air about our upcoming shows and our latest CD, playing CDs, and chatting with the DJs, John and Ray, off-air. We were in a hurry to get out of there afterward so we could continue listening to the show in the car. When we left the station, we ran through the building, dressed like lab tech nicians and a priest (don’t ask why, it’s a band thing), carrying a bunch of CDs, and yelling at each other to hurry up. We looked like we were wackos or thieves or something. Yet when we got down stairs and came to a locked door, a security guard didn’t try to stop us. Instead, he point ed us to a door that was unlocked ... so we laughed really hard and took off running again ... the security on USC is somewhat weak. Chris Gould Computer Science Junior THE WASHINGTON POST "WE HAVE A MILITARY PROBLEM WITH AUJB - OUR TROOPS COULP BE TRAlUlM WITH SOME OF THBRS THAT ARE OPENLY <SAY" _—, .... .. ,—■»_ tv Social Issues Avoiding character attacks hard w-w1 ytth the \ \ / fresh, liber T y atingcondi tions of collegiate life, that natural tendency for students - many of whom cannot han dle the newfound freedom - to go wild kicks in, sometimes resulting in disaster. These conditions, while often creating an atmosphere con ducive to building ma turity, contrarily can breed a climate in which students don’t reach the desired ma turity level and instead grow even more ar rogant and irrational in their decision-making. The perception that college students are noth ing more than a bunch of hotheads certainly exists. Since I have been a student here, I have done nothing but aid in perpetuating this per ception. Early last semester, I wrote a column lashing out at a freshman who - after our first introduction - believed that I held no core con victions on political issues. Now, in my life I have had ultra-conservatives attack my posi tions, but no one ever claimed that 1 was ab sent of conviction. So, the result of this first impression was that column in the fall - a col umn that said to promote the good of all, politi cians should drop certain personal beliefs and compromise on certain issues. 1 wrote that the political climate must be free of emotion and pointless passion while I overlooked the fact that my rage - because of her accusation - hypocritically fueled the writing of the September column. Plus, she as serted that writing the column was unfair, and, in her own words: “You used a venue which 1 could not respond to.” She failed to be come angry, but the look of disappointment she gave me was enough to render the feelings of guilt, forcing me to rethink my position. This type of anger I displayed against her has become one of the negative aspects of re- * cent American political campaigns. After Sen. John McCain’s surprising victory in New Hamp shire, Texas Gov. Geotge W. Bush began to bash McCain as a liberal Washington insider whose message of reform was one with de ceiving faults. Bush applied the heat in South Carolina, and the television ads by the gover nor became horrendously negative. Unfortu nately for McCain, S.C. Republicans usually do not embrace reform, and when McCain de picted Bush as “Clintonesque,” his reform mes sage lost some of its shine. The Republican candidates continuea the petty games into Michigan and the Super Tuesday contest despite McCain dropping his “Clinton” ads. In speeches, McCain still bit terly swung at the front-runner for his lack of experience, his visit to Bob Jones University] and his pandering to the religious right. Bush kept up the pressure with his claims that Mc Cain failed to bring about “real” reform in Washington and that he (Bush) was the “re former with results.” Negative campaigning and personal attacks have become a guarantee in political campaigns. Candidates retreat from showing voters their strengths and dirty themselves with mudslinging that revolves around the character of candi dates. A difference exists, however, between drawing notable contrast and going personal ly negative. Unfortunately, this type of cam paign discourages higher voter turnout, but it works because the negativity mobilizes party bases and sways the votes of the few moder ates who do vote. The general election in the fall - which undoubtedly will be tight right up until - has the likely potential to become a nasty display of personal attacks between Bush and Vice President A1 Gore. The politicians of today focus on the short run, for they only con cern themselves with winning the next elec tion at any cost. They neglect to realize that halting negative campaigning could probably increase turnout and participation in govern ment - after all, in our system, the people are supposed to govern themselves. Ideally, this option could become reality, yet it remains unlikely. I hope that Gore wins in November even if his attacks on Bush are negative. The nation cannot afford the pres idency of one who has had only six years of experience in the state with the weakest governorship. Yet, I still yearn for a change and an end to the negative politics. So, I apologize to the student I disappointed in September and hope that this unique, impressive “womyn” wil' eventually forgive me. From her and tne re cent campaigns, I learned a valuable lesson in politics: The temptation of anger and emo tional attacks not only casts a pessimistic shad ow upon our political system, but also erodes its very credibility. Corey Ford is a political sci ence sophomore. He can be reached at game cockviewpoints ©hotmail.com