Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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I Quote, Unquote This is a felony case. It does not matter if it was consensual or not.’ Tommy Davis, Governor’s appointee to investigate the South Carolina Corrections J Department on prison guards’ having sex with Susan Smith Page 6 'Cht 0aiTICCOCk Friday, October 20,2000 Whc (Bamccock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Editorial Board Brock Vergakis • Editor in Chief Kevin Langston • Viewpoints Editor Nathan White • Asst. Viewpoints Editor Patrick Rathbun • Editorial Contributor Brad Walters • Editorial Contributor Martha Wright • Editorial Contributor Redshirting benefits both player and team USC’s women’s basketball team has shown it respects the needs of its players. The decision to redshirt junior forward Jocelyn Penn, who is pregnant, will allow her to sit out one season without compromising her athletic scholarship. Coach Susan Walvius said Wednesday that Penn’s “personal de cision to have a child” won’t force her to lose her eligibility to play college basketball. Penn, ranked third in the SEC in steals this past year, will be able to rejoin the team next season. The Lady Gamecocks might draw criticism for allowing Penn to remain on the roster and for the continued funding of her educa tion. Some people might even suggest removing her from the team. But the arguments are faulty, and the suggestion is foolish. There is no cause to penalize Penn for her choice to bear a child for the same reason there’s no cause to penalize a male athlete for his choice to father one. The Athletics Department’s decision to redshirt Penn is benefi cial on two fronts: it allows the Lady Gamecocks to keep one of its best players, and it allows that player to keep her commitments to her personal life, her team, her studies and her university. Interest groups should have their voices heard . Students of the University of South Carolina are no strangers to the tactics used by many visitors who come onto campus to offer literature or raise support for their particular group. One of the most popular (or notorious) groups to do this is the Zipsheets peddlers. It is hard to avoid them be cause they position themselves at high-traffic areas of campus. They are usually on campus on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and the well-seasoned students quickly find alternate routes to avoid these people. However, these peddlers of Zipsheets are not alone. Thursday, a pack of well-dressed gentlemen stood in the central part of campus and handed out portions of the Bible. This, in addition to the Zipsheet peddlers, made walking across campus an interesting endeavor. Nevertheless, it should be commended that these peo ple never force students to take their literature or hear their message. It’s vital for this university to allow people of these opinions to come to our campus and offer their points of view. Some messages might be abrasive, but they have a right (within the boundaries of the law) to convey their messages. Students might find these people to be an inconvenience, but it is as much your right to ig nore them as it is to stop and listen. 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 Dart bv student activities fees. Address 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 803-777-7726 Editor in Chief gamecockeditor@hotmail.com University Desk gamecockudesk@hotmail.com City/State Desk gamecockcitydesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Spotlight gamecockspotlight@hotmail.com Sports gamecocksports@hotmail.com Online www.gamecocksc.edu 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 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 and should be sent to gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will not be pub lished. Photos are required for guest columnists and can be provided by the submitter. Call 777 7726 for more information. The Gamecock Brock Vergakis Editor in Chief Brandon Larrabee University Editor John Huiett City/State Editor Kevin Langston Viewpoints Editor Jared Kelowitz Day Sports Editor Kyle Almond Night Sports Editor Mackenzie Clement* Jason Harmon Ashley Melton Brad Walters Martha Wright Copy Editors ! MacKenzie Craven Spotlight Editor Amy Goulding Sean Rayford Photo Editors Charles Prashaw Amanda Silva Asst. University Editors John Bailey Asst. City/State Editor Nathan White Asst. Viewpoints Editor Aubrey Fitzloff Miranda LaLonde Ann Marie Miani Jennie Moore Katie Smith Page Designers SroofNT Media Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Ellen Parsons Director of Student Media Susan King Creative Director Sean De Luna Todd Hooks Melanie Hutto Emilie Moca Martin Salisbury Creative Services Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Jannell Deyo Robyn Gombar Kera Khalil Denise Levereaux Brantley Roper Nicole Russell Advertising Staff Jonathan Dunagin Interim Ad Manager Sherry F. Holmes Classified Manager College Press Exchange SORE, I , ] SOM-sa\r. The Mass Media The conspiracy of silence I’m a member of the press, and I am proud of it. When peo ple say, “the me- : dia,” with that snot ty, condescending tone, I laugh to my self and say, “you’re just jealous that you don’t have the power that I have.” The newspa pers (and CNN) choose what is and what isn’t an issue. Do you think any Clayton Kale is a junior jour nalism major. He can be reached at gamecockview points@hotmail. com one would know how stupid George W. Bush is if the media didn’t advertise his uncontrollable misuse of English? Do you think anyone would know how much of a liar A1 Gore is if the media didn’t write stories about his dog’s arthritis medi cine? Would we know about Monica’s blue and-white dress or the size of Mr. Presi dent’s pee-pee? Nope. The press took it upon itself to say “hey! The president had an affair... and we just decided to tell you, in lurid detail, about it.” Contrary to popular belief, the bigwigs in the upper echelon of the media don’t get together in a big boardroom and de cide what the news should be. And there are those sayings that make my skin crawl like someone raking nails down a chalk board: “liberal media,” or “liberal bias.” I’m going to let you readers in on a lit tle trade secret: choosing the news is all up to 1) chance—being there at the right time; 2) availability of writers—a staff of 30 writers can only cover so much; and 3) “What are the other guys doing?” — a lot of news involves playing catch-up to ri vals and the Drudge Report. It just happens to look like we’re very liberal because, by nature, conservatives like the status quo and don’t change things around as much, which is what news is — new things. As proud as I am to be a member of the press (and none of that wimpy, 50 word broadcast nonsense), I’m also ashamed. I’m ashamed that in this political cy cle, the media aren’t doing more to cov er the activities of the also-rans. I know that Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader doesn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell to become our next presi dent, but he’s running. Doesn’t he deserve to have his issues brought into the mar ketplace of ideas? How do the American people know they don’t want to vote for him, if they have no idea what he stands fof! And similarly, Pat Buchanan has (thank fully) even less of a chance to become our next president, but that doesn’t mean peo ple don't want to hear what he has to say. I would love to see a front-page arti cle about ol ’ Patty and his near-fascist views. This year, if ever, I’d say the media is participating in the conspiracy of silence. That conspiracy includes the two parties arguing over nitpicky differences in oth erwise identical policies. (Gore knows his policies are the same as Bush’s, but lies and says they’re very different. Bush knows ... well, nothing). And while they’re ar guing, the voters are getting restless. There’s something bubbling beneath the surface. According to the Cato Institute, a sur vey revealed that 17 percent of democrats and republicans actually hold libertarian principles. Seventeen percent. That’s a big bubble. They didn’t know they were closet libertarians — know why? They’d never heard the libertarian platform. Whose fault is that? Perhaps some blame could be placed on the individuals for not investigating po litical parties. But I would argue that more blame should be placed on the media — the so-called fourth estate of government. I hear the aigument all the time that the five or so third parties shouldn’t be al lowed to participate in the debates because everybody knows they’re not going to win. So what? Last year, everybody knew the Gamecocks weren’t going to win a foot ball game (no offense, Lou). But people went anyway. Americans are so entrenched in this two-party system that no one knows how to get out of it. We don't have to chuck the system. It’s just time for something to happen to eneigize the electorate. We’ve had the lowest interest in politics ever, and this is one of the closest races in the tele vision era. The turnout at the polls has nowhere to go but up. And some exposure to Ralph Nader, Harry Browne, Pat Buchanan, et al would do nothing but get more people interested in politics. It might take some time, but eventu ally, if things keep going like they’re go ing, the Democrats and Republicans will join to become the Republocrats, and Nad er will continue to run for the Green Par ty (as he’s been doing for years), and Buchanan will be running with some oth er party (because he broke the Reform par ty), and Keyes will remain on the col lege lecture circuit, and we won’t know what Harry Browne is up to because he’s free to be left alone. The point is, either we get some life into the system by allowing more than two parties into the mainstream or we’re forced to settle. Geoige W. or Gore. Which is worse? At this point, all we can do is choose the lesser of two evils. Letters Student newspaper embarrasses student To the Editor: The University of South Carolina’s school newspaper, The Gamecock, makes me embarrassed to be a USC student and embarrassed to simply be the age that 1 am. Every time I look at the editorial page I get more embarrassed. At first glance, I thought, “Everyone my age must be stu pid! This editorial page is pure idiocy.” Then I realized that my friends are my age, but are very intelligent people with well thought-out views (not that I always agree with them) so this couldn’t be the case. Then I thought, “Maybe we are the out liers. Maybe we are the few intelligent ones.” Here’s why 1 thought those thoughts: The Gamecock editorial page has a laige number of articles that can instruct you on the joys of substance abuse. One gentleman wrote about how the best times of his college career were the times when he was really wasted. Another fellow sug gested that in order to fully appreciate your drunkenness, you should videotape your self so that you can remember what you did later on. The same columnist also wrote a column on how he prefers pot to beer, because you can get violent from drink ing too much beer, but this would never happen from smoking too much pot. An other fine example of a human being wrote a column about how much he vomited from drinking too much tequila But wait! There are more profound and weighty issues that are covered by The Gamecock columnists. One columnist pointed out the epi demic of people on campus who ride scoot ers to class and those who carry Uieir books in wheeled suitcases. According to this columnist, these people must be stopped because they are “gay-looking” and also because they are “wankers.” If anyone knows what a wanker is, I’d really ap preciate it if they’d let me know. The Gamecock editorialists also tend to enjoy bashing my religion, which makes me angry to no end. I’ve written several letters to the editor (all of which have been printed) about this. One columnist (the same one who wrote about the tequila) wrote an entire column about the simi larities of Jesus Christ to Kurt Cobain. I was not amused. There have been numerous other articles about how Christians are hypocritical, pompous, overtoiling, Bible thumpers. Too many to mention. Among some of the other gems that have graced the editorial page of The Game cock, we have had an article about why :apitalism is bad. The guy based his entire argument on the fact that he gets too many credit card offers in the mail. There was also an article lamenting Jie demise of Napster, an article in which a gentleman critiqued street people on the style of their panhandling, and an article where the same guy brags that he can re cite the script to the movie, “Ghostbusters.” Okay, so the editorial page might be bad, but the rest of the paper is bad too. All of the real news stories in the paper are Associated Press articles that you could find in almost any paper. As for The Gamecock s reporting, last week they deemed the Bisexual, Gay and | Lesbian Association’s drag queen show as front-page news. Last year, they also had an entire page of reviews for strip clubs (male and female). Oh, and I saved the best for last! The Gamecock uses the phrase “dumb ass.” On their sports page, The Gamecock had a picture with a caption, which is ap parently in newspaper terms known as “the cutline.” The cutline read, “This is where the cutline goes. If you are reading this, some dumbass foigot to add the cut line.” That’s The Gamecock for you — a fine production that niitkes me proud of my school! This is my memorial to all of the trees that once stood tall, but had to die in vain, in order to produce The Game cock. It gives me great, great sadness to think of all those wasted trees, and I’m not even an environmentalist. Jason Cromer Computer Science Junior The Fall Classic Subway series to test fans It seems that most USC stu dents I’ve talked to don’t care either way whe wins this year’s fall classic. Actually the only thing they do seem to care about is that they hate the two teams involved — the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. Most sports fans realize the sig nificance of a sub way series. It has been 44 years since two teams from the Pete Johnson is a senior jour nalism major. He writes every Friday. He can be reached at gamecockview points@hotmail. com same city played each other, and very few people I’ve talked to seem to be ex cited about it. I have heard aiguments about how unfair it is that the World Se ries seems to be sectioned off in New York, and I understand, but how is it that people can be excited about the bay area series in 1989 between the San Fran cisco Giants and the Oakland A’s (more or less, a freeway series), but so many people don’t care about this year’s fall classic? Well, the truth isn’t that many don’t care about the quality of baseball, but rather that many don’t like the teams in volved. But why do people hate these teams? Yes, the Yankees have the high est payroll in baseball and indirectly pose a threat to the success of small-team America. But it is in a big city and has the revenue at its disposal. The Braves and every other big-city team have that same advantage. Others say they’ve won it too many times and they don’t deserve to win anymore. Hey, the Chicago Bulls won five championships in the 1990s and I didn’t know many people who loved to hate them. Nobody ever questioned Michael Jordan’s desire to win in the 1991 NBA finals against the veteran Lakers. Nobody ever questioned the Yankees’ desire after winning four games straight to come back from a 2-0 hole in the 1996 World Series. And nobody should ever question the Mets’ drive to win this year. They’re fearless, and possibly the only team I’ve seen that has n’t shown intimidation when facing down the mighty Yankees. And that is what all of this is about — intimidation. These teams are from New York — land of the loud, home of the abrasive — where you go out and get what you want, minus the inhibitions. Being timid will get you nowhere in New York. Most New Yorkers won’t give you any respect until you earn it. It’s cool to have this attitude up there, but a lot of New Yorkers take it wherever they go. It’s like someone coming into your house and telling you that you’re running your life all wrong. Being a New Yorker and understanding how annoying this atti tude can be helps me to be as polite and nice as I can be. 1 know many Southerners who hate the New York attitude with a pas sion. It is a passion that I’ve only seen elsewhere in the attitude of New York ers. So, does hating New York accom plish anything? Does it make you a bet tor norcnn^ So who are all of these New York haters? Are they just tomahawk chumps who are pissed the Braves lost? Where are all of these people who claim they love the game? A lot of Southerners I know are in timidated by the very thought of New York. Before my roommate came to vis it, his mom told him to keep his wallet in his front pocket and watch his back. Yeah, the atmosphere is loud and abrasive, and it doesn’t exactly charm anyone, but everyone seems fascinated despite that. This is the reason New York ers are as brash as they are: because they can be. Because they don’t have to be nice to get people to visit their city. Peo ple will come anyway. The Mets and Yankees are both from a very unlikable city, but they are two likable teams full of likable players. Here’s one reason why you should watch: These teams are bitter rivals and this promises to be a hard-fought and en ergy filled series. Should we need other reasons?