Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

Quote, Unquote ‘It's the type of game that haunts you. ... We were like deer in headlights.’ Lou Holtz, football head coach, on loss to Florida 'i ■___________ ■■■■■■■■_■ Wht (Bmccock 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 Rivalry a great chance for USC to give blood Curing the USC’s Spirit Week, students can do more than sup port their school by wearing garnet and black or attending spirit events like the Tigerbum. They can also support their sonooi and the local Red Cross. During Carolina-Clemson vveek, students are given themnique opportunity to donate blood in the Carolina-Clemson Blood Battle. While students are making all-important donations to the local Blood Bank of the Red Cross, they are also competing with Clemson to see which school can raise the most pints. USC has won the last two Blood Battles in what has more or less become a tradition during the week prior to the Carolina-Clemson game. The name might sound gruesome, but the Blood Battle is not _ * ~ c_i _c ouiut/uuug iu ivui ouy away iium. In fact, all students should consider making a contribution to the Blood Battle. Whether you’re in it to ensure a USC victory or to make help out the local Red Cross, donating a pint of blood is a mod est request for two great causes. While the Blood Battle has a lot of competitive overtones, the bottom line is that these two universities have decided to come to gether in this charitable event. There might be an intense rivalry be tween Carolina and Clemson, but at least the two schools know to keep it on the playing field. Students should donate meal equivalency to poor Today, students have a chance to make a contribution to the un derprivileged community by giving their meal equivalency to Oxfam. The community organization will set up tables outside various dining locations today, asking students to donate the cost of their meals to the poor. Oxfam should be applauded for their effort to get students in volved in projects like this. Many students are not likely to seek out ways to exercise their kindness, and Oxfam has done well in seek ing students out. The organization provides an opportunity for students to donate to those less fortunate, and it is an opportunity students should take advantage of. For their donation, students are not only giving a gift to the im poverished, but they are also seizing the chance to feel better about themselves. Such a gift can give the benefactor a sense of pride. When organizations present worthwhile causes, students should go out of their way or sacrifice in order to participate. It is easy to neglect or disregard these kinds of efforts, but we must exercise un selfishness for the common good. 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 naurmnai’r nirnnt TVu> ic ClirWVtpH in fVirt hv ^tllHpnt aCtivitipC foOC Address The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia, SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Stuoent 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 gamecockeditordhotmail.com University Desk gamecockudeskdhotmail.com City/State Desk gamecockcitydeskdhotmail.com Viewpoints gamecockviewpointsdhotmail.com Spotlight gamecockspotlightdhotmail.com Sports gamecocksportsdhotmail.com Online www.gamecock.sc.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 tele phone number for confirmation and should be sent to gamecockviewpointsdhotmail.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. Brock Vergakis MacKenzie Craven Editor in Chief Spotlight Editor Brandon Larrabee Amy Goulding University Editor Sean Rayford John Huiett Photo Editors City/State Editor Charles Prashaw Kevin Langston Amanda Silva Viewpoints Editor Asst. University Editors Jared Kelowitz John Bailey Day Sports Editor Asst. City/State Editor Kyle Almond Nathan White Night Sports Editor Asst. Viewpoints Editor Mackenzie Clements Aubrey Fitzloff Jason Harmon Miranda LaLonde Ashley Melton Ann Marie Miani Brad Walters Jennie Moore Martha Wright Katie Smith Copy Editors Page Designers Erik Collins Carolyn Griffin Faculty Adviser Business Manager Ellen Parsons Jannell Deyo Director of Robyn Gombar Student Media Kera Khalil Susan King Denise Levereaux Creative Director Brantley Roper Sean De Luna Nicole Russell Todd Hooks Advertising Staff Melanie Hutto Jonathan Dunagin Emilie Moca Interim Ad Manager Martin Salisbury Sherry f. Holmes Creative Services Classified Manager Edralyne Faye Chavez ZD Election 2000 Mass marketing our culture American so ciety is in a crisis of sorts at this very moment. I’m not talking about the election, because God knows there is al ready enough talk of that. The problem lies in the cultural identity of Ameri ca. I have asked myself exactly what it is many a lime. and prosperity. While using 9-year-olds as a test market for R-rated movies should be a concern, it should not be of the high est priority. Our culture used to be hard to define: a melting pot of this culture and that one, two parts English, one part French, one part German and Dutch and dashes of Spanish, African, Asian and other Euro pean influences. But now when one looks at the cul tural landscape and who is in control, one ■ can easily be confused and turned off. We are quickly becoming a culture following in the tradition of Wal-Mart. It is a culture founded on the principles of efficiency and mass marketing. If one looks at the music industry, one finds many acts straight off of the conveyor belt. Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync and other acts would all fit into this categorization. These bubble-gum acts sadly define, represent and identify our culture — or lack thereof. Jazz and blues are considered uniquely American, and rap, today’s American original, can not be put on the same pedestal as either of those. Television is the same way. Aside from the specialty channels, it’s hard to fmd any originality. Reality-based programming doesn’t cut it, and sitcoms are tired. Shows like “The Simpsons” and “Seinfeld” would not have been so successful and unique were it not for self-parody and self-dep recation. The writers of these shows have been smart enough to realize the value of these qualities. What is uniquely American? The World Wrestling Federation is uniquely American. With its scantily clad women, violence and absolutism, it is no wonder the league is successful. It is also no wonder that soon we will have the XFL, the brain child of WWF founder Vince McMahon. Soon, we will have all the joys of the WWF and the NFL rolled into one revolting ball. I’m expecting more meigers to come as a result of the XFL’s future success. I look forward to extreme baseball or golf. Even Hollywood, for the most part, is a manufacturer. For every five movies like “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” there are only one or two movies like “American Beauty.” Still, American cin ema is still among the best in the world. The Internet also contributes to the disappearance or reduction of American culture. The culture is now more isolated because of the Web, and culture is gener ally defined by unification. Culture has its phases. Now it is going through a kind of transitory, transitional phase, and I’m not sure it can get any worse. I hope it gets better soon, but greed is al ways at the heart of popular culture. I hope this trend toward mass production and away from quality ends soon, but who knows if the Backstreet Boys will out last disco? We’ll just have to wait and see. It used to be the bastion of culture, borrowing from the cultures that made the country what it is or was. In spite of what politicians might say, the questions do not lie in the violent, sexual or otherwise perverse aspects of the culture. The generational pendulum swings, and conservatism and liberalism play tug of war with the pendulum’s shaft. Politicians’ disdainful speeches about Hol lywood fill conservatives’ eardrums and help them to rest easy at night. Meanwhile, these rhetoricians have no intentions for action. It is only customary for people to believe in the coarsening of society peri odically, and especially in times of peace Patrick Ratttbun is a junior journal ism major. He writes every Wednesday He can be reached at gamecockview points ©hotmail.com. Hollywood Violence American cinema lacks quality In this age of ap- - athy and cyni cism, the temp tation to brand a scapegoat proves all too enticing for politicians, televi sion personalities, and even teachers; • so why not do it Consider, for example, “The Patriot.” First of all, this movie constitutes a gross historical mutation. What’s worse though, is that its assault on the history of Francis Marion gives rise to the same tortured, stagnant characterizations that float to the tepid surface of any unremarkable ‘action movie’script. An accurate depiction of the ‘Swamp Fox,’ a pioneer in guerrilla warfare and a true South Carolina hero, should suffice to captivate audiences. Yet “The Patriot” cheapens our heritage with shameless em bellishment. Captain Benjamin Martin is good, British Colonel Tavington is bad. But rest assured, everyone will go home feeling satisfied when the mean of Col. Tavington meets his gory end after inflicting unfathomable suffering on his adversary. And hey, there’s something for every one here! While historical evidence does indicate that Francis Marion employed free slaves on his plantations, “The Patri ot” gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling all over by anachronistically empowering Martin with a keen sense of political correctness. Everyone—blacks, women, even the French — profit from the experience of knowing such a superior human being as Captain Martin. Well, everyone but the English that is, but who cares, they’re evil. They bum women and children in church es, right? Tijithfully, we might never know if any event like the one depicted in the church burning of “The Patriot” ever took place. Yet the haunting absence in this and any other movie of its genre glares out nonetheless; namely, the absence of real ity. In our world today, few issues pit the ‘good’ against the ‘bad’ as so many ac tion flicks would have us believe. Human progress depends upon the re alization that very often conflict repre sents noble, high-minded agendas that can not be reconciled trivially. Of course, it’s silly to assume that Americans are walking out of the theatre brainwashed; cursing the Palestinians (or the Israelis) and generally viewing the world in black and white, good and bad, Terminator and the old Terminator. But anyone who paid attention to the past elec tions would have seen the candidates pan dering to just this sort of mentality. When a movie like “The Patriot” re ceives criticism as “nothing more than con ventional fodder, conventionally written and conventionally directed for a con ventional audience,” what does that say about the conventions of the richest, most privileged country in the world? Forget the sex and violence — maybe we should be asking for higher quality. “c1**1* • The rhetoric decrying the effect of Hollywood violence, sex, coarse language and general immorality on the children of America has yet to find its limit. Perhaps the point of attack wavers a bit, depend ing on whether you’re listening to George W. Bush or Joseph Lieberman, but throw ing blame on Hollywood continues to rep resent a trusty whipping boy whenever a school shooting or some other catastro phe bruises the national ego. However, while the amount of vio lence in mainstream American movies does disturb me (a little bit; I actually like fight scenes as much as the next guy, just not a whole movie of them), the polar ization depicted in American cinema over and over again is downright frightening. More often than not, we can reduce the storyline of a box office hit to ‘hero beats villain’ with the accompanying sub-, plot ‘hero gets girl.’ Fhomas G remillion is an interdiscipli nary studies senior. He can be reached at gamecockview ooints 8hotmail.com Have your voice heard! Submit letters to the editor to: gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com _O___ -_ Election 2000 Valuable lessons to be learned in Florida In this amazing presidential elec tion, the results— still undetermined— were closer than even what the political pundits predicted be fore Election Day. With a possible outcome only com pleted through a legal quagmire, Vice Pres ident A1 Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush still battle over the results in the con tested state of Flori A~ Given the tight effects of this election, the adage, “Every vote counts,” certainly stands validated. We have all heard the different groups around the nation who annually call for high er turnout — especially from younger vot ers — since the franchise represents the one guarantee of citizenship. And those groups are right on taiget with these claims. By not voting, those who hold a spe cial interest in government — usually the very wealthiest of the nation’s business com munity — dominate not only access to our political leaders but also many times domi nate their decision-making ability. Election Day, then, is the one day where the common, working people of the elec torate can drown out the voices of the spe cial interests. But we all know the sad story. Turnout among the nation’s voters has significantly decreased over the years, especially, once again, thanks to the younger voters. Turnout has been down the past decade, with the exception of the recession-plagued year of 1992. In the 2000 general election, a little more than 50 percent of the voters participated, while in 19% the number was below this mark. Isn’t it amazing that only half those reg istered to vote in the richest and the strongest democratic republic actually do so? Many disheartened would-be voters claim that their vote simply does not count. How ever, in this election, the results proved this theory wrong. The television networks mistakenly called Gov. Bush the winner in the early morning, only to take that call back. Many of those watching this unbelievable event stayed up until the morning to see whether the next president would be determined. The popular vote count has been the closest since the Kennedy-Nixon race of 1960. As of the time this column was writ ten, A1 Gore led the popular vote by near ly 200,000 votes. This election, however, has to be seen as a closer one because of the fact that many more people are voting now. No state has been challenged and con tested more than the Sunshine State. With the results in Florida still hanging in the bal ance, Bush leads Gore by only 388 votes ui a state with a huge population. Prematurely awarded to Gore, then giv tu dusii, me siaic was IIUUNCU lv/vj viusc to call” once again after more precincts start ed filtering into the network studios. This problem points out how important the right to vote is in the United States No longer can the excuse of a vole be ing irrelevant be a cause to one not turning out. I’ll leave you with this comparison A candidate for a student body executive po sition here at Carolina can seemingly win by more votes than a candidate for President of the United States can win the most crucial 1 state. So, does your < ote count now? Corey Ford is a junior politi cal science major. He writes every Wednesday. He can be reached at gamecock viewpoints ©hotmail.com