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Quote, Unquote ‘We aren’t reinventing the wheel, just showing our version of the wheel.’ Will Hoge, singer/guitarist from Will Hoge Band fflie (Bmecock 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 To University Athletics: Cocky is for the birds The regular football season is over, and despite the three con secutive losses to end the season, this year’s season was much improved over last year’s. Lou Holtz and his coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for re vamping our fumbling football program and finishing a tremendous turnaround with a 7-4 record. We aren’t sure if Holtz and his staff are where they wanted to be as far as the program is concerned, but while the Department of Ath letics is in the mood for change, one thing it should consider Is recre ating our mascot, Cocky. When attempting to improve the program for our upcoming bowl game and next year’s season, this should be at the top of the list. As a mascot, the gamecock is something to be proud of. From its emergence at a Carolina-Clemson game in 1902, it has had a sense of strength and nobility synonymous with the tradition of this uni versity. However, when it comes to the physical embodiment of our mascot, Cocky is a joke. He doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of any one, and isn’t that part of a mascot’s purpose? Cocky is supposedly the son of Big Spur, our former mascot who was revised for being too out-of-date. If this is the case, Cocky is a prime example of an apple falling far from the tree. How are oth er schools supposed to take USC and its athletics programs serious ly when our mascot is in no way intimidating? Cocky should be more muscular and menacing. He might be a bird, but schools like Viginia Tech and Delaware have decent bird mascots. If anything, they don’t have hoop skirts and spandex leg gings. Our mascot is better equipped for Disney World, not an ath letic event. How is it that a mascot that looks majestic and threatening on USC apparel and paraphernalia look so goofy in person? If anything, un cross his eyes. He should at least be able to see straight. Too many 'weeks' could desensitize USC students Have you ever noticed there seem to be a plethora of “weeks” nowadays? Look in your Mortar Board, and you will see that the majority of the weeks in each semester are set aside for an organization, ideal, concept or person. Whether it’s USC Wellness Week, Homecoming Week, Creed Week, Body Image Awareness Week, Safe Spring Break Week or Spir it Week, it seems like the university always has a week for some thing. It can get to be quite monotonous, and we think it can lead to an overall insensitivity toward this “week” concept as a whole. We don’t question the good intentions behind each of these self proclaimed “weeks,” but almost every day of the school year is part of some “week.” The more weeks that exist, the less value each one has and the fewer the people who notice them. Some would argue such “weeks” are important to educate peo ple and increase their awareness of certain things, but often these “weeks” have no other real point or significance. For something to be declared a “week,” it should hold some profound importance beyond educating the public. We encourage those organizations that hold public-education “weeks” to instead concentrate on informing people not one week a year, but 52. 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. miuncoo 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 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 £60-300 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 published. Photos are required for guest columnists and can be pro vided by the submitter. Call 777-7726 for more information. Brock Vergakis Mackenzie Craven Editor in Chief Spotlight Editor Brandon Larrabee Travis Lynn 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 SrueairMKN*' 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 College Press Exchange CUM.* m mu * i i i na *• v for W/MoEVeR Gets it.... Thanksgiving A reflection on Thanksgiving Whom should I terrorize this week? I think that maybe it’s time for a little change of pace to talk about something less controversial. Let’s just let the wankers recover from their wounds — a week off, if you will. I want to talk about Thanksgiv . • rr-*| I • • uig. intuirogi>nig 13 lavuiitc uunuajr of them all because it is the time when we reflect on how lucky we are to be Amer icans and, more importantly, a time when family and friends come together and cel ebrate each other’s company. Actually, the thing I like most about Thanksgiving is that it hasn’t been over commercialized like Christmas because there really isn’t much you can do to hype up Thanksgiving. It’s not like little kids and wankers can wish for scooters or lug gage thingies on Thanksgiving. All you do is give thanks to God and goige yourself on a cornucopia of food (how could I not talk about Thanksgiving without in corporating the word “cornucopia”?). I absolutely love Thanksgiving. My family heads up to Washington every year to meet up with the branch of the family that lives there. There is usually around 50 people, lots of turkey and lots of al cohol. Family, food and booze; is there a better combination? Only if you throw in an old-fashioned scooter burning (which we occasionally do). Not only do I love Thanksgiving be cause of the family and food aspects, like I said, I guess I like it in spite of Christ mas. Not Christmas itself, but what Christ mas has become. Most people probably don’t know that the real Christmas season is the time between Christmas Day and Epiphany (hence the “Twelve Days of Christmas”). The Christmas season in America is November and December. Why not make it the whole 12 months? Thanksgiving will always be my fa vorite holiday for its purity. It’s a unique holiday because only America celebrates Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November (Canada celebrates Thanks giving on the second Monday in October). Maybe the fact that Thanksgiving is a sec ular holiday already is the reason why it hasn’t been “secularized” like Christmas, Halloween, etc. While you are celebrating Thanks giving this weekend, I want you to really think about what this holiday means. To help you, I thought I’d give you a little history behind the holiday to enlighten you (considering that I am already en lightened myself). Thanksgiving has its origins in the har vest festivals held throughout the world. In 1621, Plymouth Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiv ing and prayer shared by colonists and American Indians alike. In 1623, a day of fasting and prayer during a drought was changed to one of Thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. The cus tom gradually prevailed in New England of annually celebrating Thanksgiving af ter the harvest. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress suggested a yearly day of national thanksgiving. In 1817, New York adopted Thanksgiving Day as annu al custom, and by the middle of the 19th century, many other states had done the same. In 1863, President Abraham Lin coln appointed a day of thanksgiving, and since then each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, general ly designating the fourth Thursday of No vember as a holiday. The Plymouth colonists, or pilgrims, as they are better known, gave thanks for the harvest that kept them alive. Today, we take for granted the vast harvests and the bounty of produce this country has. Around the world people are starving, naked and unprotected from the elements. I am not trying to get melodramatic, but I am encouraging you to just think about what Thanksgiving really means. For me, Thanksgiving is about family and friends, and I like to thank God that my family and friends are in America and not somewhere else less fortunate. This country and all of us are truly blessed that we’re Americans. This Thanksgiving, and all other Thanksgivings, for that matter, I want you to sit back at some point after you’ve finished eating or when you’re watching the game or whenever and say a prayer to God to truly give thanks on Thanksgiving Day. And say a prayer for everyone out there not as fortunate as you. I promise I’ll make fun of someone or something next week. Have a great Thanks giving. p Nathan White is a political sci ence and history senior. He can be reached at game cockviewpoints ©hotmail.com. State Issues Flag location still irks some The people Greg H!ghtower of South jsa ^jStory senj0r Carolina He can (*, reached should not be hap- at garnecockview. py about the Con- points federate Flag com- ehotmailxom, promise. Why should we, as South Carolinians, be happy with a compromise that really did n’t solve the problem at hand? That prob lem, the Confederate flag at Gervais and Main streets, is in an area that is even more visible for pedestrians than its previous po sition above the State House. The Con federate flag is also still on the state house grounds and still associated with the South Carolina government. This is the reason why the NAACP should continue to maintain their tourism boycott. They and many other people feel that the flag situation has not yet been solved. Granted, our South Carolina po litical leaders tried to solve the problem, but they did not succeed. I must now ask the people of South Carolina to question this “compromise.” This compromise did solve one prob lem for our government. The solution was to remove the flag from the State House dome and inside its chambers, which in turn would stop the NAACP boycott. It would also help to slow down some of the momentum that the boycott was generat ing, and it would bring some closure to this lengthy debate. The government solution seems to be working because we have for gotten about this issue. Getting the flag off the dome and out of the inside chambers is an important victory, but the battle should continue. The most important thing now is to come forth with some new ideas or ways to deal with this ongoing debate. There are many ideas that might solve this debate about the Confederate flag. First, a memorial site could be used to hon or the Confederate flag and the Confed erate soldiers, both black and white. Sec ond, a site honoring all the flags that flew during the Civil War could be construct ed. Third, the Confederate flag could be placed in the Confederate museum. The money that these institutions would gen erate could be used to benefit the state in areas like education, crime, teen preg nancy, beautification of the state, state wel fare and many others. Historically, the Confederate flag has symbolized a society that practiced white rule, a type of government where the state government had all the power and a society where slavery was an im portant part of life. Therefore, as long as the Confederate flag is still flying on the State House grounds, the above images can be associated with our political decisions, laws and political leaders. Today, the flag does symbolize differ ent things to different people. Some peo ple believe the flqg is a symbol of heritage, but some of these people who consider the flag a symbol of heritage are hiding be hind that stance because they believe whites are the superior race, and one way to show this superiority is by continuing to domi nate the political arena. By looking at tire composition of the South Carolina gov ernment, you will see what I am talking about. t The Confederate flag, to most people, symbolizes something racist, but we must remember the flag does represent a sym bol of heritage to some people and that it’s part of their history just like certain as pects of African culture are still part of my history. The people of South Carolina must recognize when to move beyond the issue of racism, and we nrust stop labeling cer tain things racist, because if we really take the time to look and investigate the issues, we will find out that certain issues are not issues of racism at all. My advice for the people of South Car olina is to get beyond this issue of racism and come together to deal with the issue at hand. White Americans, African-Amer icans, Latinos, Native Americans and oth er ethnic groups in South Carolina must come together because it is up to us to solve this problem. Our government has not dealt with this issue in a correct way, and their “solution” has me and others wondering about government officials be cause the current proposal is not really a solution at all. Election 2000 Is America too afraid of Nader's candidacy? It started before f Halloween, with my metaphorical mailbox (the one inside your e-mail ac count) filling up with decrees for the cru cifixion and/or burn ing at the stake of | Ralph Nader, a man who many consider as important a private | citizen in the 20th Century as Benjamin Franklin was in the 18th. The death war- | rants flowed in steadi ly, some with the bla tantly false rhetoric “A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush,” and others were subtler, attempting to twist my ideology so I no longer valued Mr. Nader’s courageous campaign. “Is Ralph Nader an anti-Semite?” one subject line asked me. I read on, listening to the writer bait Mr. Nader’s Arab heritage, using it against him for political currency. I responded to that as a semantidan might — it’s ludicrous to call an Arab person an anti-Semite, as “Semite” is a word that names the tribe of both Jewish and non-Jewisli Mid dle Easterners. In case anyone’s wondering, the Nader-hater went on to say that Nader hates Jews because he called for a re-eval uation of America’s special relationship with Israel. Semantics couldn’t save me in the case of the arguments from prominent feminists, some of whom I had always respected. Glo ria Steinem signed an e-mail petition that re ferred to Ralph Nader as an anti-abortion misogynist who had publicly endorsed George W. Bush for the presidency. None of these allegations are true. Ralph Nader has never made abortion one of the staples of his activism, though he is pro-choice. He has lobbied against issues Ms. Steinem might find less important than abortion — the redlining of loans that discriminated against women and minorities, the spraying of pesticides that poisoned women’s breast milk and killed nursing in fants, and many others. Some of his other accomplishments in clude lobbying for the Freedom of Infor mation Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and many, many safety regulations that make cars, airplanes, and public trans port safer. i. icacmcu uic uiat my lcillllllM. JJIUI ciples were being used against me — I was being told not to vote with my conscience, and I was being told that abortion was the most important issue feeing American women. The latter is, in my opinion, a gross over simplification of what women’s groups should be fighting for. It was also a bald-faced lie. Ralph Nader has spoken against both Gore and Bush, calling Gore a quick-change artist, and Bush a bumbling idiot with a horrify ing record. The attacks culminated after the elec tion, when James Carville said Ralph Nad er never had a right to run, that he would be remembered by history as a spoiler (as if any one could spoil this already rotten election), and that his name would never be uttered in polite Washington company again. Then Vanity Fair reporter Christopher Hitchens quoted Hillary Clinton as saying that Ralph Nader should be publicly hanged. A Salon magazine feature on celebrity po litical endorsements quoted Ben Affleck as saying that he hoped Ralph Nader never slept well again — proof only that vapid celebrities should speak about nothing be sides their latest projects. In the time that has elapsed since the last attack of Nader, I’ve considered this wave of unexamined partisanship carefully. Why had I never heard a Republican say that Pat Buchanan didn’t have the right to run? Maybe they are a Grand Old Party. Why were people espousing the idea of a spoiler, as if a candidate began with a fi nite number of votes and had these votes si phoned off by other candidates? Why were the Democrats acting as though Nader should come to them with his hat in his hand and ask, “Is it okay to run now, Master?” Forget the rhetoric of thugs in the De mocratic party, and if you want to undo Ralph Nader’s work, take the seat belts and airbags out of your car. Jennie Lightweis is a senior English major. She writes every Friday. She can be reached at gamecockview points ©hotmail.com