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Quote, Unquote ‘As a result, we ask that higher education be exempted from any budget cut.’ John Palms, University President £[( Friday, January 26, 2001 (Bamccock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Brock Vergakis Editor in Chief Clayton Kale Brandon Larrabee Viewpoints Editor University Editor Erin O’Neal Amanda Silva Spotlight Editor Spotlight Editor Kyle Almond Valerie Matchette Sports Editor City & State Editor Brad Walters Martha Wright Design Editor Copy Desk Chief PETA: a different kind of exploitation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has taken up its annual circus protest, but in a way that discredits its cause. Local activists began pickets of the Ringling Bros, and Bamum & Bailey Circus Wednesday, but the national chapter sent two representatives on Jan. 11: one woman with a sign, and one woman in a cage, wearing panties and pasties, painted like a tiger. Funny that PETA wants to exploit women to protest exploit ing animals. This isn’t their first press stunt of this nature. Over the summer, PETA set up a “meatless hot dog stand,” staffed by two Playboy Playmates wearing bikinis made of lettuce, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. PETA doesn’t want us to eat meat, but it’s OK to treat women as if they are meat. There are better ways to protest a circus, ways that don’t involve creating purely sensational and blatantly sexist demon strations to draw media attention. Local activists must Know this; so far, they’ve only picketed. Let’s hope they don’t follow the poor example set by national PETA activists. Believing the circus treats animals badly doesn’t excuse PETA treating women worse. University should offer more late-night activities The Department of Student Life and the Division of Student and Alumni Services are putting on Late Night Carolina on the second floor of the Russell House tonight. The activities include a spades tournament, free billiards and a chance to make a music video. There will also be a free break fast bar from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. The movie Swingers will play at 11 p.m. The program is intended to give students an alternative activi ty for the weekends without having to spend money. The university could benefit from having more events like Late Night Carolina. More student activities could increase school spirit and get more students involved in student life. Most importantly, activities such as Late Night Carolina offer students a safe place to hang out on the weekends. If Late Night Carolina is successful, perhaps it can become a regular event. 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. Address The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia, SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Studeht 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.dailygamecock.com SuBMttstON 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, professional 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 e-mailed 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 provided by the submitter. Tw uamecock Travis Lynn Charles Prashaw Sean Rayford Asst. City/State Editor Photo Editors Betsy Baugh Mackenzie Clements Community Affairs Jason Harmon Ann Marie Miani Ashley Melton Jennie Moore Kenley Young Katie Smith Copy Editors Page Designers mm—m trik Collins Carolyn Grinin Faculty Adviser Business Manager Ellen Parsons Sarah Sims Director of Advertising Manager Student Media _ Jannell Deyo Susan King 0 . ^ . Creative Doctor R°bynGombar Kera Khalil Sean De Luna Denise Levereaux Todd Hooks Nicole Russe|| Melanie Hutto Advertising Staff Emilie Moca Martin Salisbury Sherry F. Holmes Creative Services Classified Manager Only two letters to the editor per student will be printed in a semester. Staff columns take priority over guest columns, unless the guest columnist offers expertise on a subject, or if the subject's relevance is limited by time. Guest columns and letters may be submitted by e-mail to gamecockviewpoirrtsdtxrtmail.com Call 777-7726 for more information Race Relations NAACP promotes discrimination I am a Caucasian male. I know that throughout history Caucasian males have not seen much discrimina tion or oppres sion, but minorities have gone through Jason Cromer great periods of 's a third-year oppression. computer science I am a Christ- major, ian. Christianity is Reach him at the dominant gamecockviewpoints religion in our ehotmail.com. country. I realize that I probably will never know any kind of discrimination, whether it is because of disability, the color of my skin or my religion. Racism is something I have never understood. Why would anyone look down on someone just because his or her skin is a different color? We recently celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Martin Luther King Jr. is someone who I admire greatly. He brought African-Americans out of a period of great oppression. He helped bring about equal rights for his people. Having said all of this, I have to say that many things are being done right now, in Dr. King’s name, that I feel are far from anything that he would want. The principal offender is the NAACP. 1 ne NAALP s Pair share Program promotes the “establishment of aggressive affirmative action programs.” Dr. King wanted equality. I think he would view advancement of African-Americans through quotas as special treatment, or perhaps even reverse racism. I feel that King would want to ensure that African-Americans are hired for their abilities and experience. If this means that fewer African-Americans gain high paying positions, then he would work within the black community to better educate his people. Also, if young African-Americans don’t score well on the SAT, I doubt King would blame their scores on a racially biased SAT test. He would make sure that young people were more prepared next time rather than shout accusations of racism. If the candidate who King supported didn’t get elected, I somehow doubt that he would blame it on a fixed election that was biased against his race. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t have to look for racism. Racism was everywhere. African-Americans who are our age don’t have firsthand experience of the kind of racism that Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks experienced. They have not seen the “colored only” drinking fountains. There are still many racist people in our society, but they are no longer mainstream. I looked at the NAACP Web site, and it looks as if the members are going out of their way to find racism. They have “report cards” detailing how many African Americans a busmess has hired. 1 his isn t exactly the greatest thing for improving race relations. The NAACP is an oiganization that claims to promote equality. That’s an excellent goal, but racism, though still present, is not nearly as prevalent as it was during Martin Luther King Jr.’s lifetime. From a white male’s perspective, it seems that the NAACP is going out of its way to search for racism. Then when it finds the slightest thing that it can grab onto, it points its finger in accusation. The NAACP is able to keep credibility this way, however, because no one wants to be called a racist. John Ashcroft and Gail Norton are among those recently demonized by the NAACP. People are becoming afraid to disagree with the NAACP, because they don’t want to be labeled a racist. I’ll admit that when thinking of a topic for my first regular column, I came close to choosing another. The NAACP is one of the most racially divisive institutions in the United States, and it is doing the exact opposite of what it claims to be its main goal. Equal rights is about being treated just like everyone else. Equal rights is about being treated fairly. Being treated fairly means you don’t get special treatment and it means that when you don’t get your way, you can’t always blame it on racism. George W. Bush Abortion policies lack compassion During the election, I supported Bush. And I emphasize “supported.” I figured, “Well, I don’t really like him, but ^nn Marie Miani I don’t like Gore, <s a third-year either. I guess Journalism major, because I’m a Reach herat Republican (which gamecockviewpoints I m almost ©hotmail.com. ashamed to admit now), I’ll support him.” Everyone is entitled to make mistakes. Some support ed Clinton despite his questionable be havior, and some supported Nixon to the bitter end. I guess supporting a chauvinist is my mistake. Earlier this week, President Geoige W. Bush decided that on his first official day in office, instead of organizing his desk or unpacking his suitcase, he should attack women’s rights in this country and abroad. On Monday, he banned U.S. funding to international family-planning groups, a reversal of President Clinton’s stance on the issue for the past eight years. And he ordered a review of RU-486, the “abortion pill,” which was approved this past fall. The ban on U.S. funds to foreign family-planning institutions is absolutely ridiculous. Those countries need family planning more than any others. Children in third-world countries are starving and dying. But according to Bush’s stance, having a child who lives in a 2-by 4 hut with 22 of his brothers and sisters and dies at age 6 because of starvation is better than promoting abortion because it’s what’s “best” for a woman’s unborn fetus. Maybe if President Bush had to live in those conditions, he would change his mind. If people in those countries had the support of the U.S., we could help them eliminate some of their problems. People need to know about the different aspects of family planning. If those families had only one or two children instead of 12, they could better provide them with the everyday things that we as Americans take for granted. And a problem like this is going to take more than eight years to resolve—some thing the Bush administration seems unwilling to do. With his twisted stance on foreign policy, I guess he’s not such a Daddy’s boy after all. But the most significant insult to women’s rights was the statement Bush issued to the March of Dimes protest in front of the Washington Monument on the 28th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. In this statement (which he did not even have the balls to deliver in person) he contradicted his “compassionate conservative” image he tried to portray during the election. The image that many conservative women in this country fell for, casting their votes for him. President Bush has made it obvious to the women in this country that he’s anything but a “compassionate conservative.” He doesn’t care about the rights of women or the fact that, like it or not, abortion is legal in the United States and has been since 1973. My personal stance on abortion is not relevant. This issue here is that the men who run this country are trying to keep women from making their own decisions. I don’t think that men such as Bush and his cronies understand what it’s like to be a woman and be faced with a deci sion like that. It’s not like most women who get abortions do it arbitrarily. Most women agonize over the decision before they decide whether to have an abortion. I can’t help but wonder what’s next on the Bush agenda? Overturn Roe v. Wade? Overturn Title IX? Repeal the 19th Amendment? If that’s the stance President Bush wants to take on issues concerning women’s rights, why don’t all the women in the U.S. support his ideas? Wfe can quit our jobs and go back into the kitchen so we can know our roles: cook for our husbands and have babies. We can pretend like it’s the past, when women had no rights at all. I used be a supporter of President Bush. But now, after what he’s done for women’s rights, he’s lost my loyalty. Praise for columnist Hamp Nettles To the Editor I just read [Hamp Nettles’ col umn] “Southerner turns to ‘radical’ lib eralism” in [the Jan. 24] Gamecock. What a clever, well-written piece! I hope it is widely read and that you succeed in “offending 90 percent of the reader ship.” Thanks for your interesting com mentary in an outlet that I often over look. Ted Moore Berlinbeig Professor of Finance, Darla Moore School of Business Higher Education Public school is so much better than private school It’s a common belief that those who are “privileged” enough to attend private schools enjoy a better education, a better Phil Watson caliber of people a third-year and better profes- journa|ism major. sots. This is a myth. Reach him at I transferred to gamecoc|<vjewp0j nts use about a year Oholmailxorn. ggo from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn. Lipscomb is a private Christian school with about 2,000 students. Students at Lipscomb feel they have an advantage over those poor lost souls forced to go to the Godless hellholes known as “state schools.” At Lipscomb, “state schools” are often used as a simple reference to wickedness and hedonism. Being one of the few who can say he’s experienced both private and public education systems, I can say that public schools are better than private schools. Private schools are often cesspools of greed, heartlessness and hypocrisy. State schools are a lot like Wal-Mart — some people look down on it, but it offers more for less. There are countless examples of this Lipscomb doesn’t have the resources for students that USC does. A state school that gets millions upon millions of dollars from the government simply offers more than a private school can. Things like VIP and TIPS don’t exist at Lipscomb. Lipscomb, like many private schools, is far behind USC in technology and other student services. Many might say the outrageous costs of private schools are worth it because of the professors. That isn’t necessarily so. Professors at Lipscomb have to be of a specific religious denomination. That narrows the field of eligible professors to almost nothing. Don’t get me wrong, the professors I had at Lipscomb were all wonderful people. But I can’t help but think that laige public schools with big research programs will draw a more learned core of professors. As I’ve already mentioned, Lipscomb is a Christian college. Students are supposed to practice Christian principles. And for the most part, they do. But it seems many prefer not to follow some of Jesus’ most basic commands, like not judging people and treating others how you would like to be treated. Even though many people at USC might not claim a religion, I see Christian principles such as kindness to strangers more often here than I did at Lipscomb. Lipscomb is home to some of the darkest-hearted people I’ve ever met. From what I’ve heard, it is this way at many private Christian schools. For people who don’t quite fit in, Lipscomb is a lonely and isolated place. Lipscomb also has strict rules. There is a curfew every night. Students must be in their dorm rooms by midnight. Don’t worry, though — on the weekends, the curfew is extended to i/:JU a.m. 1 ne K-A.s actually come into every room and check to see whether students are there. This is no way to treat adults. I could ramble on for several more pages about the silly rules that Lipscomb imposes on students. Like many students at Lipscomb, my parents wanted me to go there. They had attended Lipscomb, and I had never really considered any other colleges. I reached a point where I realized I would rather drop out and clean horse stables than stay at Lipscomb. I decided to transfer instead. I would rather be at a school that has no religious principles than a school infested with judgmental hypocrites. Keep in mind I’m not saying everyone at Lipscomb is a judgmental hypocrite. There are good people there (about 9, to be exact). It’s a shame that a Christian school can be like this. But it is reality, and I feel confident that anyone from outside Lipscomb who takes an objective look at student life would agree with me. A lot of USC students complain about the administration here. They have some good points. But after my experiences at Lipscomb, I can in no way complain about how things are run here. Comparing the faults of the administrators at USC and Lipscomb is like comparing mosquito bites to massive head wounds.