Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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• Quote, Unquote ‘Smoking is definitely bad news, and just because it’s sold in stores doesn’t make it better news.’ Dr. Phil Michels v wmmmmm—wmmm^mwmm » W\t (Samccock S <evinf lh< Vatolin* Com m uni ij1 *in« im Brock Vergakis ■ Editor in Chief Brandon Larrabee University Editor Erin O’Neal Spotlight Editor Kyle Almond Sports Editor Brad Walters Design Editor ^ Cristy Infinger Asst. University Editor Valerie Matchette City & State Editor Amanda Silva Spotlight Editor Martha Wright Copy Desk Chief Charles Prashaw Asst. City & State Editor Aubrey Fitzloff Asst. Viewpoints Editor Patch Adams disappoints by requesting donation One of the nominees in USC’s Search for Six is Patch Adams, and a dedicated group of students has been work ing hard doing what it can to help bring him to Carolina. Part of the Search for Six philosophy, however, is supposed to be that the six people selected by USC students would come to Carolina just because we wanted them to. Adams has said he will come to USC as part of the bicentenni al celebration, but only if students raise $15,000 for his Gesund neit Institute, a clinic that would provide medical care to the poor. While the institute is a good cause, this “donation” essen tially mounts to a $15,000 speaker’s fee. If students believed the Search for Six was all about paying someone to come to campus, then surely we could have found somebody more entertaining for $15,000 than Adams. His fee is pretty arrogant, considering the minute percentage of students who actually voted for him to come here. And those who did vote for him will probably wish they didn’t once they learn Adams believes USC is only worthy of his presence only if students can pony up 15 grand. Adams’ request for a donation is a slap in the face to every student who voted for him and to the Search for Six committee, which has been working hard to bring him here because he is the choice of the students, not so Adams can milk us for cash. % Ordinances hamper hope of attracting future festivals If Columbia residents want to know why high-profile acts skip over their city for Greenville and Charleston, they need look no further than what happened at the 3 Rivers Music Festival this past Saturday. Tonic’s encore was cut short when unreasonably punctual Co lumbia police oinked over the loudspeaker, ordering Tonic to turn off its equipment promptly at midnight. ^ The band asked to play one more song, but it was denied. What a wonderful job of encouraging acts like Tonic to return to Columbia. Perhaps the police can be more lenient with city noise ordi nances for special events so future audience members won’t have to end their nights on such a low note. I ABOUT U S The Gamecock is the student newspaper of the University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday dunng the fall and spring semesters and nine times durirg 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. A._ I iwitiamrv *M * f'^Oamecock f t^^Greene Street C(^TSia, SC 29208 Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Stuoeht Media dnM code 803 Advertising 777-3888 Classified 777-1184 Fax 777-6482 Office 777-3888 Gamecock Area code 803-777-7726 Editor in Chief gamecockeditor0hotmail.com University Desk gamecockudesk0hotmail.com City/State Desk gamecockcitydesk0hotmail.com Viewpoints gamecockviewpoints0hotmail.com Spotlight gamecockspotlight0hotmail.com Sports gamecocksports@hotmail.com On*'ne www.dailygamecock.com SuBM&stON 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 8a^^«r; kviewpoints@hotmail.com. . ne Gamecock reserves the right to edit fjr libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will • ot be ^Wished. Pnotos are required for guest columnists ar>d may be provided by the submitter. James Battle Travis Lynn Ann Marie Miani Sean Rayford Jennie Moore Photo Editors Mark Yates' Crystal Boyles Mark Yates Mackenzie Clements Page Designers Jason Harmon Betsy Baugh Jill Martin Sara McLaulin Julie Halenar Community Affairs Copy Editors Erik Collins Carolyn Griffin Faculty Adviser Business Manager Ellen Parsons Sarah Sims °u A Advertising Manager Student Media Susan King Janne'IDeyo Creative Director RobTn Gombar Kera Khalil Sean De Luna Denise Levereaux Todd Hooks Nicole Russell 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 colum> is and letters may be submitted by e-mail to gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com. Call 777-7726 for more information. College Press Exchange srar TR»BUN?e _ JG...GL.V)6„.GlOG.mGL<jG,„GLUG...GLV)G-•GLUG...GU)G...GU>6..G Campus Issues White announces candidacy Alas, our dear President Palms, after more than 10 years of glorious service, seems to be leaving Carolina. Nathan White We wish him the is a third-year best of luck in his studentinthe bid to replace the College of Libera, venerable Sen. Arts . Send Strom Thur , , responses to ntond—the very ... r gamecockviewpomts persomfication of . . . ©hotmail.com. this great nation. » USC must find a worthy replacement to pick up Palms’ torch and continue the dream of making the University of South Carolina a premier institution. I, my fellow Carolinians, am that person. I alone can bring greatness to this fine university. Therefore, as of today, I am officially announcing my candidacy for president of USC. I will be like Moses taking the children of Israel to the Promised Land. I will part the AAU Sea and bring this university to the other side, taking its rightful place among the top-tiered institutions of higher learning in this land. Yes, my friends, I will be the next president of USC. Together, my staff and I are going to make changes that will revolutionize this university and the concept of learning itself. The word “Nathan” will soon mean “the highest level of learning and achievement possible.” Our students won’t leam how to learn at USC, they’ll leant how to “Nathan.” This university has put a great deal of time and money into academics. I want to share the wealth and raise the bar for odter areas such as housing, dining, athletics and parking. First, for housing, all non-apartment style dontts will be tom down in May and new “Quads” built in their place. The Towers will be replaced by West Quad. Capstone and Columbia will be replaced by Northeast Quad. And the Women’s Quad will be replaced by the Women’s Quad. Patterson and South Tower will be replaced by the Quad between the Women’s Quad and Rapist’s Woods. And Bates and Bates West will be replaced by the 30 Minutes Away From Campus Quad. All quads will be co-ed, and visitation will be 24 hours. Matter of fact, there will be no visitation policy, because the security “guards” will all be fired, and there will be no need to register your boyfriend, as lie will live right across the hall. Second, dining: Marriott is fired. Not only that, but all the Marriott employees, past and present, along with Marriott’s corporate executives, will be lined up along Greene Street to be summarily executed. We will then use their carcasses for stuffing in the tiger at next year’s Tiger Bum. After Marriott’s removal, any single enterprise will be allowed to move on campus. If Monterrey’s or D’s Wings wants to move on campus, for example, they am, provided anything on the menu costs one meal and they don’t change their menus. If you want to treat your fraternity to D’s Wings or your sorority - to maigaritas at Monterrey’s at their new on-campus locations, by all means, go right ahead. Once you pay your dining fee at the beginning of the year, you can eat as much as you want. Third, athletics: Williams-Brice Stadium is too far away. Therefore, after I finish building my new Thurmond Center, I am going to tear down Blatt and the train tracks and bowl out a new, 120,000-seat stadium for USC. Students won’t need a ticket or any ID, and everybody who comes must be wearing garnet and black. The new basketball arena will be built right next to the stadium, where the police station currently is. Also, just to mention it, no gangstas or bailers will be allowed to play basketball at the Thurmond Center. Only lanky white kids like me and nice black guys will be allowed. Finally, parking will be free and available for all. As president, I am very willing to compensate for your laziness and your unwillingness to walk across campus to get to class. Therefore, I am going to build a giant subterranean parking lot spanning from under the Horseshoe to Northeast Quad and West Quad. Anyone can park in the garage free of charge. Feel free to hang yourself down there if you want to. Letters Miscarriage is not an emotional joke To the Editor Once again, The Gamecock struts its stuff by courageously printing an unsigned staff editoral headlined, “There’s no such thing as ‘fetal’ personhood” (April 6). This biased political piece showed that it is cer tainly supportive of the independent woman’s rights to the fullest extent of the law, but not those of women who would choose to (egad!) bring children into the world. The editorial attempts to show con trived sympathy for women who experi ence the trauma of miscarriage by saying that “certainly the loss of a wanted preg nancy is emotionally equivalent to the death of a child.” But then, a paragraph later, it says this pregnancy is only a “clus ter of cells,” and the title clearly tells us that the fetus is not a person. The logic here is drastically askew. If the pregnancy is only a cluster of cells, why all the emotional difficulty? By this standard, a miscarriage should be no big deal. After all, it’s not really a person. So, in fact, while pretending to sympathize with the emotional whims of the female (foolish girl!), we should really be telling her to get her act together and move on with her life. What is her problem? Of course, this would be a tremendous act of emotional abuse and a degradation of the incredible strength, will and spirit that characterizes most women. However, the unfounded “facts” presented in the editoral logically draw the conclusion that pregnant women are emotional, irrational imbeciles. The truth of the matt>’. is that any miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy (let alone those caused by violent means) is not only the “emo tional” loss of a child, it IS the loss of a child. Had the miscarriage not taken place, this mother would be celebrating a new life. The loss is very real, and it is cruel and evil to tell this woman otherwise. Chad T. Glass Second-year Student College of liberal Aits USC food services not to be blamed To the Editor. I may have a unique view on what goes on behind the scenes in service establish ments. I work for Sodexho Marriott here at USC, and during the summers, I work for a $15,000-a-year, membere-only restau rant and bar in North Carolina. What many people might not realize is that all these “food atrocities” attributed here to cam pus dining are true at establislunents at any level. In addition, if you want to find something wrong with the food, you will, be it an eyelash (could it have been your own?) or fingernail clippings (could it have been an uncooked potato?) or whatever. One thing to consider is many of these “rude” employees are your fellow stu dents, and a majority of them are some of the nicest people I know. How would you like it if someone came and told you that your service was awful, or you are too slow? Marriott employees like me deal with these kinds of things every day. To end this, I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with the food at USC, but I’m saying that these problems occur all the way from the manufacturer down to the consumer, no matter where you eat or how much you pay. No one is innocent. Taking it out on the Marriott employees isn’t going to solve your problems. Learning that these things happen, and bringing constructive criticism to those who can help, instead of wild accusa tions and finger-pointing, will help the sit uation greatly. Eric Olsen Fourth-year Student College of Liberal Arts Clemson to try new football game plan To the Editor Moo U. - The other Bowden, in an un precedented move, completely overhauled the Tigers’ last-ditch strategy. “When we’re down in the last quar ter, I think tliis will really help,” baby Bow den said. According to the coaching staff, the Tigers will resort to a rushing game in desperate situations but ring buiglar alarms after the hand-off. “Hopefully, our dumb players will get confused and run through the end-zone, fearing the police,” Bowden said. Asked if they really need an emer gency strategy, Bowden replied, “Oh yeah, we ’ ve got tough competition in the ACC. When you’re up against Irmo or the Sum merville Green wave, you don’t want to be without a backup plan.” Jamie Monogan Second-year Student College of Liberal Arts Missing Home South needs i more diners Moving r small town in Jersey to Col umbia to start my college career as a fightin’ Game- Michael Kerr cock was more is a third-year drastic a change student in the than I expected. I College of noticed the dif- Journalism & Mass ference between communications, the North and the send responses to South almost gamecockviewpoints immediately. At ©hotmail.com. orientation, the professor helping my group register for classes stared at me, dumbfounded, when I asked her a question. I repeated it and the look didn’t change. “Son,” she said, “where are you from?” When I told her I was from Jersey, she laughed and said, “Well, you’re in the South now, and you’re gonna have to learn to talk slow.” Three years latei, I own more pairs of shorts than I ever did before, as well as a pair of sandals that aren’t just for the shore (and that’s the shore, not the beach or the ocean). I get my aggression out on a rugby field instead of in an ice hockey rink, and I’ve seen Widespread Panic, a band I never heard of before I came to USC, twice. While I still consider myself a Jersey boy at heart, I’m adapting well to my new surroundings. I must admit, a guy can get used to spring starting this early. But there s one thing 1 just can t deal with. Where the hell are the diners? At first, I thought I was just missing them. I knew that in a city, a college city no less, there had to be an assortment of 24 hour diners just bursting with greasy food and drunken conversations. To my dismay, there were none. There are four diners within five miles of each other and my house back home. Four diners that offer the same things but still manage to keep their own identities. The Princess, The Queen, The Plaza and The Spindletop all serve fingeis, cheese fries, burgers, waffles, eggs, coffee and gum to drunk teenagers at all hours of the night. I don’t understand how any city, town or neighborhood, for that matter, can survive without diners. In place of diners are Waffle Houses. Over the past three years, I’ve grown slightly accustomed to Waffle Houses. The first time I entered one, however, I couldn’t help but feel I’d stepped 30 years or so back in time. Are the entrances to Whffle Houses really portals to another dimension where the Jackson 5 has a liit single and everyone loves the Brady Bunch? They might just be. wnen i waixea into one ot tne lour diners back home, I was always sure I’d run into someone I knew. Even now, when I’m home on a break, I know I’ll run into someone I went to high school with. We’ll have a few moments of friendly conversation, where we pretend we actually liked each other in high school, and then we’ll return to our real friends to drink vanilla Cokes. When I walk into a Waffle House, I’m always sure of one thing: whether I’m in Columbia or Statesboro, Ga., I know I’m going to run into someone who scares me. There will be someone either exposing himself, talking to herself or running back and forth between the bathroom and the jukebox playing the Willie House theme song the entire time I’m there. I think these people are on the Waffle House payroll. It’s free entertainment, but it’s not appropriate for small children. 1 would like to close by saying 1 do like the South. I’m glad I decided to come down here for school because I’ve experienced many things I never would have at home. I never knew how different the culture and attitudes were compared to the North. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse, but it’s different. And we all need some change now and then. I just wish that change didn’t have to involve the absence of diners.