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Quote, Unquote ‘Don’t tell me shit I don’t understand.’ Jonathan “Megadeth" Dunagin, Gamecock graduate assistant 'IThe (Bamccock pagephive Che (Bamecock Serving the Carolina Community since 1Q08 Brock Vergakis Editor in Chief Mackenzie Clements Finally in the Big Box! Holden D. Grits University Editor La Lusha O’Neal Spotlight Editor Amanda Silva Spotlight Editor The Shiznittle Sports Editor P-Funk Walters Design Editor Cristy Infinger Asst. University Editor Jell-0 Girl City & State Editor Crystal Boyles Buggy-Eyed Harmon Jillybean Martin Copy Editors Martha Wrong Copy Desk Chief Dylan Faith Jennie Moore Special K Mark Yates P-Funk’s Design Bitches Howard Stem Asst. City & State Editor Auzey Fitzloff Asst. Viewpoints Editor Jamesbattle Editorial Assistant Betsy Baugh Sara McLaulin PR Princesses Travis Lynn Sean Rayford Photo Idiots Staff lets everyone else know the score With the end of the semester, this year’s editorial staff wanted to take the opportunity to let the rest of the community know what’s up. First of all, please send us intelligent letters to the editor. It’s not as difficult as it might seem. Run spell check, and keep it under 1,000 words. Most of you like to send us 10-page essays on why you are God’s gift to USC. This is a severe violation of the 350-word limit. And make no mistake about it, we look at the names on those letters and we’ve yet to see a New York Times best seller. And until we do, we’re cutting ‘em down quicker than “Dubya” can mouth off something stupid. Ana 11 mere s one tiling we re sick ana urea ol seeing in your letters, it’s all those pathetic potshots at The Gamecock. You know what we’re talking about. All the letters that say “Of all the pointless articles,” or, “Finally, something interesting.” If you’re pissed about The Gamecock's content, then do something interesting for once in your life. We cover you. If you think our news pages are boring, it’s because you’re boring. We can’t help it if everybody interesting is busy working in RH 333. If you think you can do a better job covering campus, then by all means, come and work with us. But be prepared, this isn’t some club where you go to a meeting once a week for an hour and don’t get anything done. This staff works in excess of 30 hours a week, every week, for little to zero pay. So if working until 2 a.m. three nights a week in the face of 8 a.m. exams for 75 cents an hour sounds appealing to you, then by all means, be come one of our editors. Until then, save us the lectures on journalistic integrity. Don’t try and impress us with the fact that you've taken JOUR 201. We’ve taken every journalism course there is and are surprised most of you can even spell. If USC wants to find itself in the AAU, it had better find some students who can recognize the dif ference between an opinion piece and a news article first. But for all of the letter writers who have tried their best, this year’s out going staff bids you a hearty thank you and farewell. We’ve en joyed every minute of our time here. And if you don't think so, just send a letter to the editor to next year’s staff. They'll care, they'll really, really care. 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. One free copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $1 each from the Department of Student Media. No stealing extras! 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.dailygamecock.com 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, 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 games oc k vie wj >oi n t s@hot mail.com I he Gamecock reserves tlie right to edit for libel, style and space Anonymous letters will not be published. Riot os are required for guest columnists .&J can lx; [xovHlrxl tiy the sulxndter Everyone usually listed here made it into the big box! SruocHT Maw - Oun P»u Erik Collins Carolyn Griffin Faculty Adviser Business Manager Ellen Parsons Sarah Sims Director of Advertising Manager Student Media Jannell Deyo *““"*'"* Robyn Gombar Creative Director w 7 ... ... Kera Khalil Sean De Luna Denise Levereaux Todd Hooks Nic0|e 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 lake priority over guest columns, unless the guest columnist oilers expertise on a subject, or if the subject's relevance is limited by lime. Cues! columns and letters may lx; submitted tiy e mail to gamecockviowjx)int,,**liotrnail com C;ll /// UVU for riifxe information. - j^Hnaa \ %L£^81A^ ovt *AMAT£UK Levi* S j . i/HAAS'AtY ErtlPX'io*' £3 Jj y X twWoc rwt Ns*/ *— jj , y stax? £2 !J / * wwith fsHAu _ (f$ y t>uek? iff | K^sr,'vrg*J ^ m -.. ——— —i ( "''7 Letters* First Amendment is platform for news To the Editor I am an avid defender of the First Amendment, as the freedom of speech is the ultimate equalizer in a democratic so ciety. This freedom to spread our opinions and to educate others must be granted to every individual and media source, in cluding The Gamecock. The Gamecock is in a unique position. It is the only source for USC’s students to educate themselves on the issues involv ing our campus and community. There fore, The Gamecock has a responsibility to feed students with accurate news and thoughtful editorials. The Gamecock has failed us, the students, in this regard. While I see nothing wrong with The Gamecock’s support of specific candidates in the Student Government elections, the manner in which The Gamecock publi cized its support in the last election lacked integrity. The Gamecock unfairly attacked one candidate and inaccurately reported information in order to make that candi date look bad. The Gamecock has the ability to touch every student but also a responsibility to maintain a high journalistic standard. I en courage The Gamecock staff to meet that responsibility and to use the First Amend ment as a platform for the dissemination of accurate and insightful news as well as responsibly written, intellectually chal lenging editorials. The First Amendment should be used as a means to inform, not an excuse to hide behind. Jim MacBride Third-year Student College of Liberal Aits The Gamecock did not edit out Mr. I MacBride’'s attempt to provide evidence of how we unfairly attacked one SG can didate and inaccurately reported infor nmtion. Mr. MacBride did conveniently fail to leave out all information relevant to his topic. The last word isn’t always important To the Editor /\uci i vc lcou iti_y cuyy ui i lie vj<unc cock, I judge its quality on one page. The Viewpoints page, with its letters to the ed itor, is the only page I generally care to read. This isn’t meant to be an insult to the other pages; it’s just that I’ve normally al ready heard the news that is printed there. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a down ward trend in the variety of actual view points displayed on the Viewpoints page. It lias been populated with a series of drawn out skirmishes between people outraged by some issue or another. It started with an argument about the Greeks at USC. Then it was an argument about abor tion, spurred by pictures on the Russell House lawn. The most recent string of an noyances is an argument between the field hockey team and the Delta Zeta sorority over Jell-O. I propose that The Gamecock enforce a two-issue limit on a topic beginning from the day it was first run. Anyone who cares about the issue has to get off their butt and write a letter fast. Only the good ones get published. Anyone who still wants to whine after the limit is up can sign up for a trial-by-combat tournament. Then every one can beat the living hell out of each other, and the last person standing is de clared right. Honestly, we need to learn that the last word isn’t always the most impor tant thing in life. Sometimes it’s enough to state your side of things and move on. Richard Joy Third-year Student College of Engineering Finally, a voice of reason from a letter writer. We’d love it if our letter writers would settle things by beating the hell out of each other. Big ‘thanks’ to Brock To the Editor 1 want to express my gratitude to Mr. Veigakis for defending tiie American way of life that I hold so dear. The man tried to keep him down, but he had none of it. The best thing about him being the editor is that he leads by example. He apparently wants his Gamecock staff to be a crusading bunch of intelligent badasses. Mr. Veigakis is clearly an intelligent badass —just read his column, and he will tell you. Mr. Veigakis has nothing to be sorry about. Some people must bear the burden of greatness. 1 thank him for let ting us know that he is one of these peo ple. I might not have noticed otherwise. Furthermore, Mr. Veigakis must have felt that the editorials (particularly those about various staff members following in the footsteps of President Palms) were not indulgent enough. Hopefully, The Game cock staff will follow the lead of Mr. Ver gakis and raise the level of the Viewpoints page to unprecedented heights of jour nalistic masturbation. Finally, I want to thank The Game cock staff for their editorial about the Board of Student Publications and Communica tions. Their criticism of the board for hav ing an inflated sense of self-importance was the most amusing bit of irony I have read in a long while. Adam Humphreys Fourth-year Student College of Liberal Arts Journalistic masturbation? Hey, whatev er you do on your own time is your own business, Mr. Humphreys. *Perhaps you've always wondered what we think when we get letters to the editor. The responses we've included after each of today's letters should be a good indication. i —~ ■ ■ ■ 1 - " ——.i A glossary of items found on this page < As a parting gift from this year’s editorial staff, we provide this t dictionary of terms. Next time you write a letter to the editor, you'll \ have a friggin’ clue what you're talking about, and we won't have to take so long changing your drivel into readable English. ■ Letters to the Editor: Tliis is crap we receive from the university community. This is what proves beyond a doubt that the quality of our student body is centuries away from being the quality of an AAU institution. Letters don’t represent our opinions; they represent the opinions of the authors, and the authors alone. This section is our vain attempt to allow a forum for intelligent discussion at USC. We have to confirm who wrote the letters, so please include contact information. You’re so incredibly brilliant, take credit for your ideas. I Editorials: THIS IS THE OFFICIAL OPINION OF THE NEWSPAPER. Everyone on staff is allowed to participate in editorial board meetings. Editorials arc the unsigned pieces you sec on the left side of the page. They arc unsigned because they arc the opinions, not of one person, but of the whole staff. And yes, they are opinionated and biased. Funny how that happens on the Viewpoints page. ■ Columns: These arc the views of the columnists, and the columnists alone. That’s why we put their pictures there. These arc not the views of The Gamecock (Let’s review: the views of The Gamecock arc displayed in unsigned editorials). Just about any of you can be columnists if you’re not too lazy to apply past the deadline and actually turn in your columns on time. It also helps to be able to construct a sentence properly, something we’re afraid most of you have not quite mastered, judging from your letters to the editor (again, not editorials). ■ Articles: Articles do not appear on the Viewpoints page. They arc free from bias and don’t display our staff’s opinions. They arc not to be confused with editorials, which display our opinions for a reason. These arc the boring stories about your student organization nobody cares about except you. -;-)-i.-1 Parting Words Big plans to grace bias page with ego Another semester of alienating the entire student body has passed. I’m sure there is a pressing question on your minds: _ What the hell will Nathan White I do without seeing is a third -year Nathan White s stucient in the sexy mug shot Co„ege of Liberal every Monday Arts Send morning? While I can t . . . .. _ gamecockviewpoints doanytlungforyou . . , ©hotmail.com. tlus summer other than suggest you cut out my picture and put it by your bed, I can tell you what I have in store for you next semester. Tliis year has'been quite an eventful one for the Viewpoints section of The QvnecocL Our columnists and “concerned” readers who write letters have addressed many pressing social issues. Not to toot my own hom or anything, but I must admit I have been at the forefront of The Gamecock in addressing major issues. I did more for diis university in one semester, when I addressed the scooter-rider menace, than any student government official has done in 93 years. My colleagues Mike Wallace and Peter Jennings told me my poignant commentary this semester on seat squatting and the succession of President Palms was “on the cutting edge of print journalism.” Most of all, I’m sure my deep, insightful reflections on the intricate complexities of love and romance were informative for many of you individuals out there who are lacking in the many areas in which I prevail. I only wish I could give just some of my studnicity to all of you guys out there who need it. I got more than I’ll ever ■ need. diu y au Kituw mi uus; i uon i uunK it’s necessary to reflect on my journalistic gift any more. We all came to an agreement long ago on how great a columnist I am, not to mention how suave and debonair. Because of my greatness, I have decided that I will become the Vie wpoints editor next semester. There will be lots of changes. First, I am going to fire all my colleagues. I will write, edit and produce the editorial page all by myself. The second thing I will do is get rid of all those staff editorials. None of you read them, and we don’t like writing them. Third, I will get rid of all cartoons and letters to the editor. Once I’ve done all this, we’ll be looking at a blank page with the word “Viewpoints” on it. Speaking of which, the section next semester will be called “Nathanpoints.” Nathanpoints will consist of my multifarious cantankerous diatribes of stinging wit and biting satire. tr_» . . i «t • 11 JUU 1C CUUVCIIICU WIU1 UIg such as tax cuts, the bear market or the future of our nation, state and university, don’t read Nathanpoints. I don’t have time to devote — I mean waste — on those thingies. I will be enlightening you about issues such as “why professors are brilliant and have no social skills or common sense.” A follow-up to that might be “why male professors don’t comb their hair.” Other columns could be “why the Maxcy Mafia Honors College kids are so damn dorky.” A follow-up could be “why they don’t call the Honors College the Naif College?” I’m sure y’all can’t wait for next semester and Nathanpoints. I can’t either. Have a great summer and good luck in all your endeavors, except for y’all wankers; you just go away.