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6 IN OUR OPINION New rules goodfor now As universities across the nation start the second week of college football since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, USC has decided to take great care in dealing with visitors to its pending game with Alabama. The university is to be commended for its willingness to deal with the threat of possible terrorist attacks. The entire nation is on a heightened state of alert, and it would be foolish for Williams-Brice Stadium to be left out of that equation. USC, like the However, USC, like the nation, must be nation, must be careful about careful about What it dofes in the name of what it does in safety. The ban on shoulder the name Of bags strikes us as vague; some safety, purses look like shoulder bags, and university officials must be very careful when they attempt to draw that line. The university should also be careful to apply the rules equally. Arab Americans must not be singled out for more stringent searches in the name of “safety.” And the regulations should be temporary. As long as there is a convincing and immediate threat of terrorism, the university should keep the rules in place. Maintaining them beyond that point creates a clear and present danger to our civil liberties. Preston should focus on outreach When Ken and Margaret Perkins leave Preston at the end of this year, the residents of the building will no doubt have few ill words to speak of them. That is because the Perkinses have governed Preston well. But there is a larger issue for the next principal to focus on: reaching out to the university community. This should, in fact, be an immediate priority for the Perkinses and all Preston residents. There are rampant misconceptions about Preston; it is known as the gay dorm, the art dorm, the snob dorm, the freak dorm, etc. Preston’s residents and leaders must fight those beliefs with actions, not words. The building’s residents should reach out to the rest of the campus and show them what living in Preston is really about. 9 GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. Write us at gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK Martha Wright CONTACT INFORMATION Editor in Chief _ llL n .. u _ Offices on third floor of the Russell House. M uar*nev Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com University Editor University Desk: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com City Desk: gamecockcitydesk@hotmail.com Ginn Thornton Viewpoints: gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Asst Univ Editor Spotlight. gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Victoria Bennett °nline: www.dailygamecock.com The Mix Editor Newsroom: 777-7726 __ _ _ _ ... . _ The Gamecock is the Justin Bajan ID PLACE AN AD student newspaper of the Asst. The Mix Editor T University of South 1400 Greene Street Carolina and is Published Snort* Editor Columbia. SC 29208 Monday, Wednesday and Sports Editor Advertising: 777-3888 FridaV duf'ng the fall and Preston Baines Classified: 777-1184 spring semesters and nine As*t7port”Editor Fax: 777-6482 “^7" Elizabeth Swartz STUDENT MEDIA ™lTo7nionns Online Editor Erik Collins, Faculty Adviser expressed in The Ellen Parsons, Director of Gamecock are those of 5*7""* Student Media the editors or author and pnoto honor Susan King, Creative Director not those of the University . „ K ... Carolyn Griffin, Business of South Carolina. The 7*7 Manager Board of Student oity Editor Sarah Sjms Advertising Publications and Manager Communications is the AHcla Balentlne sherry F Hp| Classified publisher of The Asst. City Editor Manager Gamecock. The Department of Student Brandon Uirrabee Creative Services Media is the newspaper's Viewpoints Editor Tod(j Hooks Martin parent organization. The Salisbury, Beju Shah Gamecock is supported in Page Designers part by student activities Mackenzie Advertising Staff fees. One free copy per Clements, crystal Batsy Baugh Caryn reader. Additional copies Dukes, Katie smith, Barowsky, Denise Levereaux, may be purchased for one David stagg Jackie Rice. Stacey Todd dollar each from the Department of Student CrystalVoyTes, Gamecock Community Affairs Media. Corey Garriott, Jason Karen Yip Harmon, Jill Martin, . ., ... Carolyn Rowe Graphic Art^s Candi Hauglum COLLEGE PRESS EXCHANGE Becoming Snake Plissken __' PHIL WATSON WATSONPHIL@YAHOO.COM What?! Apocalypse now? But I’m right in the middle of dinner. This might be a little off-key for The Gamecock, but what you’re about to read has nothing to do with fetish shows involving hot-wax torture, body suspension and spanking. There are also no 30-inch articles, complete with four color pictures, about lesbians making salad. Did The Associated Press get that bombshell on the wire yet? But that could be a dead issue soon. Many are saying our generation’s idle hands may soon be too bloody and tired to push political and social agendas. Hunter S. Thompson called those of us in college today “poor bastards” who will be the first generation of Americans to have a lower standard of living than our parents. Ha! Bring it on, I say. Maybe graduating from college, marrying some girl and having two and a half kids isn’t the best route anyway. Maybe living in a fortified compound in the mountains, eating rationed cans of potted meat and using my vast arsenal to defend myself against roaming bands of murderous, post-apocalyptic scavengers is what I was bom to do. I bet I’d be pretty good at it. I’d wear an eye patch, a cowboy hat with those loops to hold 12-gauge shells, a snakeskin vest and everything! I’d go the whole nine. I’d even rename myself Snake Plissken. You know what they say; if your going to be a survivor in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, go all out. I’d be like Kevin Costner in all those box office bombs he did. Sure, it would have been nice have an office job and drive a nice car. But I’m sure someone at the trading post will give me a rusty old military jeep if I have four barrels of non contaminated water to haggle with. I m hopmg that one day, while patrolling the barbed wire fence around the perimeter of my compound, I’ll find a stray cow or something. I’d be a rich man then. There would be so many options. Would I use it for milk? Would I eat it? Or would I trade it for some land mines? I’ll probably go with the latter. That way, I’ll save ammunition when the bands of scavengers come to kill me and pillage my compound. But I’m not guaranteed to find a cow. That’s a reality I’ll have to deal with. So I’m planning ahead now by hoarding large quantities of things I think will he hot trading items. Toothpaste, gasoline, toilet paper, yo-yos, blankets, cyanide capsules and instructional books about cannibalism will all be hot ticket items, especially during the holidays. Entertainment in the post apocalyptic age will probably be radically different than it is today. Instead of watching MTV’s Real World, we’ll draw pictures in the dirt with sticks and make up stories about those pictures to tell each other. Sounds better than the Real World to me. Instead of watching plays and concerts, we’ll watch death matches, where people get in a makeshift dirt arena surrounded by human skulls and fight each other to death with rusty shovels and pitchforks, all for the chance to win a kerosene heater. Now that’s entertainment. Much more captivating than Cats. uur society wm oe Kina oi like the show Survivor. Only the prize isn’t a million dollars, it’s not dying. A good time will be had by all. Especially me. I think I’d be a good survivor. For generations, my ancestors in Europe starved and lived under oppressive governments, but the bloodline managed to live on, and here I am. Survival is in my blood, and I love a good challenge. But the apocalypse probably isn’t upon us, and I’ll probably graduate college, get married and have two and a half kids. Oh well, it would have been fun to have my own compound and stockpile weapons, but it’s probably for the best that we’ll be all right. Besides, if our society crumbled I’d never get to find out what happens with Ross and Rachel on Friends. IN YOUR OPINION Paper’s content misses the mark The editorial content of The Gamecock has become insulting. This paper has turned into something that ranks with primary education newsletters and Redbook. While The Washington Post, USA Today and even The State run their lead story on the impending war the United States might lead the world in, The Gamecock is running articles on gay life at USC and Preston looking for a new president after a four-year term. Which of these is so profound that it warrants a more prestigious position than the aforementioned topic? Many USC students cannot afford a subscription to The State, and some rely on The Gamecock as their only form of printed news source. I know I’ll walk by the newsstands and make it a point to read the top headlines of real papers. Then I’ll go to pick up a Gamecock in hopes of some tidbit of international news, only to find on the front page some nonsense that belongs in the entertainment section. It’s enough to make me skip lunch and save my money for a subscription to a newspaper. There was probably a point, maybe middle school, when students were more interested in their trite little worlds than the one around them. However, those days are long over. I’m sure people would have felt a tug on their heartstrings for USC’s gay community, had the article not encompassed most of page 1 and two jumps worth of valuable news pages. I understand that running USC stories and running stories written by students are important. However, part of that importance is localizing national stories. Your goal should be to draw interest in stories by making those students who aren’t interested involved through their ability to relate. That would impress readers much more than the paper’s ability to copy The State’s design. And articles would retain that “paperzine” quality it has recently taken on. I hope your editorial staff does not believe we, the USC population, are so self-centered that we cannot escape our slight campus. I hope your only concern isn’t making the paper “look pretty” under deadline pressure. And I certainly hope you remember the goal of a newspaper is still to report news. MIRANDA LALONDE FOURTH-YEAR STUDENT, COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATIONS: FORMER EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE GAMECOCK Submission Policy Letters to the editor or guest columns are welcome from the Carolina community. Letters should be 250-300 words. Guest columns should be about 600 words. Both must include name, phone number, professional title or year and major, if a student. Deliver handwritten submissions to Russell House room 333, or send e-mail to gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.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. Call 777-7726 for more information. I_I Just who are we fighting? NATHAN WHITE NATHANAWHITE@HOTMAIL.COM Misled Muslims who think killing Americans is the key to heaven. We are at war, this much we know. The greater and more looming question is who are we (America) at war with? The obvious and most likely answer is “suspected terrorist” Osama bin Laden. Perhaps the answer could be broadened to bin Laden’s al Qaeda network. However, these answers are so narrow in scope that the big picture and the real enemy is overlooked. These are scary times. For the past ten years, while most Americans lived and reclined in the hammock of America’s free and seemingly secure borders, old cold warriors at the Pentagon and throughout the military were searching for a new enemy. Meanwhile, American tanks guarded (and still guard) Germany’s plains from a nonexistent enemy (Poland?), and thousands of American soldiers protect South Korea from the desolate wasteland that is North Korea. Now, the enemy has been identified, and the cold warriors still in charge are considering conventional and even unconventional military forces to combat militant fighters in Afghanistan. This is just as scary as the fact that terrorists have invaded our country. These are scary times. My fears come from the fact that I believe our leaders and our nation as a whole have failed to realize what exactly we are at war against. To me, it is simple. We are not at war with wealthy Islamic radicals or their henchmen. The United States and all of Western Christendom is at war with the hundreds of thousands—if not millions — of destitute and disenfranchised youth around the Arab and greater Muslim world who are lower than the dirt that the social ladder is grounded upon and who have no chance of upward social mobility, nor any political/economic opportunity in this world. These children have nothing to look forward to other than the Paradise that awaits the faithful in the afterlife. And how to get there? Live a full and long life by the rules of the Quran? Hardly, considering these youths’ existence can hardly be confused for living. The answer is not found in the Quran or any of the morally upright and worthy precepts of the Islamic faith. Their misguided answer comes from fanatical clerics and believers: “If you want to get to Heaven, little one, you must die in the name of Allah as a holy warrior fighting against the infidels.” Translated, fly a Boeing 757 into the World Trade Center. This is not a new war. This is a new age. What will the United States do? Will it realize that this is not a war against an actual few, but against the potentially limitless numbers of young, devout Muslims with nothing left to lose other than their sacred honor willing to die for a cause that they so admirably believe in? And what scares me more than anything is that I don’t believe anybody truly knows what is going to happen. Are my children going to be Americans? Will there be an America left? Will my children even be bom? Will their father die childless in a foreign desert fighting the most indefatigable of enemies: an idea?