Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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4 0 SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Should the SG presidential www.dailygamecock.com or elections be overturned? send letters to the editor to www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Results published on Fridays. IN OUR OPINION When will SG The students have spoken. Twice. - They spoke last week, when they elected Ankit Patel to the Student Government presidency. And now, they are speaking again, asking David Bornemann td step aside and let Patel get on with the business of running their government. Since Monday, The Gamecock has received an unusually high number of letters suggesting that David Bornemann should give up. So far, he has appealed the outcome of the ornema nn presidential race to the Elections should listen to the students: Commission and SG Attorney Let elections Genera^ Brian Hunter. Both have be over upheld Patel’s presidency. The next step for Bornemann is to appeal to Vice President of Student and Alumni Services Dennis Pruitt, a step he has indicated he will take today. We believe he shouldn’t. One of the most important characteristics of any SG president should be an ability to understand and respond to what students want. Students have already clearly spoken up on this issue; Bornemann should listen. We also call on Patel to drop his appeal to Hunter asking him to overturn two of the three infractions he’s received. The election is over. Students want to move on, and their leaders should be responsive to that. The people have been loud and clear. Bornemann needs to move on and find his niche elsewhere. He has a lot to contribute to the USC community and has done so already, but the way to get there now is not through Pruitt. Winners and Sinners SWITZERLAND Joins United Nations. Now they can join in the fight against... uh, whatever the UN does. ROAD RULES Team members pig out to gain Freshman 15 at Bates House. Next week: TRL in Patterson Patio. SHADOW GOVERNMENT Washington Post reveals Bush’s backup. Most astounding: We kept a secret for almost five months. STAUFFER AND BORNEMANN Kenny Rogers said it best: “You gotta know when to fold ’em.” CONDON Sues NAACP for protesting at state rest areas. It’s time he gives it a rest. HONORS SOPHOMORES Three cheers! You get to live in “prestigious” housing — if it’s still standing when the termites are through. GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com. » ABOUT THE GAMECOCK Mary Hartney Editor in Chief Ginny Thornton News Editor Kevin Fellner . Asst. News Editor Mackenzie Clements Viewpoints Editor Carrie Phillips The Mix Editor Justin Bajan Asst. The Mix Editor Chris Foy Sports Editor J. Keith Allen Asst. Sports Editor Brandon Larrabee Special Projects Adam Beam Contributing Editor • Martha Wright Design Editor Page Designers Crystal Dukes, Sarah McLaulin, Katie Smith David Stagg Kyle Almond Copy Desk Chief Copy Editors Crystal Boyles, Andre' Festa, Jason Harmon, Jill Martin, Paul Rhine Mark Hartney Online Editor Corey Davis Photo Assignments Photo Technicians Robert Gruen, Candi Hauglum Kelly Petruska Community Affairs CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com University Desk: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com City Desk: gamecockcitydesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints: gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com The Mix: gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Online: www.dailygamecock.com Newsroom: 777-7726 EDITORIAL BOARD Kyle Almond. Mackenzie Clements, Chris Foy, Mary Hartney, Brandon Larrabee, Carrie Phillips, Ginny Thornton, Martha Wright STUDENT MEDIA Erik Collins Faculty Adviser Ellen Parsons Director of Student Media Susan King Creative Director Carolyn Griffin • Business Manager Sarah Scarborough Advertising Manager Sherry F. Holmes Classified Manager * Creative Services Derek Goode. Todd Hooks, Earl Jones, Jennie Moore, Melanie Roberts, Beju Shah Advertising Staff Betsy Baugh, Amanda Ingram, Denise Levereaux, Jackie Rice, Stacey Todd 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 one doUar each from the Department of Student Media. TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock 1400 Greene Street Columbia, S.C. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 WE CAN DRIVE, BUT (MR INSURANCE PREMIUMS ARE AS7RON0A1ICAL... r ^ WE CAN WTE, BUT N0NE Of the vtunam seem TP CARE AQOVTI&... I VIE CAN HAVE SEX, BUT RISK GETTING INFECTED WITH HIV... I ^ WE CAN SMOKE, BUT RISK GETTING LUNG CANCER OR EMPH55EAVU WE CAN ATTEND COLLEGE, m HAVE TO GO INTO DEBT RJR 7£ >£AR£ TO m FOR IT- . ,,. AND THEy WINDER WHy WE DRINK, CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS IN YOUR OPINION Bornemann should accept his defeat The Student Government presidential election ended last Thursday, and the drama of campaign promises was replaced with antics of a school playground. One would think that David Bornemann could take the loss like a man. Instead, he’s lowered himself by allowing his campaign manager to drag his name through the Aiud and accuse Ankit Patel of everything under the sun. Next thing we know, Bornemann — I mean Chrissy Stauffer — will blame Patel for taking part in the Watergate scandal. r irsi, li Dornemann says the SG election should mirror a “real election,” then campaigners should be able to . go door to door. This is how you really get to know the voters. Second, if you aren’t mature enough to handle losing, why do you think you would be mature enough to handle the presidency? Third, if she knew those violations were committed, why did Stauffer file the infractions after the election results were announced? That clearly shows that you are a sore loser! ii s oovious mai raiei is committed to meet the people. I met Patel through a friend and was pleased to know he was willing to get out and meet the students he wanted to serve. It seems that Bomemann is jealous that he didn’t think of that idea first. I’m willing to bet that Patel’s staff didn’t do anything that Bomemann’s staff didn’t do. It just seems that a candidate with real and concrete goals defeated Bomemann. Maybe Bomemann should’ve tried to follow Patel’s ideals; it seems to have worked for Patel. Even if Bomemann would get his way and the election was thrown out, I highly doubt he would win the presidency, because he’s acting like a child. I end this with a little advice for the sore loser: Don’t take it personally. Take the bitter with the sweet and accept the loss! CHERRON J. JENKINS THIRD-YEAR BIOLOGY STUDENT SG presidency is largely powerless Student Government should no longer be confused about why students on this campus are so apathetic about university politics. The latest chapter in this comedy is the recently completed election. In what appeared to be a well-run race by both candidates, Ankit Patel won a close runoffby 175 votes. After hearing both candidates speak, I gave my vote to Patel because he impressed me with his knowledge of how SG funds were distributed and his plan to take money away from SG committees and give it back to student organizations. I’ve never put much stock into the other “buzzword” issues such as parking and safety because I’m of the opinion that the SG president can do just about as much about those subjects as any Carolina student can do, which is complain. No offense to past presidents, but I view the position as mostly powerless. It has little to do with the person who holds the position and much to do with the structure of the university. I apologize to Corey Ford if I missed something, but I really can’t name one thing his administration has really accomplished. Yes, he has avidly fought budget cuts, and yes, I see him at every Carolina sporting event, but these are things many students at Carolina do without being president. He can fight and debate and petition all he wants to accomplish tasks such as pushing back the drop date, but the power ultimately lies with the Faculty Senate, the university president and the Board of Trustees. mus, me su presidents job becomes a diplomatic one, serving as a liaison between the students and those who can actually add parking and lighting. Patel and Bomemann were simply running for the right to their own Russell House office and the right to complain to more important people. I should be happy though, right? My guy won. But I’m not happy by any means; I’m just furtherdisgusted with SG. It turns out Patel might have violated election codes to win. In a close race (and yes, 175 votes is surely a close race), any violation should be deemed a major one. Campaigning door to door in eight different residence halls could easily lead to 175 extra votes. The mass e-mail shouldn’t be considered a violation just because it was sent through a listserv; I believe Bornemann canceled that violation out by sending an e-mail to a list of e-mail addresses he acquired through his geology class. So now Bornemann is appealing the decision. He has every right to do this, and I wish I could take back my vote and not give it to anyone. If the results are thrown out, I suppose that means another election, which might mean another week of golf carts and dogs in T-shirts trying to get your vote on Greene Street. It also means I wouldn’t vote again, not even if you held a gun to my head. I propose a co presidency. It would be just as effective as the terms of either of the two candidates would be by themselves; it would accomplish little. Sure, they’d have to share that coveted office in the Russell House, but it would be twice as many people complaining to important people. CRAIG SMITH THIRD-YEAR MARKETING AND SPORTS MANAGEMENT STUDENT Accusations aren’t solid proof of rape I have a question for Martha Wright: What kind of chip on your shoulder do you have for men? First, we’re pigs because we use the term “girl,” and now, we’re automatically assumed guilty when we’re accused of rape. If Sen. John Hawkins committed rape, he should be dragged behind'a car and locked up for the rest of his life. Rape is a disgusting thing to do to a person and shouldn’t be tolerated. However, we don’t know what went on between Hawkins and his accuser. If she was raped, then she shouldn’t have dropped the charges. Unfortunately, she did, despite “one of the strongest rape cases” a Spartanburg police has ever seen. If the case was so strong, why did she not pursue it? Because she was afraid of how she would be portrayed? If the defense had done that, then she would have had a case to sue for libel (assuming of course, that none of it would have been true). Plus, we know absolutely nothing about this woman, except that she accused him of rape, which seems to be enough for some to pass verdict on Hawkins. The facts are that he was accused of rape, and because there was no trial, he had no chance to prove he might be innocent. If she was raped, then I hope he gets what he deserves for doing such an unforgivable act. But we can’t condemn a man on accusations without giving him the ' opportunity to defend himself and clear his name. Rape shouldn’t be ignored, nor should it be thrown around and labeled on those who might or might not be guilty of the crime. JASON C. STEPP Reed should try technical school In response to Shanna Reed’s column in Monday’s paper, anyone who believes his or her educational funds are being wasted by reading “Hamlet” belongs in a technical college and not at a university. “Higher education” is so named because we expose ourselves to the world outside of high-tech computers and the stock market. When you tear your eyes from your most useful companion (the computer), and step into the outside world, you encounter relationships with other people and situations that require a different kind of knowledge. Writers see the world in ways we can never truly understand, and what higher education teaches us about the things around us and the human race is invaluable. It helps us to Detter unaerstana who we are and to look at the relationships in our lives from new perspectives. Math and philosophy help stretch our minds and use reasoning and logic. What about art and music? Self-expression is another key to understanding the human spirit. History is always relevant in our lives because it’s apt to repeat itself if we can’t learn from past mistakes. If you think your money is being wasted in college because you’re reading the same play twice, you have completely missed the point. Every time you read a book, your experience will be different. You will see things you didn’t before and have fresh viewpoints from new classmates. An older perspective does wonders for changing a story’s meaning. In short, if you want to get directly connected with your major and bypass all the useless knowledge, then you have no place in a university. A university is, after all, a ♦ LETTERS, SEE PAGE 9 Aren’t we supposed to evolve? TAYLOR MARSHALL GREEN GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Bush shouldn’t grant Yasser Arafat immunity. I thought the world was getting safer and smarter. You don’t have to attend second grade to know that evolution perpetuates intelligence. Adam and Eve are about as popular in science as Commodore 64s are in computer labs. It’s pretty easy to recognize that we evolved from the ape, among other things, and gradually got smarter. We learned to climb trees, eat termites with a blade of grass, and exterminate life with a blade of steel. So we’ve come so far, right? I thought the human race had gone through the adolescent phase of evolution already. I thought we had turned away from cutting some guy’s hand off because he stole the loaf of bread. Sure, you’re still not permitted to buy Dewars in the same room you buy your Michelob, and Republicans want children to carry ,357s to class instead of lunchboxes, but I think we’ve come pretty far. So then why do I feel as uiuugn we re in ior a tremendous future of violence, death and despair? Why do I see the same headline everyday? What happened to this talk about ridding the world of terrorism wherever it may be? Why is it that I can tell that Yasser Arafat is a terrorist, but our president can’t? The Bush administration has one of the world’s greatest terrorists on the phone and they’re baby-sitting him instead of dealing with him accordingly. All the PLO has said is that the violence it inflicts upon Israel is instigated by not getting what they want. If its plea has been overshadowed by the graphic ( images of those blown apart, you should know that all Arafat wants is his own Palestinian state. And if bombing the hell out of the West Bank will get that for him, he’ll give the green light for bloodshed any day of the week. Well, I want to be rich, but you don’t see me robbing banks. It’s seems like Arafat has been granted some type of diplomatic immunity. With this new type of globalization against terrorism, Arafat’s “immunity” is unchallenged — and also sad, because we just kicked Afghanistan in the groin. We have to be fair, don’t we? We have to be balanced in what we concentrate on, right? Do we * have to direct so much attention to the conflict between Israel and Arafat? I can only wonder what it is about Israel that gets the United States so hot and heavy. Is it going to take another century for the United States and the world to evolve and realize that Arafat has as much to do with terrorism as religion does? I love the concept of growth. It pushes a being to a new stage in life. I thought that we’d have grown out of this phase of violence and double standards. When considering how far the human race has come, the diplomacy with Arafat is similar to me going to Circle K and spending $17 on Garbage Pail Kids and Bazooka Joe; it’s immature and contradictory. Is the height of evolution a time when the Earth’s skin isn’t irritated because a couple countries feel relentless bombing of each other is the only way to resolve the matter? Maybe the height of evolution is an apex of intelligence where what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. And there is only one way to deal with the right and only chie way to deal with the wrong. Marshall-Green is a fourth-year 1 electronic journalism student.