Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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4 THE emBCOCK * Monday, September 30. 2002 SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Is homecoming too Greek? www.dailygamecock.com or www.dailygamecock.com. send letters to the editor to Results published on Fridays. gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com IN OUR OPINION Involve all in Homecoming Greek organizations dominate the Cockfest and Spurs and Struts competitions in this year’s Homecoming, but it is the responsibility of other organizations to become more involved and change that exclusion. Though competing with the Greeks can seem intimidating, it is up to other organizations to take the initiative and challenge the Greeks’ long winning streak. On the other hand, Greeks could help other It’s up to other organizations to take the initiative and challenge the Greeks’ long winning streak. organizations that have no Homecoming experience. Giving them tips, without necessarily disclosing winning secrets, would be invaluable in making Homecoming a more diverse experience. Homecoming is not solely about groups racking up points from every competition to win; it is about students coming together to support USC football. Other groups should take the initiative to get involved, whether they enter candidates into Showcase or hand out candy during the parade. While Cockfest traditionally involves a lot of work because of costumes, dances, music and banners, not all events involve that kind of time commitment. Student organizations should encourage their members to participate in activities with less involvement rather than not participate at all. The Greek organizations that have won Homecoming competitions in recent years have not won alone; each pairs with another Greek organization to vary ideas. Smaller organizations can also partner together to have numbers rivaling ■ the Greeks’ so that the time commitment would not be a burden to just a few people. Homecoming is about hard work, lots of time and planning far in advance. If non-Greek organizations could commit their time and Greek organizations could help them get started, Homecoming could be a more diverse representation of the Carolina experience. GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS In a headline Monday in The Mix, “Unreal Tournament 2003” was incorrectly identified. In a caption about the Nonstop Hip-Hop freestyle battle, emcees Dan Johns and K’Cire were incorrectly identified. Wednesday’s Club Comer should have said the field hockey club tied Clemson on Sunday. A letter to the editor in Friday’s paper titled “Any service in ER is better than none” was written by Brandon D’Agostino, a third year English student. The Gamecock regrets the errors. If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK Editor in Chief Mary Hartney News Editor Adam Beam Asst. News Editor Emma Ritch Viewpoints Editor Chris Foy Asst. Viewpoints Editor Erin O'Neal The Mix Editors Justin Bajan, Charles Tomlinson Sports Editor Kyle Almond Asst. Sports Editor Matt Rothenberg Photo Editor Candi Hauglum Head Designer Katie Smith Page Designers Samantha Hall, Julia Knetzer, Shawn Rourk, David Stagg Copy Desk Chief Jill Martin Copy Editors Jennie Duggan, Tricia Ridgway, Holly Totherow, Karen Vaught Online Editor Bessam Khadraoui Community Affairs Kiran Shah CONTACT INFORMATION ■ Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com News Desk: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints: gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com The Mix: gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Online: www.dailygamecock.com Public Affairs: gckpublicaffairs@hotmail.com Newsroom: 777-7726 Editor's Office: 777-3914 STUDENT MEDIA Faculty Adviser Erik Collins Director of Student Media Ellen Parsons Creative Director Susan King Business Manager Carolyn Griffin Advertising Manager Sarah Scarborough Classified Manager Sherry F. Holmes Creative Services Derek Goode, Earl Jones, Kimberly Myles, Melanie Roberts Advertising Staff Adam Bourgoin, Justin Chappell, Amanda Ingram, Bianca Knowles, Denise Levereaux, Jacqueline 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 dollar each from the Department of Student Media. TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock Advertising: 777-3888 140G Greene St. Classified: 777-1184 Columbia, S.C. 29208 Fax:777-6482 CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS A study in nature’s beauty CLAYTON KALE GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Sunday school lessons learned in the woods. I often seek Sunday refuge at the Congaree Swamp. On the oc casions I bring visitors, they are struck by the nature preserve’s silence. They all say so upon en tering the shade of the cypress trees’ canopy. It’s an observation most telling. We city dwellers are used to the constant drone of traffic and the blare of a train’s whistle, so much so that this writer hard ly notices the presence of the me chanical animals sliding along the tracks. Four years in an urban envi ronment tempers the ears until they barely acknowledge the clamoring behemoths as they travel from ports to points west. The silence of the swamp is deafening, until you realize it’s not silence filling your ears. The forest is as loud as the city, only in a different way. Somewhere behind me, a squirrel chatters alarm at the bipedal intruder carrying a 24 ounce bottle of Aquafina. A breeze in the treetops creates a rain of spent leaves that sounds like a summer drizzle. The mosquitoes dive bomb and whine like so many Stukas over London. It’s not an earthly si lence — it’s an earthly cacophony — as if Gaia were tuning her or chestra. After you hear her song, you begin to take notice of the battle for life. The swamp is a unique habitat comprising 22 ecosys tems. More than 170 species of birds, 53 of reptiles and 22 of trees make their home here. And who is to say how many species of in sects there are? in my travels nere, i ve en countered deer, otters and wild pigs. And while camping, I’ve heard the owls question my pres ence and the banshee scream of what could only be a bobcat. It’s best to stick to the trails. The heaven-pointing cypress knees hinder anyone trying to cut comers through the thick of the swamp. Cypress knees are a dominant characteristic of the swamp’s lower elevations. They come up through the ground, these knob by and thick roots, and serve as anchors for the giant trees from which they spring. Without them, the cypress trees couldn’t grow to their giant size. The smaller trees, the young oaks and the hollys, grow at odd angles to catch as much light that passes through the canopy as possible. The grasses, too, grow in directions that seem unnatu ral to us who are used to mani cured lawns where the fescue grows straight up. Competition among the plants is as fierce and violent as it is for animals, though the war is bare ly perceptible. We expect action in seconds and minutes, not months and years. Vines choke a centurion tree, which falls and makes a break in the canopy. Light pours through. Grasses shoot up, gaining as much ground as possible. A saw palmetto spreads its prickly leaves, and acorns break open to race for the sky. rne giant trees around the new real estate dispatch branch es to absorb the light. And soon, the forest floor is shaded once again. But the tree that succumbed to the predatory vine didn’t fall for naught. Its body will become home to termites and ants. Mushrooms and moss grow and digest the dead wood. Life from death. Reminds me of John 11. Yes, it’s a different world out here, where conflict among hu mans is insignificant and irrele vant. Nature has a war of her own, where spiders set traps for flies and a vine can kill the king. Kale is a fourth-year print journalism student. IN YOUR OPINION Tobacco concerns deserve attention Will either Hodges or Sanford commit to helping save our 120,000 South Carolina teenagers that the Centers for Disease Control says are now using tobacco? Unless someone steps forth to help, two-thirds of them are scheduled to spend their entire life chemically dependent upon nicotine (a substance at least five times more addictive than cocaine), and one-third will be deprived of 15.3 years of life. With the brain dopamine pathways of one-fourth of our entire adult population chem ically dependent upon manda tory regular nicotine feedings, how, can we expect youth pre vention programs to have any credibility whatsoever? Is it fair to expect children to ignore so many adult role models? We are the only remaining state in the nation with policies that continue to elevate the im portance of growing and pro ducing nicotine over the health, welfare and lives of our children. Nicotine addiction should never be looked upon as a reli able source of revenue to fi nance government. To do so would further institutionalize an internal conflict toward helping save the next genera tion of children from a lifetime of dependency. Instead, the tobacco tax should be increased, with all new revenues devoted exclu sively toward nicotine cessa tion and prevention programs, offsetting i tobacco-related Medicaid expenditures and funding a temporary program to retrain and retool South Carolina tobacco farmers to transition out of the nicotine business and into nonaddictive crops. I’m curious; would either Hodges or Sanford support rais ing the tobacco tax to 75 cents per pack and permanently de voting 30 percent to the estab lishment of statewide cessation and prevention programs, per manently devoting 60 percent of toward our health-care bud get, and temporarily devoting 10 percent toward helping re train and retool those tobacco farmers who fully commit to getting out of the nicotine busi ness? JOHN R. POLITO use SCHOOL OF LAW. CLASS OF '85 Writer indebted to First Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” — The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Most Americans can’t iden tify the five freedoms of the First Amendment, according to a poll by the First Amendment Center. (Only 1 percent of those polled could.) Yet more than half agree that the First Amendment goes too far in giv ing us too much freedom. ' The Wednesday column by Phil Watson (“Rid cars of trite bumper stickers”) reflects a grow ing intolerance for freedom of speech, with his statement that bumper stickers should be thrown out of the country. His in tolerance for affordable American-made cars, animal lovers, self-expression and catchy slogans is all too common in our increasingly globalized and ho mogenized society. I challenge him and those who share his opinion to stop criticiz ing others — others who have taken the time to become in formed and to develop political opinions and to proudly voice them. I challenge him to read more and form intelligent opin ions on subjects that are worthy of his commentary. To denounce others for ex pressing their opinions in writ ten form (albeit a sticker) should be anathema to any writer. AMANDA MARTIN GRADUATE STUDENT, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK Submission Policy Letters to the editor should be less than 300 words and include name, phone number, professional title or year and major, if a student. E-mail letters to gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com. Letters will be ed!*-d. Anonymous letters will not be published. Call the newsroom at 777-7726 for more information. 1 Use love, beer to redeem nation CATHERINE BAAB GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Rearming of redemptive forces is the way to go. Recently, I was appointed to chair the National Council for the Advancement of Equal Affection. With little ceremony, I might add, as this council is little known, so far as national councils go (our more minor organization is bu reaucratically situated under the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Extramarital Intimacy). My first order of business as boss? It’s hard to tell. Many im portant issues, some of which ac tually fall under our jurisdiction, deserve immediate addressing. Among the most pressing of these is the newly discovered existence of the American Axis of Evil: Starbucks, television and im pending doom. You’ve probably read about it in the newspaper. I think we can all agree that some thing must be done. Humbly, as chief, I suggest the following solution: a rearming of the redemptive forces. Love is the primary redemp tive force in the universe. Yet the other redemptive forces — jazz, poetry, long baths, really good beer and country music that is so bad it is good — exist in case of its failure. (I’m talking “Sketches of Spain”; “Roethke’s Collected”; a deep, wide tub; a Dos Equis or a Beck’s; Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V O-R-C-E.”) And if anything constitutes a failure of love, it is the present American situation — observe our president openly shopping for a war. As if this were not awful enough, he insinuates that this prospective war would somehow serve a preventive function. Violence precluding further vio lence? I know how ludicrous that must sound to the public. Rest as sured that I will personally pre pare (assisted only by my Palestinian secretary) the coun cil’s report on the absurdity of the notion of preventive war. Afterward, I’ll see to that rearma ment. Your days as the smug usurper of precious American brain cells are over, television. You’d better get out of Dodge, quick. Hit the road! I also mean to curtail that abom inable practice on the part of our nation’s youth; I refer to the smug gling of love across state lines. The Council for the Advancement of Equal Affection can no longer con done or abide interstate romance. The entrapping, therefore cor rupting, aspect of such illicit rela tionships directly interferes with the vital and inherently free ex change of love itself. Deplorably, it has a disabling effect on the fas cination of flirtation; it has even been known to induce, in a few particularly sad young people, emotional hibernation. Left unchecked, the importa tion and deportation of thousands of half-formed affairs results. This explicitly denotes disaster. The personal, mobile autonomy of anybody’s ardor: It’s all I desire. Travel chaste, America. To this end, I favor the distri bution of informational pam phlets that would advise parents to speak to their teenage children about the dangers of love smug gling. This pamphlet would in clude the most common symp toms — namely, frequent sighing or cell phone use, sleeplessness, secretiveness, local indifference, headaches and nausea. Mind you, what I’ve provided here is but a tentative itinerary for my office hours—I’ve a great deal more work to do. Baab is a third-year English and advertising student.