Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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4 THE GAMECOCK » Monday, January 27, 2003 l SOUND OFF TTT'WDA VimCi ONLINE POLL Create message boards at I 1—4 I /1 / I-J I I I I What was your favorite www.dailygamecock.com or I | i 1/ %/ I II I l Super Bowl XXXVII ad? send letters to the editor to IliWW I II 1 Ik/ www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com —I 1—w * —■— ^l —I— ' —' Results published on Fridays. IN OUR OPINION Sanford has the right idea In his recent State of the State address, newly inaugurated Gov. Mark Sanford’s made his stance on education clear: The best way to improve is to start early. It’s a smart approach; if a student can’t read on grade level by the fourth grade, as Sanford says on his Web site, he or she probably won’t be reading on grade level by the eighth grade, either. So the most sensible solution is to go to the root of the problem. Right now, South Carolina is If all students hardly applauded for its had the same schools; the latest statistics access to the place the state perilously close best schools, no to last in the nation in SAT one race would scores, exit high school If Sanford can devise an with a n u nfa ir effective way to improve a dva nta ge. education in early childhood, those improvements will filter up to South Carolina’s middle and high schools and, eventually, all the way to the state’s colleges and universities. Students who have been better prepared to enter each subsequent grade level will be better prepared to enter college, with its more rigorous academic requirements. And better students mean more prestige, which can attract more private funding— something the state’s higher-education system desperately needs. Sanford’s plans could also help higher education by leveling the playing field among college applicants. The school-choice program he advocates, which would give parents more control over their children’s education, could go a long way toward making admissions processes more equitable. If all students, whether rich or poor, had the same access to the best schools — public or private — no one race or class would exit high school with an unfair advantage. By giving everyone access to better schools, Sanford would help achieve the goal of affirmative action by eliminating the need for it in the first place. GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS In a story in Friday’s News section, a quote was incorrectly attributed to Liberal Arts Sen. Adam Hark. He did not call SG President Ankit Patel’s dismissal of the subpoena a “media ploy.” Rich Gannon was misidentified as the Oakland Raiders’ head coach in The Mix calendar Friday. Gannon is Oakland’s quarterback. Also, the calendar should have stated that this year’s Super Bowl is Super Bowl XXXVII. The photos in The Mix on Friday should have been credited to Trisha Shadwell. 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 Jill Martin Managing Editor Charles Tomlinson News Editor Adam Beam Asst. News Editor Wendy Jeff coat Viewpoints Editor Erin O’Neal The Mix Editor Corey Garriott Asst. The Mix Editor Meg Moore Sports Editor Matt Rothenberg Asst. Sports Editor Brad Senkiw Photo Editor Johnny Haynes Asst. Photo Editor Morgan Ford Head Page Designers Sarah McLaulin, Katie Smith, David Stagg Page Designers Justin Bajan, Samantha Hall, Staci Jordan, Julia Knetzer, Shawn Rourk Slot Copy Editors Crystal Boyles, Tricia Ridgway. Emma Ritch Rim Copy Editor Alyson Goff 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: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints: gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com The Mix: gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Public Affairs: gckpublicaffairs@hotmail.com Online: www.dailygamecock.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, Sean O'Meara, Anastasia Oppert Advertising Staff John Blackshire, Adam Bourgoin, Bianca Knowles, Denise Levereaux, Jacqueline Rice, Stacey Todd The Gamecock is the editorially independent student newspaper of the University of South Carolina. It 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-activity fees. One free copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $1 each from the Department of Student Media. TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock 1400 Greene St. Columbia. S.C. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 "HIGH MOON" CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Some things can’t be helped COREY GARRIOTT GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Deterrence isn’t always an effective solution. Some of those who oppose the war have asserted that Saddam may be contained. Using the lan guage of deterrence, they note that we could stare him down in any conflict using mutually as sured destruction. Therefore, they ask, why risk lives to keep him from building essentially useless weapons? And as far as deterrence goes, it’s true that we could do that, at least for the next couple of years. Dictators, after all, want to stay in power. Currently, we can de ter him from using nuclear weapons by making it too costly. It is, of course, assuming that the world is static. But Baghdad moves. What is especially frustrating about the potential war is its de tractors’ preoccupation with ab straction. Deterrence is a lovely model and, like the man with a hammer who sees everything as a nail, its parents think it will be useful in every situation. Deterrence is appropriate in some places and not in others. It is appropriate when the enemy is already armed and one must deal with that reality, as with North Korea. But the question of Iraq isn’t whether we can deter it from developing weapons, but whether we want to play that game in the first place. The game North Korea wants to play is illustrative. We have hence kowtowed, bribed and in other ways “negotiated” with North Korea because it has a trump card in the form of nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-il actually has an interest in posturing as insanely as possible, so that we are not sure whether he will erupt and take the world with him. Nuclear arms dangle a sword of Damocles over Northeast Asia, which means that, in that region, the United States is less influen tial and Korea is more. In con trast, Iraq is not armed—yet. We know that Saddam is engi neering such a trump card and would have such a power. We also know that he’s intelligent, and brutal and has it in for the West. This isn’t knocking Islam, which in many respects is doing better than modern Christianity with some of the eternal questions. These are simply brute facts. Facts are where the deterren tial algebra goes wrong. Asking what is probable and what is not, it misses a more fundamental question: Who are our friends, and who are our enemies? We could depend on static probabilities and the logic of de terrence for now. But the logic of reality is this: Saddam knows about probability as well as we do, yet he still builds nuclear weapons. Obviously, he thinks he can beat deterrence, probability and abstraction in the long run. Should he really be given the opportunity? Suddenly, a preemptive strike doesn’t look so radical. In point of fact, all war is preemptive — somebody has to attack first. It might as well be us. Many of our self-appointed intellectuals are angry with Bush for not being smart enough, but at least he seems to have some sense of the realpoli tik. In history, probability falls on the side of tragedy, not de terrence, the intellectual flavor of the month. Garriott is a second-year philosophy student. IN YOUR OPINION New arena is not safe for spectators From 1980 to 1984,1 had the pleasure of being a USC bas ketball season-ticket holder. We enjoyed attending the games during that time. Although USC was never a championship team, the spirit, the fans and Donna Rice run ning up and down the stands with the little Gamecock sewn to her panties made attending the games worthwhile. We returned to watch USC play Florida in the new arena. Based on our experience, I as sume that a graduate of Clemson’s architectural school designed the facility. What a boat anchor! First, the arena is dangerous and puts fans at risk. I would not want to be in the arena if an emergency occurred that re quired a swift and immediate evacuation of the building. Many fans would be seriously and needlessly injured because of the poor design of the arena’s exits. Secondly, it is obvious that basketball played a small role in the design of the layout of the playing area. The layout of the spectator seats places fans a long distance from the actual court. You would need binocu lars to see the action from the midcourt seats. Given the poor design of the seating relative to the court, it’s no wonder USC fans feel removed from the bas ketball games. Third, as an alumnus of the university, I am concerned that a viable arena now sits dark. It is unlikely that a metropolitan area the size of Columbia is ca pable of supporting two arenas. Minor-league hockey will nev er generate the revenue to jus tify keeping the Carolina Coliseum. I question where the university is raising the funds for the magnitude of capital im provements that have been re cently built on the campus, and the new arena appears to me to be an example of questionable priorities by the university. PETE OPPENHEIMER 1982 list: GRADUATE Discrimination is wrong everywhere OK, I’m on to you, Chris, John, Thom or whatever your real name is. You had me dis tracted with your spam-mail approach: Write the same let ter over and over, change the punctuation around, then slap a new name on it. Damnation! I wish I’d thought of that. You’re quite the stinker, dis tracting me from your main idea with fallacious assump tions and obfuscations. What was your main idea, anyway? Oh, yeah! I remember now: private organizations. What defines a P.O.? What rights does such an organiza tion posses? I can’t find that in formation in any of your drafts, except that you think that a P.O. is equivalent to a get-out of-jail-free card for racists and their brethren. Moreover, you keep berating Dr. Laura Woliver and myself for ques tioning this inalienable right. Hmm. I’m having a vision. “Dr. King! Aren’t you going to do anything about segrega tion?” “Don’t be silly, David, segre gation is legal in this country. There’s nothing I can do.” “So, you’re telling me, as a Christian and activist, that civ il law trumps natural law and that I should accept the status quo, even if it’s anathema to what I hold as true, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. The civil laws of the United States are static, and any attempt to change them is fu tile?” “Yes. David, embrace the slave mentality that is prevalent among your brothers and sisters” Funny, I don’t remember him championing racists and hate mongers. Oh! That reminds me. I don’t correlate the Boy Scouts of America with white, male, hate mongering homophobes; I corre late the national office of the BSA with white, male, hate-monger ing homophobes. Today, it’s gays and atheists. Who’s next? In all your drafts, however, this discrimination is acceptable because it’s not based on skin col or: Prejudice based on ethnicity is still racism. Some local chap ters want diversity; however, the national office has sought to Christianize a secular organiza tion. This is a gross betrayal of BSA founder Lord Powell, who established the Scouts as an in clusive organization. Now, if anyone out there wants to write a different letter propos ing the parameters of a private organization, be my guest. I’d like to know, too. But if racist propa ganda is all you have, then let me introduce you to my friends at the U.S.C. DAVID ARROYO WEST COLUMBIA 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 edited. Anonymous letters will not be published. Call the newsroom at 777-7726 for more information. Clonaid hoax is bad for science > ERIN O’NEAL GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Cloning technology has more pros than cons. In the movies, sheep aren’t the only things that can be cloned; the family pet and Arnold Schwarzenegger can easily be du- g plicated in “The 6th Day’s” world * of the near future. But according to Brigitte Boisselier, chief exec utive of Clonaid, the world of the near future is already here. Clonaid, the organization linked to a religious sect that be lieves aliens created life on Earth, drifted off the media’s radar after the birth of the first human clone, “Eve,” was announced last month in Florida. Not to be outdone by the anniversary of Roe v. Wade or the recent affirmative-action con troversy, Clonaid grabbed head lines again with the announce ment of two more clone births: a girl bom Jan. 3 to a Dutch lesbian and a boy bom Wednesday to a Japanese couple. ui course, no one nas seen &ve or any of the other clone babies ll — nor have the promised DNA tests been run to determine whether these children are clones — but already, a Miami attorney has filed a petition seeking a guardian for Eve. In the child’s best interest, of course. Florida attorney Bernard Siegel filed a petition seeking a guardian for Eve because he’s worried that a clone might re quire extensive medical treat ment that Clonaid can’t provide. Assuming that the baby whose v health we should be worried j about even exists, wouldn’t it be safe to also assume that a facility capable of cloning a human might possibly be medically advanced ft enough to treat any malady the clone might suffer? If he’s suc cessful in Eve’s case, I’d like Siegel to represent me in the nonexistent custody battle for my nonexistent children. I wouldn’t want their nonexistent tather mistreating them. It’s in the chil dren’s best interest, of course. But even more disturbing than Siegel’s ambitions are the negative effects Clonaid’s actions could have on the future of scientific re search. Some scientists are wor ried that people might look on all forms of cloning the way they look on Clonaid’s actions. It is still le gal to clone animals in the United States—though moves have been made to ban human cloning on a ^ global level—and people shouldn’t ^ associate Dolly with Eve. Imagine the amount of food that could be produced for the ever-increasing global popula tion. Cloning technology, once re fined, could not only help to feed the starving masses; it could also be used to engineer better-tasting, unpolluted food. Harmful dis eases such as mad cow, foot-and mouth or pfisteria wouldn’t be a threat because infected animals wouldn’t be cloned. Embryonic-stem-ceii research also stands to benefit from cloning technology. Regardless of one’s be liefs about when human life be gins, stem-cell research could pos sibly cure illnesses, such as Parkinson’s disease, and correct spinal-cord injuries. And with ex tensive research and federal fund ing, who knows what other hu- ' 9 man ailments could be conquered? The public shouldn’t consider Clonaid’s farce when deciding which side of the “clone wars” to support. Maybe one day, a dupli cate Strom Thurmond will repre sent South Carolina for 48 years like the original did, but the world isn’t ready for human cloning yet. But until then, there’s no reason we can’t experiment with animal cloning. _JU-k_ O ’Neal is a fourth-year print journalism student.