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4 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Monday, February 3, 2003 SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Should LeBron James have www.dailygamecock.com or lost his amateur status? send letters to the editor to www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Results published on Fridays. " 1 r1— ■ ■ - ■■■■ 1 ■ —■ IN OUR OPINION 5 Points plan offers little The 5 Points Meal Plan has drawn more than 400 students since it was introduced to USC this past July, but the system lacks the characteristics of a “plan” that its name implies. Students using the 5 Points Meal Plan get no specific meal allotments, no savings depending on the size of the plan they buy. A membership card confers no equivalent to USC Dining Service’s bonus bucks — extra funds that If Students want students can spend on more dining campus food if they purchase options, they don t a enough use meal plan. Iffd 3 f?fCia* The 5 Points Meal plan a130 Car 0 ge . em, doesn’t add on a percentage of ^acrossthe thestudent’soriginaldeposit Horseshoe, and a the way usc does on meal plan is not students’ cash cards. required for entry. The money a student (or a student’s parents) deposits on a 5 Points Meal Plan card is the money that student has to spend. Period. More money on a 5 Points card doesn’t equal more benefits. The system does have some advantages; first, it provides competition. The 5 Points Meal Plan is the only thing stopping Dining Services from having a monopoly. Perhaps this alternative plan will encourage USC to offer lower prices and more variety, in the vein of the new restaurants on the Russell House’s first floor. The plan offers some more immediate benefits to its participants, as well. Students using a 5 Points card can more easily keep track of the money they spend on food, and they benefit from once-a-week restaurant deals (this week’s at Pizza Hut) and occasional discounts at other Columbia stores. But besides these occasional discounts — which cardholders might or might not get around to taking advantage of— the 5 Points Meal Plan offers little incentive to sign up. Cardholders still, for the most part, pay full restaurant prices. Why shouldn’t they just use the debit card they probably own already? The 5 Points Meal Plan basically amounts to just one more card to keep track of, one more card to potentially lose. If students want more dining options, they don’t need a special card to get them; Beezer’s is right across the Horseshoe, and a meal plan is not required for entry. 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 Editor In Chief Jill Martin Managing Editor Charles Tomlinson News Editor Adam Beam Asst. News Editor Wendy Jeffcoat 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 Copy Editors Alyson Goff, Mary Waters 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 aiuutni mtuiM 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 Production Manager Patrick Bergen 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 I I IV- uamci/uvn i J uib 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 AO The Gamecock 1400 Greene St. Columbia, S.C. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Reality TV takes on politics DAVID STAGG GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Bush’s ’axis of evil’ is seen in a new light. We’ve seen season after season of “The Real World.” We’ve en dured “Survivor.” We’ve been “The Weakest Link,” “The Bachelor” and a millionaire. But now, executives have gotten to the heart of the reality series; it is the most outrageous, no-holds-barred, revealing series of them all. It’s the reality show you’ve all been waiting for: “Joe Axis of Evil.” That’s right: The United States has been given 192 nations to choose from, and must narrow the field down each week based on each nation’s political stance, until there is only one country left, which wins immunity from U.S. military action. After two consecutive weeks at the No. 1 spot in TV’s Nielsen ratings, we have seen the United States narrow the field to three final countries: Iraq, Iran and North Korea, which comprise what President Bush has affec tionately termed the “Axis of Evil.” “I was insulted, honestly,” Mr. Syria said after being rejected by Bush. “I mean, we’re just as evil as the next country. We’ve got to have the biggest terrorists in the world!” President Bush wasn’t fooled. “It’s not the outside that counts,” he said in last week’s episode. “Personality, not just big bombs, gets you further with the United States.” Iran, a surprise choice by Bush, had stunned audiences nation wide as it was announced during last week’s record-setting episode. It so offset fans that some took to the streets and began protesting with an anti-anti-war message. “I couldn’t believe it,” a local protester told camera crews. “Iraq, surely we see it. North Korea has been a com on our foot since the ’60s. But Iran? I was se cretly pulling for Russia. Man! That would have been good TV.” The protesters claim that the anti-war protesters could halt fur ther shows, as pressure has been put on television executives to “tone down the harsh rhetoric.” That’s why they’ve adopted the anti-anti-war message. “The anti-war protesters need to just chill out,” the anti-anti war protesters said. “We don’t want anti-anti-anti-war protests, either. Anti-anti-war is all about abolishing anti-war antics abruptly and with alliteration. All we want are more episodes.” And more episodes they will get. Next week, Bush must tackle hidden secrets about each of the remaining three countries that he wasn’t told about. “Word has gone around that North Korea has had some li aisons with South Korea,” an anonymous source said. “I don’t know if I would go so far as to say they were adulterous, but Bush might feel intimidated that South Korea can now fulfill some of North Korea’s needs.” And it doesn’t stop there. The action only gets more intense — and more lowbrow. “A little birdie told me Saddam used to pass gas,” the same source said. Be sure not to miss next week’s episode! The decisions only get harder (“What do you think, hon ey?” Bush asks his wife. “The red tie or blue?”), longer (“Well, the blue tie really brings out your eyes, but it could send the message that you’re too peaceful, so maybe the red tie would be best, but that might cause people to think of blood and that you’re too tyranni cal... ”) and more important (“I’ll go blue. ..v What do you think about the color of my belt?”). Stagg is a second-year media-arts student. IN YOUR OPINION Patel’s lies stain Senate credibility First, let me say that I cov ered Student Government for three-and-a-half years at The Gamecock and voted for Ankit Patel. But I have since become convinced that he is a power hungry, obstinate and patho logical liar. When I first heard that Patel said he didn’t propose an in crease in student fees at the Board of Trustees meeting June 27,1 knew he had lied. I knew because I was there. Patel then told the Student Senate he hadn’t asked for an increase in tuition, but in the portion going to programs. Again, Patel lied, unless he se riously believes the Board will give the programs another $20 a student out of the goodness of their hearts during a budget cri sis. If so, Patel’s inability to grasp reality is more dangerous than his power-grubbing lies. “What happened today was a circus, and I think it reflects poorly on the Senate,” top Patel cheerleader Ginny Wright said. Wright should know. Her ef forts to censor campus organi zations (Public Endorsement Prohibition Act) and her other chores for Patel reflect far more poorly on the Senate than any thing Sens. Hark and Shipman have done. “It was too much drama, and it ended up making us look like a joke,” Sen. Tyler Odom said. Sorry, senator, it’s too late. SG doesn’t just look like a joke; it is a joke. “I don’t really understand how they expected him to re member a line he probably shot from his hip,” Odom said. Fine, if he didn’t remember a line. But if he didn’t remember an entire presentation? Reagan didn’t even try that in the Iran contra affair, and he was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. What’s important here is Patel’s dangerous habit of stretching the bounds of his power and trying to make Senate a subservient body. We saw it when Patel removed Sen. Zach Scott from a presidential commission for daring to chal lenge him; we saw it when he unilaterally pronounced a new constitution — overwhelming ly passed by the student body — null and void, then tried to give himself a stronger hand in appointing members to the ju dicial body that would rule on challenges to his authority; we saw it in his and Wright’s effort to gag student organizations. What happened here was not an innocent mistake on Patel’s part, but a deliberate lie about an action he took backed by the power entrusted to him by the student body. By building his record on a lie, ignoring the Senate and try ing to ride roughshod over the checks and balances built into SG’s system, Patel has done more than soiled his office. He has soiled SG and made it more impotent than it ever was. And that’s something no one, from SG to the students who are still without an honest advocate to the administration, can afford. BRANDON LARRABEE 2002 liSC CRADUATE SG senators should not abuse ‘power’ When I picked up the Jan. 24 issue of The Gamecock, I was dis mayed to learn that J.D. Shipman and Adam Hark are trying to un dermine Ankit Patel’s authority as his term nears its end. When I lived in Maxcy with Adam and J.D. this past year, it became apparent that they took part in unethical activities. Throughout the year, I watched them try to use their political “power” to get out of sticky situ ations unscathed. I am concerned that as J.D. and Adam gain authority in Student Government, they will abuse their power and hurt others in {heir own search for publicity and unfounded respect. Adam and J.D. consider them selves exempt from an ethical code in their search for media at tention and name' recognition. This only becomes more obvious with the announcement that J.D. will run for SG president in the next election. All the information presented in the article suggests that Adam and J.D. took the melodramatic approach to questioning Patel, rather than the calm and logical one. This drama serves to get J.D.’s name in the paper before elections, but is this a reputation he really wants to earn right be fore he tries to earn the trust of the entire USC student body? MARK SMITHER SECOND-YEAR MARKETING-AND MANAGEMENT STUDENT 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. Exports are key to S. C. ’s economy C3 4 BEN EDWARDS GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM State’s future success depends on free trade. South Carolina must encour age exports to achieve economic success. Traditionally, the South has relied on exports to drive its economy. For evidence, look no further than the situation before the Civil War. The South exported cotton and other commodities and used that revenue to buy products from around the world. As tensions rose between the North and South, about slavery and other is sues, the tariffs on imports to the United States rose to as high as 50 percent on iron products in the early months of 1861. These tariffs devalued Southern exports because more cotton had to be exchanged to buy a product than would have been necessary without high tariffs. The tariff burden fell dispropor tionately on the Southern states. Charles Adams, a respected au thor on the history of taxation, says the Southern states paid 84 percent of the revenue generated through tariffs in 1840 and 87 per cent in 1860. This is not to argue, as Karl Marx did, that the Civil War was fought primarily over economic concerns, but rather to illustrate the historical importance of free trade to the South. Marx contended that “the war between the North and the South is a tariff war.” “The war is, further,” he said, “not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.” In actuality, the South would never have been able to develop its tremendous agricultural base without the exploitative and im moral use of slave labor. The eco nomic and moral arguments about determining the cause of the Civil War cannot be analyzed independently. Doing so over simplifies a complex and emo tional issue. The reality remains, however, that free trade has historically been in the best interest of the South and still is today. Jobs cre ated through exports pay 15 per cent more and are 9 percent less likely to be lost than jobs that do not depend on exports. companies sucn as Micnenn, Honda and BMW employ thou sands of South Carolina workers. These jobs depend on exports. The success of these companies drove South Carolina to national promi nence with an increase of 143 per cent in exports from 1993 to 2000, the third highest increase in the nation during this period. Sadly, not all South Carolinians understand the vital importance of trade in attracting better jobs for South Carolina. Many people think that agree ments such as NAFTA hurt the United States because of compe tition from cheaply priced im ports. These considerations aside, adopting protectionist policies can only hurt the United States’ ability to export its products prof itably. More than 94 percent of mar kets are outside the United States. By tapping these markets through better trade policies, South Carolina and the United States as a whole can greatly improve the quality of life for their residents. With Charleston Harbor pro viding a gateway to the world’s markets, not voting for public leaders who support better trade policies will only leave South Carolina behind in creating eco nomic growth. Edwards is a fourth-year philosophy student.