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4 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Monday, March 17, 2003 SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Should USC charge students www.dailygamecock.com or tuition by the credit hour? send letters to the editor to www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockviewpoints@hotmail.com Results published on Fridays. IN OUR OPINION Run a shuttle to Five Points USC once considered running a shuttle to and from Five Points. For a marginal fee, the shuttle would conveniently and safely cart students back to campus after a night on the town. Former USC President John Palms kiboshed the plan because he said it would encourage underage drinking and because of potential problems between the Five Points Merchants Association and USC’s Board of Trustees. The project was dropped. With a new Now, with a new president in president in charge of use, the shuttle plan Charge Of USC, should be proposed again in the the plan for a midst of reports that crime— Shuttle to Five hold-ups and muggings—is Points Should be rising in Five Points. Jessica proposed again Black, a second-year graduate in the midst Of business student, was fired at reports that twice by a robber in Five Points Clime ere IS ^ast montb. Lesha Utsey, on the rise. . , _ _ .. spokeswoman for the Columbia Police Department, said robberies have been on the rise lately, possibly because of economic downturns. A shuttle might or might not encourage underage drinking; either way, enforcement of the law is the responsibility of the police and individual bars. But without the shuttle, USC students could find themselves at the end of a gunpoint. The shuttle would also help prevent drunken driving. Both underage and legal drinkers sometimes drive under the influence; regardless of the legality, both cases could end in tragedy. And a new president i might give the program another chance. College Quote Board MICHIGAN DAILY JOSEPH LITMAN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN q “My man G-Dub is an em barrassment. ... Whether he’s inventing language, pausing ev ery six seconds to remember what he’s been told to say next or simply bungling a common •- aphorism, G-Dub constantly makes himself seem stupid, and that reflects poorly on the pub lic that both voted for him and has allowed him to remain a bumbling fool. We should feel ashamed of him, and mostly, ourselves.” OKLAHOMA DAILY AMINTA OSSOM, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA “American entertainment is a disgrace, and it is unfortunate that the rest of the world inter prets the entertainment indus try’s images and messages as representations of this society. “Although large corpora tions and studios are the mak ers of most entertainment, it is equally true that viewers share in the responsibility to for what the entertainment industry produces. Viewers get what they ask for.” GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS An article about Islam in last Wednesday’s paper should have stated that Muslims profess their faith by saying, “There is no God « but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” 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 Jessica Foster, 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 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 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 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 tvyc.ee ? s«iNMt»' scoM«.K»»« '&ot»ipT« '£<£ HlTSoHfTKIN4>»" CARTOON BY HANNAH ANGSTADT/THE GAMECOCK China could sway N. Korea PATRICK AUGUSTINE GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM U.S. needs help from evolving Asian nation. America faces an internation al crisis of epic proportions, and it is not in the Middle East. While the world is focused on the outcome of UN inspections in Iraq, North Korea has reactivat ed its nuclear weapons program in defiance of a 1994 treaty it signed with the US and the in ternational community. Unlike Iraq, the North Koreans possess the ability to produce weapons grade nuclear material, and it is estimated that they could enrich enough for several bombs by July. Also, North Korea has bal listic missiles capable of reach ing our west coast and implicit ly anywhere in Asia, a fact that makes their nuclear ambitions all the more ominous for the world community. What should frighten Americans is not that North Korea can build a nuke, but that its poverty-stricken, authoritar ian regime would go so far as to sell nuclear material to terrorist groups like al-Qaida. Furthermore, while Iraq can successfully be contained by the coalition troops who have pa trolled its borders since 1991, the threat of military force will only provoke the already unstable leader of North Korea, Kim Jung H. This is a man who stands 5 feet 3 inches and compensates by wearing platform shoes and Transformer costumes — hardly the man you want at the helm of a nation with nuclear capabilities. In much the same way that sanctions have impacted the peo ple of Iraq and not its leadership, continuing to isolate North Korea will not achieve world security. Similarly, North Korea distrusts Washington’s diplomatic over tures because of the American troops stationed along the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas, where they have been since the cease-fire that ended the Korean War. We alone cannot bring peace to the region either through military force or negoti ation; we need China’s help. China has been a growing force in the region by virtue of its pop ulation and economic signifi cance, and therefore it makes sense to include them in negotia tions that concern the security of their region. Furthermore, though, is the fact that they pro vide the preponderance of the aid that Pyongyang receives from the international community, and thus have significant leverage with the North Koreans. Don’t think, however, that this Sino-Korean closeness stems from the fact that both nations are com munist — they are both so in name only. When I was in Beijing in 1996, the joke was that the na tional bird of China was the con struction crane, and one look at the smoggy skyline was enough to confirm the fact that the coun try was, and still is, modernizing. The Communist Party under stood that to resist modernity and open markets was to ensure a swift end to their power, while opening the state to limited capi talism would allow them to main tain a tenuous hold on power. While corruption is rife, the openness that is allowing China to move into the technological age will eventually undermine communism and lead to the democracy that the student lead ers of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising longed for. 2008 will see Beijing lift the veil on an extensive campaign to re construct the city for the Summer Olympics, but it is only through engaging China and confirming their fundamental role in Asian affairs that we can hope for peace and democracy in the region, and change in North Korea. Augustine is a third-year political-science student. IN YOUR OPINION Pro-war arguments don’t make sense This letter is in response to Allyson Bird’s column (“Ignoring Iraq is not an op tion,” Feb. 28). Saddam Hussein is agree ably a bad man, and pretty much everyone wants him out of power. This is not the issue. The issue is how to go about it. Saddam Hussein is not the cause of everyone dying in Iraq, as Bird insinuates. In fact, it is economic sanctions from the United States and the use of depleted uranium bomb shells that we used in the Gulf War that is killing millions of Iraqi children and other citizens. Bird mentions things such as “push-button power,” and how the protest movement has “forgotten the events of Sept. 11.” The latter statement bor ders on one of the most absurd things I’ve heard all year but, for the sake of argument, I’ll ad dress it. Sept. 11, which involved mostly Saudi citizens and not Iraqis, is largely unlinked to Iraq and Saddam. It scares me that the United States has this “push-button power” in a world that is supposed to be peaceful. It makes no sense how peace will come from this action, and our European allies see this same fallacy in Bush’s argu ment. Our country gave every sin gle weapon Saddam has to Iraq in the late ’80s, when we wanted him to overthrow Iran. Dick Cheney was getting rich by selling these weapons, and Donald Rumsfeld was vis iting Baghdad to befriend Saddam. As for how Iraq should be dealt with, I think the inspec tions are working. Saddam made the decision to destroy his Al-Samoud missiles as re quested, and Hans Blix has said that further compliance and co operation is becoming a reali ty. We should let the inspectors do their jobs and quit warmon gering before we are put out of the world community. MATT SMITH FIRST-YEAR HISTORY STUDENT Undergrads aren’t qualified to teach I can be a witness that USC is not placing its students as a priority. I am a continuing-ed ucation student and had the most unpleasant experience of having an undergraduate as my lab instructor. She was unprofessional in her behavior during lab, flirt ing with one of the male stu dents, yelling at the class for no apparent reason and becoming annoyed when students asked her to explain material. At one point, she danced around the room with a pineapple on her head! I could not believe USC hired undergraduates to teach their labs. I placed a call to Clemson University and, to my surprise, found out they do not utilize un derclassmen to teach at all. They have graduate students teaching as well as some visit ing Ph.D. professors. If things do not change, there will be no way I send my sons to USC. Budget cuts do not need to be at the expense of a quali ty education, and having un dergraduates serve as lab in structors is insulting. LINDA MALDONADO 1986 USC GRADUATE Doctors should stop doing circumcisions The Aug. 22,2002 circumcision death of a baby boy in Vancouver, British Columbia should be a wake-up call for par ents, physicians and hospitals alike. No medical group in the world recommends infant circumci sion, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians ana gynecologists, the Canadian Paediatric Society, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, the Australian College of Paediatrics, the Australian Medical Association, the British Medical Association, and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.' Parents, protect your children. Physicians and Hospitals, stop performing unnecessary, painful, mutilating circumcisions upon defenseless children for your fi nancial gain. PETRINA FADEL CROTON, N.Y. 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. Submissions are limited to two per person per semestgf. Call the newsroom at 777-7726 for n(6re information. use to soon be awash in green TYLER JONES GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Ralph Nader to make a St. Patrick’s Day visit. When the arsonist St. Patrick lit the Irish countryside on fire in the fifth century, it is quite cer tain that the inaugural St. Patty’s Day bash went something like this: pagans dancing, lots of drink ing, bonfires raging, and ol’ Patty waving around crosses and con verting the godless savages right and left. But as history writes, the first true St. Patrick’s Day celebration kicked off on March 17,1762, in the Big Apple. Fast-forward to 2003. Our celebrations probably look more like the one in the fifth century, with ale flowing and boozy revelers playing the part of the undisciplined heathen. And so it should be. St. Patrick’s Day is a symbolic start of spring, a sea son where our good friend photo synthesis gives us back the green we have missed all winter long. And speaking of green, word has it that the monotone prince of consumer rights will be in our back yard tomorrow to give the USC community a stirring speech on something that has to do with either war, recession or seat belts. That’s right, Ralph Nader will be packing them in the Russell House tomorrow to spread the gospel of the Green Party to a bunch of political zom bies fresh off a week of spring break brouhaha. course, lUDe mere 10 usien to the third party leader who has no shot of ever winning an elec tion, unless he moves to Sweden where the Green Party might take a third of the vote. Sure, Nader is a good guy, a necessary foil to the greedheads in Washington, but show up Tuesday night and take a good look at the crowd gathered to see the author of “Unsafe at Any Speed,” and you are sure to get a glimpse of some of the most well-educated losers that America has to offer. But if the Nader crowd isn’t green enough for you and you like your losers in white, then head on down to Augusta in mid-April, where the green is ubiquitous and so will be the controversy. Word is that Martha Burk and her gals (possible Naderettes) will be in full protest mode along with South Carolina native Rev. Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow/Push Coalition And let’s not forget the clean linen of the Ku Klux Klan, who plan to throw their hoods in the ring for their own band of 19th century-style political protest. The possibility of something truly gruesome and jaw-dropping is not out of the question. With this wonderfully designed quag mire in Iraq festering on the but tocks of society, the potential for some ugly scene that shatters the social sanity of this country is en tirely possible. Who knows? Perhaps some vicious race and gender riot could erupt and set us back into the ’50s? I doubt Dubya and Ashcroft would mind a quick departure back to the silent conformity of the Eisenhower days. So when you hoist up a few for St. Patrick and the rest of the shamrocked sycophants running around today, think of the green that will be dominating the land scape in the coming weeks, and remember what that little frog puppet said: “It isn’t easy being green.” That is, unless you’re Tiger Woods, and the only green you worry about is the color of your jackets. Jones is a graduate student in the College of Njass Communications and Information Studies.