Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Harvey Milk CONTINUED FROM PAGE A9 a society where 40 percent of high school students admit to prejudice against homosexuals, and gay kids lack positive rfcle models, the high rate of suicide among gay teens is unsurprising. Gay-straight alliances, while growing in number, are often not a feasible solution, especially in rural areas. Many students who spearhead these alliances are stymied by conservative school boards or hindered by fear of reprisal from their homophobic peers. The Harvey Milk High School, a joint project of the Hetrick Martin Institute and the New York City Department of Education, offers a remedy for the barrage of harassment, and the crushing isolation, tMt many gay teens face. oiarieu in iso'i, me nai vey Milk School recently received a grant to increase its enrollment from its current 50 students to more than 100. Far from offering a panacea for all gay high school students in New York City, Harvey Milk School serves a small number of at-risk teens. Though most of their students are gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans . gendered (GLBT), the school wel comes heterosexual students as well. HMS offers a safe environment for teens who could not reach their full potential in a main stream school because of harass ment, physical violence or other reasons. The school Web site is careful to note that most GLBT students in the New York City area are ed ucated in “regular” schools, and if it were possible, all GLBT kids would be. Far from a vague liberal ideal, Harvey Milk has the numbers to prove that it works. Ninety per cent of its students graduate from high school, far above the New York City norm. Sixty percent en roll in higher education. . The school offers GLBT teens the opportunity to learn without fear. They have positive role mod els, counselors and peer support - the stuff gay'adolescent dreams are made of. But Harvey Milk School suffers its share of attacks. Some critics maintain that a school for GLBT teens smacks of segregation, though Harvey Milk is no differ ent from the plethora of publicly funded specialty high school springing up around the country. In South Carolina, the Governor’s Schools for arts and sciences offer high achievers opportunities for. learning that their local high school couldn’t provide. However, while the Gov ernor’s Schools serve students who could thrive in a main stream high school, Harvey Milk does not. The students at Harvey Milk need a small specialty school to achieve. Conservatives ballyhoo that the government should not pay for student’s “lifestyle choices.” However, excelling in school is as much a lifestyle choice as living life outside the closet. You can choose to be who you are, or you can choose to cloak yourself for peer approved. Many intelligent students perform poor ly in school for fear of peer reprisal, just as many gay stu dents choose to adopt the trap pings of heterosexuality. Homosexuality is not, and never has been, a “lifestyle choice.” The kids at Harvey Milk didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be gay. No one picks a life riddled with harassment and stymied by _i_ii_ CJ UU1UU. Harvey Milk School offers a safe haven for a minority of at-risk teens. The government has an obligation to provide a safe learn ing environment for all children. Gay kids across America, both in Harvey Milk and out, aren’t sim ple functions of their sexuality. They are humans beings, with the same emotions, rights and privi leges as the rest. Harvey Milk School gives GLBT teens accep tance, a place to be themselves — something all teens, both gay and straight, crave. Elizabeth Catanese is a graduate student in thefine arts. NATE BROWN THE ILLINOIS STATE DAILY VINDETTE Repeat after me: still no weapons of mass destruction found. It was a contrast in terms that, three weeks ago, when I read the front page of the Chicago Tribune, I was sitting in a very liberal household. In large, bold letters, the Tribune announced that President George W. Bush had indeed “misled” the public re garding the nuclear arms fiasco with Iraq. My Aunt Mary, a staunch democrat, laughed and nicely whispered “told you so.” I shrugged. It wasn’t the first time we were lied to by a president. Does the name Bill Clinton ring a bell? But it was the mag TIRED OF SEEING YOUR GAMECOCK JEWELRY ON EVERYONE ELSE? . _ . A Sterling silver Gamecock pendant on red or black soft suede cording. Available in limited quantities, just $34. BE uniquely! 11 I UNIQUE STERLING, STONES AND SURPRISES! Harden Street behind The Firm Harbison Boulevard next to Publix www.behandpicked.com » Bush withdraws $270 million in grants WES WOLFE GAMECOCKVIEWPOINTS@HOTMAIL.COM Apparently, Bush will leave some children behind after all. In July, when most students were working or partying or both, a report came out from the federal government detailing the impact of the new formula.for doling out financial aid. The news from Congress’ re search arm, the Congressional Research Service, should come as a shock to most students. Under the Bush administra tion’s new formula, 84,000 stu dents that have a Pell grant this year will not be eligible to receive a Pell grant next year. Moreover, a total of $270 mil lion will be cut from the program. The Pell grant is the federal gov ernment’s main grant program for student financial aid. This will undoubtedly result in more students receiving smaller grants and having to rely more on loans. Not to mention more than a million students will have to shoulder the effects of the cut, ac cording to Brian Fitzgerald, who heads up Congress’ Advisory Committee on Student Financial Aid Assistance. At USC, 3,900 students re ceived a Pell grant in the 2002 2003 academic year, and 3,700 Pell grants have been awarded so far this academic year. More stu dents are expected to be added to the list in the coming weeks. The USC Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships does not yet have any statistics on how the cuts will affect USC students. In a Washington Post article on the subject in June, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education Sally Stroup said “the changes will have a minimal impact on a handful of students.” Many students and their par ents certainly would not consider a $270 million reduction in the Federal government’s main grant program “minimal.” At a time when the economy is down and tuition costs are going up, why does President Bush allow his Department of Education to make a de facto cut in funding for higher education? This definitely looks bad ei ther way. Bush either does not care about helping middle-class families secure a college educa tion for their children, or he is to tally out of touch with the work ings of the government he is sup posed to be leading. During his campaign for the presidency, the president talked about how he would “leave no child behind.” Well, there are about 84,000 students being left behind here, and he isn’t doing one thing about it. After all, the financial aid formula hasn’t been changed for almost 10 years, so why should it be changed now, when times for students with financial need are so bad? Students at public universities across the country average be tween $15,000 and $25,000 worth of financial aid debt when they graduate. Why should this situa tion be made worse? Why should students be plunged into a hole of debt just to get a degree? This is the sort of out-of-touch attitude and blatant disregard for the American middle class that got Bush’s daddy voted out of of fice. I guess we can just tack this on to the Pyrrhic victory in Iraq and the stagnating economy as one more reason that President Bush will not be president come next November. Wes Wolfe is a 5th-year public relations student. Our faith in Bush will wear thin soon nitude of the lie — the cause and effect of that lie. The urgency to go to war with Iraq was based on two things — Iraq was building and hiding weapons of mass destruction and Iraq would have nuclear ca pabilities that could put the world in immediate danger. While the former has yet to be proven, the latter turned out to be a big fib. Liberals 1, conservatives 0. While the liberals dance around, celebrate, rubbing the conservatives’ noses in it, the staunch right wingers stay true to their claim that the WMD’s will be found. I supported Bush’s claim that Iraq had some weapons they were hiding and later on, could , sell to the highest bidder to raise a mushroom cloud over New York, Los Angeles or Chicago. I stood behind my president when he talked of how the war would get rid of a tyrant and free the Iraqi people. When the Saddam statue top pled, we were told that the weapons would be found short ly. Nearly five months later, they have yet to be uncovered. Recently, when Saudi Arabia was found to have Sept. 11 blood on its hands, no actions were taken. This enraged me as the claims of others, whom I previ ously disagreed with, echoed in my mind. Sadly, it seems to be true that this war was “all about oil.” Many military personnel as well as Iraqi civilians were killed. The Iraqi people may now have freedom, but they face a long rebuilding process. And the soldiers in Iraq continue their attempts at keeping the peace, despite those that have — and still are — dying for their best efforts. My faith isn’t shaken in the presidency. I don’t know how I’d react in his shoes. However, I know I’d try to make moral de cisions that served the best in terests of the country and the world. For me, Bush’s vote is hang ing by a thread. It seems that nothing has been done to secure our country from terrorism. According to Fox News host Sean Hannity, there are 8.7 mil lion illegal immigrants. Many of the terrorists of 911 were reputed for being illegal aliens on expired visas. Why are our airports just as vulnerable to attack as they were before Sept. 11? Why are we standing around watching attacks on Americans across the world unravel and not doing anything to protect them, and us? Connect the dots. Before Sept. 11, we stood by and watched the bombing in the World Trade Centerand the em bassy in Kenya. We also witnessed the USS Cole bombing and that horrific Tuesday in September two years ago. Recently, a club in Monaco has been bombed overseas. Tuesday, the hotel housing U.N. officials in Baghdad was bombed, killing 20. The picture looked like a ghastly image of the bombed em bassy in Kenya. Did anyone no tice? So, President Bush, forget the “gayness” of others. Put aside the axis of evil right now. Focus on our country, our safety, and our future. Tell us the truth and no fibs. Consider a job in California KABIR SEHGAL THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE DARTMOUTH rhey might have an opening for governor soon - it’s ail the rage. Confused with the California recall? Yeah, things are pretty iicey, but more than that, ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger en tered the California gubernato rial race, weird things have been happening. It’s been raining more, the Red Sox are still in the race, Libya took full blame for the 1988 Lockerbee Pan-Am attacks, the lights went out (the blackout lidn’t affect Hanover, another ex ample that we live “in dabub ble”), someone even told me that they saw a Chi Gam smiling for mce. This goes to show you that Arnold’s decision to run is af fecting more than your run-of the-mill California Democrat. Arnold’s decision got me think ing not only “how good a gover nor would he be?” but “who else should have run?” and “what would happen if they did?” Initially, I had serious doubts about a Gov. Schwarzenegger, inside from the perfunctory cam paign lines “Hasta la vista, Gray Davis,” and “Gov. Davis won’t be back,” I was looking for some substance. When investor Warren Buffet andorsed Arnold, California’s aconomic prospects glimmered more. Then former U.S. Treasury Secretary George Shultz signed up, another indicator that Arnold’s bipartisan rolodex bodes well for California. Jump to the L section of the rolodex and substance personi fied pops up in actor Rob Lowe, who recently joined the cam paign. Buffet, Shult^uind Lowe — Arnold’s dreamtebm. Whomever Gov. Schwarz enegger has in his advisory cabi net will have credentials (or faux credentials in the case of Rob Lowe), but credentials nonethe less. And more and more we’ll start to believe in Arnold’s words, “[I’ll] do for politics what I did for acting.” Joking aside, I think Gov. Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be half bad. Gov. Davis is the real joke and maybe it’s time, if Arnold is elected, that the buffoonery had to do more with the governor’s previous profession than perfor mance record. Gov. Schwarzenegger would be as fresh as dew, which got me thinking: “Who else should have run for governor of California?” The ballot is already littered with such fantasy candidates as pun dit Ariana Huffington, porn ped dler Larry Flynt, actor Gary Coleman and (a fantasy in his own mind) Gray Davis. But who else could have entered the race and really spiced things up? 1) Barry Bonds — he’s a Californian playing for the San Francisco Giants and all. His name recognition is astronomi cally high. Folks will say he shouldn’t run because he’s chas ing some home run record, but Barry wouldn’t just be spice in the governor’s office, he’d be the fiery paprika. With his lightening rod per sonality that switches from an gry to very angry to thunder struck “pissed” in 3.7 nanosec onds, imagine what he would do to the press corps with his 34 inch 32-ounce bat...he’d slug them back to Louisville. Gov. Bonds might introduce such legislation as “Cracker Jack for all” and “Electricity for all,” a program that sucks all the ener gy from bordering states and Pittsburgh and routes it to California. As a baseball player, he’s well qualified for gayernor — he’s already got the Spitting and scratching down. 2) Gary Condit (remember him?) — the ousted congressman who was accused of wrongdoing in the Chandra Levy case. If Condit built a gubernatorial arc, he’d put only one thing on it: re venge. Gray Davis back-stabbed him. The Democrats besmirched him. The media blazed him. The Republicans were the Republicans. Condit wouldn’t have to please anyone. He would be out for him self and himself alone (see Machiavelli or ask any politi cian). Condit would add some pizzazz (and grease) to the race because you’d never know who ^ would be in the line of his vin dictive fire. 3) Martha Stewart — the em battled homemaker guru, she has all the makings to run. One re call observer says, “You have to be a little self-serving to be in the recall race.” I’d say that Martha’s got that down. Word on the street is that Martha’s so self-serving, so ego maniacal, she gets her X-rays touched up. She’d give Arnold a run for his money; he’s worth something like $400 million, give or take a few hundred million, but she’s a billionaire. Gov. Stewart could even try to pardon herself as governor, free ing her from the legal torment she finds herself in now. I don’t know what type of policies Gov. * ^ Stewart would introduce, but W Californians would surely learn how to use an oyster fork. 4) The Dartmouth Moose — the unofficial, quickly becoming official, mascot of the college should’ve entered the race to face some real competition. When you’re on the ballot with a Yeti and Forrester, the average moose starts to look like Teddy Moosevelt. A moose would spice up the recall, and we’d learnJf our new mascot was as popu»r here as it is out there.