The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 03, 2003, Page 5, Image 5
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IN OUR OPINION
Help colleges
decide merge
_ The committee to discuss the merger of the Liberal
™ Arts and the Math and Sciences colleges meets today,
and USC students need to attend.
It’s at 4:30 p.m., right in the middle of that dead
period between class and dinner, so you have no
excuse.
The merger has ramifications for the entire
university. The colleges would compose more than 40
If you go to this
university and
care about your
degree, whatever
it is, the merger
affects you. A
_ decision of this
™ magnitude should
not be left up to
university
administrators
alone.
percent ui me siuueni Douy anu
would involve an incredible
amount of planning. A new,
heavy college of arts and
sciences could become the
virtual center of the university.
By virtue of major and elective
requirements, every student
would have to deal with it at
one time or another.
A newly powerful mega
college could attract attention
— and therefore research
money — from the government
ana private donors interested in a strong program.
The unified college might also strongarm smaller
university colleges because of its prestige. Either
way, USC students can’t afford to be misinformed
about the issue.
If you go to this university and care about your
degree, whatever it is, the merger affects you. A
decision of this magnitude should not be left up to
university administrators and faculty members
^ alone. Students need to have a say.
Gamecock Quotables
“It has not been a big issue... I
don’t see any more students
congregating outside to
smoke than when I did before
this resolution was passed.”
DEMETRIUS JOHNSON
use ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR RESIDENCE
LIFE ON STUDENTS’ QUIET ACQUIESCENCE TO
USC’S NO-SMOKING POLICY
“A lot of times a young team
will just kind of go and try to
% score more and more goals
and maybe give up a counter
attack that can get you beat.
They showed a lot of wisdom
in some of their decisions
today.”
MARK BERSON
USC MEN'S SOCCER COACH ON THE
GAMECOCKS’ PATIENCE AT A WEEKEND
GAME
“The occupation force is
primarily responsible for the
pure blood that was spilled in
holy Najaf, the blood of al
Hakim and the faithful group
that was present near the
mosque.”
ABDEL-AZIZAL-HAKIM
AT THE FUNERAL OF A LEADING SHIITE
CLERIC WHO WAS KILLED IN A CAR BOMBING
GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS
If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us
at gamecockopinions@hotmail.com.
ABOUT THE GAMECOCK
C Editor in Chief
Charles Tomlinson
Managing Editor
Adam Beam
News Editor
Michael LaForgia
Asst. News Editor
Alexis Stratton
Viewpoints Editor
Corey Garriott
The Mix Editor
Meg Moore
Sports Editor
Brad Senkiw
Asst. Sports Editor
Wes Wolfe
Photo Editor
Morgan Ford
Asst. Photo Editor
□ Trisha Shadwell
Head Page Designers
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Stagg
Page Designers
Justin Bajan, Samanthe
Hall, Staci Jordan
Slot Copy Editors
. Amy Genoble, Alyson
Goff, Tricia Ridgway
Copy Editors
Gabrielle Sinclair, Mary
Waters, Steven Van
Haren
t Online Editor
' James Tolbert
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Offices on third floor of the Russell House.
Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com
News: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com
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Online: www.dailygamecock.com
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Editor’s Office: 777-3914
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Johnson, Ryan
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Hines
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 1
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
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The Gamecock
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Advertising: 777-3888
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■
Webmail never fails to fail
COREY GARRIOTT
GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM
I can’t check my mail,
rarely my assignments.
There can’t be any Web site in
the world as well maintained as
http://webmail.sc.edu. After all,
the note about the “progress of
configuration and testing” nev
er disappears from the page.
Nor is there a more informa
tive Web site. For weeks, the site
has failed to log me in — “for
some reason.”
When I called to complain,
computer services told me that
the system, which could have
won efficiency awards in the for
mer Soviet Union, was under the
weather from viruses.
Well, yes, but GEM has never
worked properly. I use it because
the mailbox.sc.edu domain looks
more professional on resumes
than something like cocky
boy@dogmail.com. So I feel held
hostage by the service, which
claims this will all be over soon.
“This should take about a week,”
the Web site says.
And then, when I log into the
site — invoking several saints
along the way — Webmail per
forms a feat of counter-intuition.
As if the site isn’t hard enough to
use, Webmail digs this protective
moat around its inbox with a big
garnet screen that comes up af
ter log-in. The screen displays
one button, “Inbox.”
This buffers the real inbox
with yet another layer of page to
sit through, apparently to apply
twice the pain.
Speaking of unbearable pain,
there’s our other Internet service
that’s potentially useful in theo
ry, unrelenting in use. If
Webmail is an acrobat for irrita
tion, Blackboard might have
been a feature in Dante’s Inferno
as one of the punishments for
Whenever this happens, I
like to call it Whiteboard,
because it’s totally white.
GRAPHIC BY COREY GARRIOTT/THE
GAMECOCK
The infamous “some reason”
error that GEM users must
deal with every day.
corrupt popes.
While blackboard.sc.edu lets
you log in more often than
Webmail — almost daily — it’s
really just to lead you in, Venus
Elytrap-style. When you’re
caught, you’ve already sunk so
much time into the site that
there’s no going back.
Blackboard’s worst isn’t when
it won’t respond to my clicking,
which is often, but when it does
respond — with a blank frame.
The bottom part of Blackboard,
the part with information, totally
disappears and leaves me won
dering why I trusted it again.
Whoops. Gotta go. I wrote this
article while I waited for GEM to
come back up, and it’s finally giv
ing me the useless screen of in
box. I’d better take advantage of
its sudden kindness before I can’t
use it for another week.
Corey Garriott is a third-year
ohilosophy and economics
student.
IN YOUR OPINION
Bush didn’t cut
Pell Grant funding
Pell Grant funding has not
been cut, as claimed in a
Viewpoints article Aug. 21,
2003. As a graduate of the USC
School of Law, I am proud to
report that, to the contrary,
President George W. Bush re
quested nearly $2 billion in ad
ditional funding for Pell
Grants for 2004, and in July
the House approved a bill to
increase funding to $12.3 bil
lion — the highest level in his
tory.
However, some groups are
using scare tactics to confuse
families and students about
the Republican pro-education
agenda. This is a shame be
cause educating our children
and assisting with the high
cost of college should not be a
partisan issue.
The' Department of
Education is required under
the Higher Education Act to
update specific tax tables used
in calculating need for feder
al aid by June 1 of this year.
This updating requirement
was passed by a Democrat
controlled Congress in 1992,
led by Senator Kennedy who
now criticizes the Department
for complying with the law he
helped draft.
Sadly, these false accusa
tions have been lobbed at
Bush’s administration to
score political points and only
serve — if taken seriously —
to discourage families and stu
dents from seeking financial
aid for which they would like
ly qualify.
As a member of the U.S.
House Committee on
Education and the Workforce,
I am committed to finding
ways to increase access to
higher education for all qual
ified students.
Personally, I authored a re
cently passed bill that in
creases student loan forgive
ness for teachers in math, sci
ence and special education
who teach in disadvantaged
school districts.
I would also like to remind
students that incurring debt
for a college education is likely
the best investment they can
make.
During his career, a person
with a college degree will earn
more than $1 million more
than someone without a de
gree. I believe education is the
greatest enabler and equaliz
er in our society, and, along
with Bush, I am committed to
making college available to all
South Carolina students.
U.S. REP. JOE WILSON
■SC. IIKIM'IIUCAN CONCItKSStoAN
A____ __
Hiiicuuii.uum selves
students money
This letter is in response or
in addition to “Students look to
online book stores to lower ex
penses.”
I personally have spent over
$250 on books this semester,
and that isn’t even all of them. I
can’t believe for a second that
bookstores only make a few
cents on each book. They buy
back books for nothing and sell
them for ridiculous prices.
My solution is to go to
Amazon.com! The books at
Amazon are always less than
the bookstores. Plus, you can
also sell them at the end of the
semester. There are book deal
ers that sell there, but so do oth
er students. It gives us a chance
to at least break even on our
books.
Don’t sell back to the book
stores — use Amazon.com.
MELANIE VERONA
TIIIUD-VKAII HOSPITALITY AND
TOURISM MANAGEMENT STUDENT
Muaents win stay
on greener campus
As an out-of-state student
and a person lacking a car, I
can’t feel the slightest twinge of
remorse at sacred parking
space being destroyed for park
or greenery.
It’s slightly irritating to find
one’s dorm emptied out on the
weekends because everyone is
going home an hour away.
If anything, the lack of park
ing space will discourage stu
dents from bringing cars here,
encourage them to stop running
back home when they feel like
it and, instead, actually start to
really live at college as opposed
to just attending classes here.
SEAN SIBERIO
FIRST-YEAR INTERNATIONAL
RI'SINKNN 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
gamecockopinions@hotmail.com.
Letters will be edited. Anonymous letters
will not be published. Call the newsroom
at 777-7726 for more information.
r ■
Biased
media
has its
benefits
ROB SEAL
GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM
Who needs real news
when you have ET?
Let’s all send up a round of ap
plause for biased journalism. I
love it. I don’t want normal news;
T want bent, twisted, idealized
news that comes straight from the
mind of some propaganda master.
Forget reputable print media
like The New York Times and The
Washington Post. Give me The
Weekly World News, or better yet,
Rush Limbaugh. Wait, Limbaugh
doesn’t cut it anymore. My toler
ance has increased. I need Ann
Coulter.
• I don’t want to know anything
else about the death toll in Iraq. I
don’t care about economic reces
sion. Honestly, I could give a rat’s
behind about a Venezuelan oil cri
sis. What I bum and yearn for is
Bill O’Reilly’s opinion on A1
Franken. Now that’s news. Better
yet, show me re-aired footage of
those two respectable journalists
egging each other on during a
CSPAN2 BookWorld broadcast.
I’m tired of trite topics like
“journalism ethics.” And I never
heard anybody ask the really
pressing question about Jayson
Blair, which was, “Who is this
guy anyway?” I’ve been fired be
fore, and nobody showed up with
a television camera.
In fact, forget print media all
together. What the world needs
now is more Entertainment
Television. I want to see Emanuel
Lewis ferociously biting the an
kle of some ill-fated pop photog
rapher. I need an update on the
Scott Peterson case, complete
with file footage of a helicopter
view of his home.
I want a world where no one in
the journalism community even
tries to shake my firmly held be
lief that Condoleezza Rice is a
spicy dish with jalapeno peppers
and guacamole.
nie uui uiiiig mcu jLiwpie ui my
generation need is the news. What
we really need is another install
ment of “Survivor.”
The lone exception to the uni
versal crappiness of all print me
dia is the opinion page at The
Gamecock. Viewpoints contains
the sum of all human knowledge,
if you look carefully enough.
What I want is Arnold
Schwarzenegger for President,
and never mind that he’s from
Austria. What I want is Lou
Ferrigno as his defense secretary,
complete with his Hulk outfit and
those twin guys from “The
Barbarians” sharing time as at
torney general. We need Dolph
Lundgren installed as the
Director of Homeland Security
and Fabio as a national security
adviser. Now that would be news.
I think all cable news outlets
should become Fox News affili
ates and all print media should
be dedicated to conspiracy theo
ries about the Republican Party,
with occasional coverage of ele
phant-sized babies and alien
auuuuuuns.
I have a dream in which all
news is created crappy, and no
body bothers to read it anymore.
The concept of objective journal
ism should be cleared from the
minds of students everywhere,
and the public relations press re
lease should replace the special
edition newspaper. I want more
advertising and less content. I
want The Gamecock editoriaL
pieces on why parking sucks so
bad.
If these things could be ac
complished, and we could possi
bly resurrect classic news stories
like the O.J. Simpson trial, then
perhaps journalism would have
a future.
Rob Seal is a fifth-year print
journalism student.