Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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0 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, September 17, 2003 SOUNDOFF TTT^TlTTl/^TATmO ONLINEPOLL Create message boards at I 1-4 M B ■ I I I Should USC discontinue www.dailygamecock.com or I I ' J m / %/ I I ■ I I I l the “Cocks” merchandise? send letters to the editor to I I J W W I \ I k. 1 www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockbpinions@hotmail.com —®—■ —m A » f —■— S —I— A l —I— rv—' Results published on Fridays. IN OUR OPINION USC needs to be consistent USC athletics decided in May to stop using the term “Cocks” on all USC-affiliated merchandise at Williams-Brice Stadium, excluding hats — the best selling merchandise. The term is being replaced with the team’s full nickname, “Gamecocks.” The enigmatic five-letter word has become synonymous with USC’s sports teams. s. . The athletics department says it'never intended to regulate the private sector, only the store at Williams-Bnce stadium. But businesses were denied requests for the merchandise, with dealers saying they were no longer allowed to print the Word “Cocks.” As a matter of public relations, discontinuing the word on merchandise is understandable. Outside of South Carolina, or at least the South, the word plastered on apparel is otten received with misunderstanding. Considering the athletics department’s willingness to leave the word only on hats — USC’s biggest sellers — it seems that the university’s morals are directly related to whether the price is right. The athletics department needs to rethink its logic and be consistent. If people are comfortable with displaying the dreaded word across their foreheads, then there is no reason to take away the word on everything else. If people are comfortable with displaying the dreaded word across their foreheads, then there is no reason to take away the word on everything else. Winners and Sinners READERSHIP PROGRAM Students get a chance to pick from some of the best news literature around, sans Playboy. ANDREW SORENSEN Gets initial approval to build his dream hotel on Columbia campus. JOHN EDWARDS Announces run for president on USC’s campus. BLACKOUT Causes half of campus to sit in dark silence, question reality. BEN AFFLECK “Entertainment Tonight” says Benny from the Bronx had second thoughts. ISABEL The most-powerful storm in four years is looking to pick up the pace once it hits the Gulf Stream. 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 Editor in Chief Charles Tomlinson Managing Editor Adam Beam News Editor Michael LaForgia Asst. News Editor Alexis Stratton Viewpoints Editor Gabrielle Sinclair 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 Shawn Rourk, David Stagg Page Designers Justin Bajan, Samantha Hall, Staci Jordan, Philip Whitehead Slot Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Alyson Goff, Tricia Ridgway Copy Editors Mary Waters. Steven Van Haren Online Editor James Tolbert Public Affairs Kimberly Dressier CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@hotmail.com News: gamecockudesk@hotmail.com Viewpoints: gamecockopinions@hotmail.com The Mix: gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com Sports: gamecocksports@hotmail.com Public Affairs: gckpublicaffairs@hotmail.com Oniine: www.dailygamecock.com Newsroom: 777-7726 Editor’s Office: 777-3914 STUDENT MEDIA Director Scott Lindenberg Faculty Adviser Erik Collins Creative Director Susan King Business Manager Carolyn Griffin Advertising Manager Sarah Scarborough Classified Manager Sherry F. Holmes Production Manager Amber Justice Creative Services Whitney Bridges, Robbie Burnett, Sean O'Meara Advertising Staff John Blackshire, Adam Bourgoin, Ben Sinclair, Jesica Johnson, Ryan Gorman, Laytoya 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 Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is th$ 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 Goov f A MW u»TV «5how/ T Vol£To jh^ow that 6^y > a \ fcAT/C > S'MTlA^ np tha^ A*C? \vS CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Crisis puts life in perspective ALLYSON BIRD GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Football takes a back seat to preparation. In a swirl of wind and beer, two seasons are converging right at this moment. The uncertainty of Isabel’s path looms overhead, while the uncertainty of games to come looms somewhere a bit closer afield. Here, hurricane season meets football seasoh. There are two types of people who live in the fall months: the football fans and the evacuators. And chances are, they’ll all need to be on that same strip of inter state starting tomorrow. Chances are you’ve caught the football bug if the only politics you’ve kept up with in the past few weeks can be summed up in two words: “Vote Cocky.” And chances are you’ve got hurricane fever if you found Sunday night’s few-minute pow er outage on campus to be an omen of the storm to come. As I stumble back to reality from the drunken brawl that was Athens, Ga., this past weekend, I no longer feel out of the football loop. I can honestly say that I made a road trip in the name of football. Even if I didn’t make it to the game, I was at the tailgate from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. But all the while, the evacua tor was still in me. As my family and friends living in Charleston keep their eyes on Isabel, I know that I might have guests for Parents Weekend after all — lots of them. I hope my roommates don’t mind half our belongings and a Great Dane puppy around the apartment for a few days. But there is a third party on the fall ticket, and that is the spectators. They’re not watching football or nature; they’re watch ing the rest of us. They’re the ones who buy that last pack of batteries for their electric toothbrushes as the woman carrying eight crates of bottled water and a lifetime supply of Spam strains to reach it. These are the people from three states away who always have tickets to your school’s game but assure you they could get double what you’re willing to pay. But they don’t win in the end. As I learned this weekend, foot ball is a time for family and friends to tackle their troubles and stomp them away into a patch of green. Even though we USC folk were barked at all weekend in Georgia, we were still welcomed as fellow fans. Especially after they chewed us a new rear end. And even though a storm like Isabel, previously a rare and se vere Category 5 hurricane and now a Category 3, could make life considerably more worrisome, we’ll be forced to forget about all our petty problems for just a few days and focus on the big picture barreling through. As we slip into survival mode, we will be families and we will be a community. The peak of these seasons will be gone in a matter of weeks, and thoughts of hurricanes and foot ball will fade. But if we happen to be more than just spectators while they’re here, the camaraderie of this mo ment will stick with us a whole lot longer. Bird is a second-year print journalism student. IN YOUR OPINION Holt’s column misrepresents fact If only the truth weren’t so gruesome, I would probably be amused by the close proximity of Ryan Holt’s rant about liber al lying (“Tired of liberal bias in media”) to the outright de ceptions of Jonathan Hardin’s letter (“Newspaper lacks bal anced viewpoints”) in last Friday’s Gamecock. While Hardin makes a number of claims that deserve interroga tion, one stands out for its com plete and unflinching bas tardization of historical fact. Hardin’s assertion that the Sept. 11,2001, attacks were a re sult of “Democratic inaction, of the past 40 years, specifically in the 1990s” is beyond sim plistic; it’s a flat out lie. In reality, the recent rise in terrorist threats to the United States is a result of an overac tive — not underactive — for eign policy. In the case of Afghanistan, both Democratic (Carter) and Republican (Reagan) presidents enforced this policy. It goes like this: Jimmy Carter’s national security ad visor Zbigniew Brzezinski de cided it would be a good idea to install Islamic extremist gov ernments in the Middle East that would be stable (chuckle) and friendly to America (chuckle, chuckle). To this end, the popularly elected free and democratic (but Soviet-friend ly) government in Afghanistan was overthrown by the Mujaheddin—religious fanat ics who were specially trained in warfare and urban terrorism (great idea) by the CIA. Our fa I-:' M ■' ■■■ ■■ ! ■' • M 1 vorite of these Mujaheddin, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was no torious for throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. Osama bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan in 1980 to join this fight and was a close associate of Hekmatyar. Using his family fortune and help from the CIA, he built terrorist training camps all over the Afghani country side. After the first Gulf War, Bin Laden became angry that the U.S. would not withdraw from Saudi Arabia, and he used the techniques we taught him in Afghanistan against us, first at our embassies in Africa and then in New York and Washington on Sept. 11,2001. I think this is a far more pro ductive dialogue for Jonathan Hardin to take on: one that ex amines our past actions with out bias or accusation. If Hardin would take the time to learn a little about the history of our current situation, he’d see that our foreign policy has been anything but “inactive” for the past 40 years. Given that recent events have seen a for eign policy that’s as aggressive as ever, perhaps we might all learn something from the past. ADAM HABIB FOURTH-YEAR ENUUSH STUDENT Free newspapers are poorly located I couldn’t be happier with SG’s attempt to bring free news papers to USC, especially the New York Times. But when I read the pickup locations, I was shocked. m- ■ . - ; ■ I I Bates, the Towers, Capstone and the business buildings are all great locations, but none of them are anywhere near my location on the Horseshoe. I’m not asking for special Honors College housing privileges, but is putting a few pa pers at the Russell House (aka the student union) too much to ask? GRAHAM CULBERTSON THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH STUDENT Racial progress has long road ahead In regard to USC celebrating its 40th anniversary of integration, I say right on! But I also agree with Cleveland Sellers. There is still much more work to be done to ward racial progress. Such people as Maurice Bessinger — we all know his mind set—are counter productive to advances USC could make in race relations. A good start would be to stop accepting his advertisements while he flies one _A Ji_i.i.M Vl O lilV/Ol U1 Y » V ^J bols and carries literature in his Piggie Park restaurant that actu ally bastardizes the civil rights of African-Americans. This is a man who, though he claimed to be a pa triot, actually furled the American flag that troops are dying over in Iraq and elsewhere. He should be flying on his public establishment the flag of the republic of the United States of America. Cleveland Sellers got it right: There is still work to do! SHELDON RICE 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 gamecockopinions@hotmail.com. Letters will be edited. Anonymous letters will not be published. C^ll the newsroom at 777-7726 for more informT.ion. yyww.dailygamecock.com Students must respect the nod LAUREN ADAMS GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Overused gesture must be saved for dire times. They’re in your classes, they’re on your hall, they may be behind you right now. How to label, iden tify and judge. The emphatic nodder Yes, we’ve all encountered the emphatic nod der, and if you think you haven’t met one, then you’re wrong. Let me just say that the nod should not be abused. It is to be used sparingly and in times of extreme duress: 1. You’re sitting in class and like some twisted game of Russian roulette, you find your disbeliev ing eyes locked on those of your professor, a professor who is cur rently explaining a la Charlie Brown the importance of “ wa wa wa” when you realize she’s poised to ask you a question about the material. Enter the nod. You nod at the appropriate pause giving the impression that you’ve not only read but understand the ma tor’i o 1 CiirnAoVi 2. The mercy nod: This nod ’ often employed by students to help out a professor who is real izing, slowly, that no one is lis tening. A simple nod can reassure this professor that yes, indeed, you do agree with whatever he’s saying, and the rest of the suck ers not nodding are missing out. Everyone wins. These are both appropriate uses of the nod, but occasionally you’ll find yourself sitting behind an abuser. This breed of student nods at everything from the roll to the homework assignment. It’s a privilege, not a right. Unless you have Parkinson’s (and I will need a note from your physician) you shouldn’t no'* * more than five times in a give * class. Let’s treat it with the ap propriate respect, people. The irrelevant question asker: this is a broad category and there afe many subspecies found here. There are the absence negotia tors—regardless of class size, these students will raise their hands and say that they might have to be absent two weeks from Thursday and if maybe that would be OK. It’s not OK, and the rest of the class doesn’t give a damn. See me after class. The personal relaters. These students manage to relate every thing back to their own personal experience. You’re in a class talk ing about (insert subject of choic P when someone in the back raises his hand and says “I totally get it because I have asthma.” I don’t' thinkj need to elaborate any fur ther on this one. l ne ls-this-going-to-be-on-the test-guy: A distant cousin of the guy who yells “Freebird!” at con certs, this student is determined not to miss a thing that could con ceivably be on the exam. It’s not going to help, buddy. Why don’t you head back to the bong and leave the learning to the rest of us. The professor corrector: This student seems to think that read ing chapters one though five have endowed him with superior intel lect and bone-crushing accuracy. This rare but conspicuous student will politely call a professor’s at tention to any number of in^ significant mistakes. This stude. W is actually a mature form of nerd alert — the student who always reminds the professor to either as sign or take up homework when there was a possibility that it wouldn’t be taken up or assigned. Yeah, thanks Poindexter; we dodged that bullet. And the list goes on. I hope this brief introduction to the fabulous world of student-watching is as en lightening as it is 550 words long. Adams is a third-year anthropology student. / ___