Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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4 THE GAMECOCK ♦ Friday, September 19, 2003 . SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Should USC discontinue www.dailygamecock.com or ' *ts “Cocks merchandise? send letters to the editor to j"™ gamecockopinions@hotmail.com _ I DON’T CARE 4% i _ IN OUR OPINION Fightingfor USC’s merit A Rutgers University survey found that 38 percent of college students have participated in the cut-and paste style of online plagiarism in the past year. Almost half of those students did not consider this plagiarism, which means taking from another’s work and passing it off as one’s own. The Carolinian Creed says, among other things, “I will practice personal and academic integrity.” This is meant to be the cornerstone of the university. „ However, plagiarism is also a severe crime, and the real world doesn’t accept it. In virtually all professions, whether you’re writing for a newspaper or working for a business, getting caught can cost you your job and possibly your career. If a student is caught plagiarizing at USC, several things can happen. Punishment could be left up to the professor, which could mean failing the class, or the administration could step in, which could mean a warning, suspension or expulsion. Plagiarism is not going to go away by itself, and this current system is too open-ended. USC needs a ' zero-tolerance policy to combat the continuing threat to the university’s character and credibility. But professors shouldn’t go into search-and destroy mode when grading papers. Students shouldn’t suffer from a case of mistaken duplication. Rampant plagiarism is a testament to laziness and immaturity, and students need to rise above it. —— USC needs a zero-tolerance policy against plagiarism to combat the continuing threat to the university’s character and credibility. Gamecock Quotables “I mean, literally, I was like, ‘I want my mommy,’ but I told myself, ‘I’ll just stay here one more day’... It was tough dealing with the little hellions I taught.” KEITH WEST PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER ON HIS FIRST FOREIGN SERVICE PROJECT “It’s not rocket science. It’s very easy to see incoherence, disparity of writing style. ” MARYANN BYRNES COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS ASSOCIATE DEAN EXPLAINING THE EASE OF FINDING PLAGIARISM IN STUDENT PAPERS “We’ve just got to hope that nobody will be releasing the worm over the weekend.” RONNI WILKENSON USC COMPUTER SERVICES INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SECURITY OFFICER REFERRING TO THE CONTINUING THREAT OF THE NACHI WORM TO USC COMPUTERS “We would’ve had to play a perfect game to come up with a win down here, and we certainly didn’t do it.” LOU HOLTZ USC HEAD COACH ON USC'S LOSS TO GEORGIA ON SATURDAY 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 Head Page Designers Shawn Rourk, David Stagg Page Designers Justin Bajan, Samanthc Hall, Staci Jordan, Phili Whitehead Slot Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Alyson Goff, Tricia Ridgway Copy Editors Mary Waters, Steven V 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 Online: 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 p Amber Justice Creative Services Whitney Bridges, Robbie Burkett, Sean O'Meara Advertising Staff Jn John Blackshire, Adam Bourgoin, Ben Sinclair, Jesica Johnson, Ryan Gorman, Laytoya 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 _Tha * i i ' —1 f\r YOU WEA^TMMKTOPS^ YOU'^e'&oiNfc) to Hem. IF YOU UKfc FOP MUSIC, WO 0X0 &0|A/6t "TO hell! i p- you eat OKEFros, V YOO'tE hOWbTO ttELUj v-—7 x~ _,aeee. mm/A CARTOON BY MARY PINCKNEY WATERS/THE GAMECOCK Foreign policy needs change PATRICK AUGUSTINE GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Religion, politics make for strange bedfellows. America has, since Israel’s in ception, been a driving force with in Middle Eastern politics. While this is primarily because of our vested interest in stable oil prices, a vital component of our econom ic engine, the rise of the Christian rights’ influence in the Republican party has given American politics a new reason to maintain our long-standing pol icy of unconditional support for the Jewish state. Indeed, the cur rent repolarization of domestic politics means the two dominant political parties in our nation will once again be looking to their core constituencies to carry the day in November of next year. This can only mean that Carl Rove and Co. will reaffirm our president’s support of Israel’s “spe cial status” over the next year in an attempt to endear himself to his “base” voters who are self-defined religious ultraconservatives — who have felt alienated by the ad ministration’s (admittedly conser vative) stance on everything from gay rights to stem cell research. What this means, unfortunate ly, is that our policy toward Israel is informed by a narrow segment of society that thinks a stable Jewish state is the first step to wards the fulfillment of end-of time prophecy. Strange political bedfellows result, and while I won’t suggest that Jews in the United States, who traditionally identify ideologically with the Democratic party, would ever im migrate en masse to the GOP, there is increasingly more support under the banner of the elephant than the ass for Zionist causes. Our current occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan compound the problem and virtually ensure there is no unified American sup port for a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, only lip service to an idea without measured steps toward it. Perhaps this is one of the rea sons Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean’s pro nouncement last week that both sides in the conflict should be equally treated at the bargaining table brought so much interest from the news media and ire from his opponents. Fellow candidate Joseph Lieberman properly iden tified it as a departure from the stated U.S. policy that is over 50 years old; considering how well that policy has worked in creat ing a mutually acceptable peace, the time may be now to consider alternatives. It is to Dean’s credit that he had the courage to say as much to a party with a large Jewish donor base, although Lieberman’s pres ence in the primary battle might mean that Democrats are freer to articulate an alternate position when it comes to near east policy, a fact which would go a long way to reverse the oft-repeated false hood in the right-wing Arab press that American foreign policy is dictated by a powerful Jewish minority. Last week’s Sept. 11 anniver sary confirms that the American pursuit of foreign policy built on domestic convenience does not achieve the aims of worldwide jus tice and thus sows the seeds of re sentment, whose malevolent blooms could be seen that.mom ing two years now gone. Working for equity around the globe en sures peace — for Americans, Palestinians and Israelis — no matter their religious affiliations or political beliefs. Augustine is a fourth-year political-science student. IN YOUR OPINION Edwards protesters embarrass USC We were both shocked and appalled by the attitudes and be haviors of a group of students during John Edwards’ presi dential announcement. Edwards came from a small town to our university to an nounce his candidacy for President of the United States. Certain unacceptable behaviors were displayed by several sup porters of the Bush camp during his speech. Not only was this be havior rude,it was a complete embarrassment to the universi ty. Those protesting Edwards (while wearing university ap parel) were televised shouting comments such as “Communist!” and “Go home!” John Edwards has a First Amendment right to speak here, _1 Xl_1_ Xl__ • _1- X X _ auu uicj nave uie 115m iw protest, but under no circum stance do they have the right to be rude. We are in college to be educated; they should act like it. Such negative portrayals of the University should not be tolerated. KATIE BECK FIRST-YEAR PRINT JOURNALISM STUDENT ANNA FOX SECOND-YEAR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES STUDENT Readership program has plans to grow I want to assure any con cerned students that the read ership survey will be moved to several other areas after the four-week survey period. In or der to get the largest survey amount, we needed to place the survey points in residence halls with a large flow of students. I am currently working on get ting other places on campus ap proved for future placements of newspapers. I would like to place stands in the Russell House, business administration, liberal arts and other academic buildings, depending on the amount of funding we can use. In the beginning, the areas with papers may be limited, but I hope to increase this program so all areas of campus can ben efit from these newspapers. I have contacted RHA in hopes they will assist in this program to bring the newspapers into the residence halls. If you enjoy the benefits from the readership program, please let the Office of Student Government know, so that we can show the administration that this is a program that stu dents want at USC. I have got ten some very positive respons es and I am happy to hear that students are in favor of this pro gram. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! KATIE DREILING STUDENT GOVERNMENT PRESIDENT Engineering school has fixable flaws I am a student in the school of engineering. I would like to recognize the effort of the facul ty, staff and students of engi neering, who try to keep our school as advanced as possible. In order to reach that goal, I would like to mention some points that bother not just me, but all of my friends. These points should have already been noticed. There is often a lack of paper in the printers, and that causes prob lems. I went the other day to print something important for a class and did not find any. I went to most of the labs, and still nothing. Papers are not that expensive, and I think I pay for them as well. It is a part of the tuition, right? Besides, if one of the students exceeds the limit of 500 pages, he has to bring a pack of 500 pages plus 200 more. The 300 re maining are considered a cost for the toner. We pay a lab fee every semester. What is that for? This past summer I was work ing on a computer project when the power went out. I lost what I had been working on; as a result, I had to do it again. It took me much time and physical effort and I had to talk to our professors about it, and the lateness affected our grade. It’s an electrical engineering school; why does the power keep going off? Why isn’t there a spare power supplier? And it’s a com puter engineering school too; how come there is no software for au tomatic backup? This is our" school, actually our second home, and our future depends on it. I’m saying this for the sake of im provement and making the engi • neering school competitive in the United States, so let’s try to over come these slight issues. AHMED ALSAIDI THIRD-YEAR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 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 trf gamecockopinions@hotmail.com. Letters will be edited. Anonymous letters WWW riailutfamprnrk rnm Who’s afraid of the scary . RIAA? RACHAL HATTON GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Recording industry’s solution isn’t the best. It’s becoming apparent who the ^ true enemies to freedom are: grand- ™ fathers, 12-year-old girls and col lege students around the country. They are ruining the economy with their thievery and blatant misuse of the Internet and must be stopped. In a time when our president has warned about excessive litiga tion, lawsuits are popping up like hotcakes. The culprits are users of music-downloading applications who have been stealing songs in stead of buying records. Some record labels are reducing the cost of CDs with the hopes lower prices will stimulate sales. Why didn’t in dustry leaders think of this years ago? Such foresight would have meant music downloading tech nologies wouldn’t have gotten so uig ui uie ni&i piaee. xxiai a uie ua sic law of supply and demand. The M profiles of music downloaders show * that only 8 percent of downloaders have more than 1,000 files, but that 8 percent composes 56 percent of 11.1 billion downloaded files. I understand what the indus try’s big hoopla is all about. But they don’t seem overly concerned about the artists whose music is being “stolen.” That’s one fallacy I could do without. These big busi nesses care only about their profit margin being eaten away. Overall, the RIAA reports industry losses of $4.2 billion annually. That’s quite a chunk of change. But it seems that for the ma jority of users, downloading a few songs from an album is actually a stimulant to record sales. You 4 download, you sample, you like, and you buy. I don’t see any real problems there. The problem isn’t “thievery” — it’s the way the RIAA is handling the lawsuit issue. The RIAA is su ing 261 people for up to $150,000 per song, and the people they’re going after makes them look more like bullies than defenders of copyright justice. I’ve done the math. For ex ample, if somebody downloads 2,000 songs, and that averages out to be 140-something albums. Multiply that by $14 and you’ve got over $2,000 missing from industry coffers. It just seems a little unfair of them to sue little Brianna LaHara for downloading old-school Madonna^ and the classic “If You’re Happy ^ And You Know It, Clap Your Hands.” Suing old men who claim to not know how to use a computer is not aiding their intent. Subpoenaing universities and insisting they tat tle on students just makes them 1-1. „;n,T A/Tnoir* iwn ojj1‘tuiupuiuu » v. *• * shouldn’t just be about money making. It’s nice to pad your pock ets after a long and arduous tour, and it’s nice to make a living doing what you love, but the big business of the music recording industry has turned into another American institution, rife with moneymak ing schemes, political interests, and serious censorship issues. For these reasons, we listeners need to start insisting music be about music, not about propagat ing the status quo and letting the^ fat cats eat caviar and smoke^ cigars. Trends are moving toward this sentiment. Thank goodness in dependent music labels are start ing to have more selling power and that our own music independents are beginning to pull themselves to the Top 40 by their own bootstraps. If the RIAA really wants us to repent of our sins, then they’ve gone and done it the wrong way. No one’s getting misty-eyed about the red-faced bully who shakes his mighty fist at all the little people bopping along to “Material Girl.”