Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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w # , SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL jriAlrfe message hoards at Which distribution system www.dailygamecock.com or should USC use for the , send letters to the editor to ’ Carolina-Clemson game? gamecockopinions@hotmail.com www.dailygamecock.com. Results published on Fridays. IN OUR OPINION Protest, but peacefully Freedom to assemble and protest is one of the most important rights guaranteed by the Constitution and one of the foundations of a healthy democracy. Linked directly to freedom of speech, it is not only our right but our duty to keep our elected officials in check. When John Edwards announced his candidacy for president in front of the Russell House on Sept. 16, hundreds of people were present — many of them students interested in the primaries, and some representing the two major parties. And some chose to yell at Edwards. It was incredible to see students so involved on campus and taking an active role in their society, as we near the South Carolina As the primaries draw near, all groups need to remember common courtesy. primary Feb. 3. ' But continuous screaming, like what went on while Edwards made his announcement, only obscures the words of the speakers and is not appropriate. Beginning last October, prior to and through the duration of the war in Iraq, students and faculty protested and held rallies as well as teach-ins, representing often vastly different perspectives. Groups of opposing views shared the microphone with each other and even listened to one another. As the primaries draw near, all groups need to remember common courtesy toward one another. For events on campus, especially, students are representing the university and need to do so in a civilized manner. Winners and Sinners CALIFORNIA FEDERAL COURT Votes to proceed with recall election. The circus will be over soon enough. use WOMEN’S BASKETBALL First nationally televised regular season game will be Dec. 3. AUTUMN The cool season has come to smite the humidity. PURCHASE PRO EXECS Plead guilty in nefarious scheme to inflate AOL revenue. HURRICANE ISABEL Wreaks havoc on North Carolina, kills 23, and the power’s still out in some places. ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT Bans the word “Cocks” from merchandise, except hats. Takes hypocrisy to new levels. I t 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, Samantha Hall, Staci Jordan. Philip Whitehead Slot Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Alyson Goff, Tricia Ridgway Copy Editors Mary Waters, Steven Van Haren, Jessica Foster, Alicia Osborne n,‘ Online Editor • I dames Tolbert 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 Amber Justice Creative Services Whitney Bridges, Robbie Burkett, 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 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. 29206“ Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 J so mrw] WE WANT TV bXiE TWffM . • TOPAY-' AT WM OA IN i nvr? I CARTOON BY MARY PINCKNEY WATERS/THE GAMECOCK Attack of the preacher’s kid SARAH ROGERS GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM The ups and downs of living a stereotype. Everywhere you look, there they are. A few notables at USC include jocks (football players, cheerleaders, gymnasts, etc.), band geeks (which also includes chorus and orchestra), foreign kids (anyone without a Southern accent), and Bible carriers (mem bers of FCA, Campus Crusade for Christ and Young Life). Stereotypes. I’m kind of an expert on the subject. After all, 1 grew up being one. In high school, I was a band geek, a good girl and a Methodist minister’s daughter, or a “PK.” The term PK translates to “preacher’s kid.” Two of my un cles were Methodist ministers, both of my grandparents were missionaries, and my great grandfather was bishop of the Methodist church in Brazil. As a kid, the title was both a blessing and a curse. Members of my father’s congregations, throughout the Upstate, who might normally overlook a skin ny, short, redheaded girl like my self, went out of their way to be nice to me, perhaps for fear of their immortal souls and the fact that I might tell on them to dear old Daddy. When I was 16,1 was in the hos pital for four days from dehydra tion and a kidney infection, and I received an enormous amount of cards, flowers and balloons, most ly from church members. Many cards were signed “God Bless You” or “In Christ.” I didn’t un derstand why they couldn’t just tell me to get better soon because I was wasting my summer vaca tion. During Christmas, birth days, even Easter and Halloween, I received wonderful gifts, such as cross necklaces, Bibles and stuffed baby lambs (fake, of course), some times from complete strangers. My dad was an expert on reli gion, and many people thought I was, too. They would come to me with questions about whether they were going to heaven or hell, who Buddha was and the true meaning of the trinity. How could I answer them? I was only Sarah, daughter of a preacher, not the preacher him self. A lot of kids I went to school with steered clear of me because they assumed I was way too goody-goody (it also didn’t help that I was a major band geek). True, I rarely messed up. I stayed away from chemical substances, was polite to my elders and supe riors, and never came in past my curfew. Of course, when I did mess up, it was no surprise if the whole congregation knew about it already. It seemed to them that PKs must be blessed with the ability not to sin. Ever. I wanted to prove to everyone that I wasn’t just the good girl, and so I then became the opposite stereotype of a PK. Taking advice from my evil PK cousins, I be came disrespectful, risky and a trickster. I put on a great front though, and most adults still as sumed I was “good little Sarah, daughter of the great and power ful Rev. Cyrus Rogers.” Now I’m in college, about to turn 21. I’ve grown up a lot. I re alize stereotypes will always be around, so the best thing to do is to be true to yourself and not try to change to fit someone else’s mold of who and what you should be. There are two things in life that will always be true to me. My name is Sarah Rogers, and yes, while I am the daughter of a preacher, I am proud of it. Rogers is a third-year electronic journalism student. IN YOUR OPINION Coyle’s argument has no meat Finally, a crusade we can all be a part of; all we have to do is stop eating meat and convince everyone else that it is wrong. You might ask yourself, how do I convince everyone else that it is wrong? Naturally, by misin terpreting scientific research and data, by comparing the metabolic rates of “natural meat-eaters” to, I presume, non-natural meat-eaters and the “because I said so” argu ment. Each of these arguments are unsound, invalid and truly quite absurd. “Humans are not designed to eat flesh,” according to Chris Coyle’s column Monday. I have, in fact, studied nonhuman ca nines (teeth). A better place to look is the mucosal lining and gastric juices in both the human stomach and the feline. It would be an unwise decision to test your “humans are not designed to eat flesh” idea by being bit ten by either of these animals or for an uncovered hand to be coated in the hydrochloric acid which is present in both the hu man and feline stomach. T.C. Campbell of Cornell University studied inhabitants of rural China to formulate his reduced cancer and cardiovas cular disease hypothesis. After presenting the data, he hap pened to mention in his conclu sion that “the biology of the diet and disease relationship is in finitely complex and easily mis understood.” How convenient for him. Further, are the com parisons between people of ru ral China and the general pub lie in the United States even comparable? Does a farmer in rural China have the same prob ability for disease as well as the same disease-causing factors as does a stock broker on Wall Street living in New York City? Am I to presume that level of physical activity and metabolic rate in human be ings can be compared to that of a tiger? When is the last time that I had to hunt, stalk and chase down the T-bone I ate for dinner? Our levels of activity and metabolic rate are ex tremely different. Even a com parison between those of us that exercise regularly and the lion is ridiculous. Going vegetarian is “one of the best things you can do to improve your health,” wrote Coyle. My answer to that is sim ple — exercise! Don’t push your liberal point of view on people, Mr. Coyle, under the guise that vegetari anism is healthier for you. Your laughable attacks on meat eaters have been heard. Now, pass the steak sauce. PHILLIP JORDAN FOURTH-YEAR PHILOSOPHY STUDENT Learn to work around the RIAA The RIAA! Hey look, it’s a bunch of money-grubbing mil lionaires, pissed off that their bank accounts won’t be filled with $500 million this year. With only making a couple of hundred million this year, their kids might starve and actually have to go to public school. There’s no reason to be scared of the RIAA;’they don’t have a very strong case, and there are plenty of ways to get around them finding your “illegal music.” A person can copy a song from the radio or a CD, and give-it to as many friends as he wants for free. Except instead of person-to-per son contact, it’s electronic. If all people file sharing worked to gether, they’d have a strong voice in persuading the “good old” politicians to help out — especial ly with election year coming up. For getting around RIAA, let’s just say I was walking around Columbia one day, and I over heard some people talking about how you could keep your music files private. I stopped to listen. One man said, “If you haveKazaa, you can just disable your file shar ing, and no one will be able to see what’s on your computer.” Then the other man said, “Another thing a person could do is make a another file directory then put all the music files in that folder so now the music files are separated from the file-sharing application.” The whole crackdown on file sharing stinks mainly because it smells like corporate BS, and I would hate to keep their kids from driving that brand new Dodge Viper to school when they turn 16. The rich are always going to rip off the middle class, so I guess I’m going to have to deal with it. And hopefully, keep on running into these “random wise people” in good old Columbia, S.C. DAYNE PHILLIPS FIRST-YEAR CRIMINAL JUSTICE 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. gamecockopinions@hotmall.com ... •—.-c~— f Politics change, values are same c RYANHOLT GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Whatever happened to the Democratic party? Those who have read my col umn are probably aware by now that I'm a conservative Republican —a partisan one at that. But things weren’t always the case in the Holt family. Both my parents voted for Jimmy Carter. My grand mother voted for John Kennedy. And from what I hear, four gener ations ago and back, the Holts lived and died as Democrats. Today our loyalty lies with the Grand Old Party. What caused such a switch? We’ve always been pro-life, we’ve always hated pay ing exorbitant amounts of taxes for government programs, we’d love to see prayer back in our pub lic schools, and we know that no price is too high for strengthening our military. Our values haven’t changed. The party changed. This concept is prevalent here HI Lilt: OUUII1. JUC&b Llldll LWU WWAS ago, S.C. Sen. Billy O’Dell of Anderson announced his transfer from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, bringing the state Senate to 26 Republicans and 20 Democrats. In high school, I worked for a Republican legisla tor who had been a conservative Democrat. After a few legislative sessions, he had realized he was voting more with the Republicans than with his own party. The late Sen. Strom Thurmond is a shining example of this trend. Here we had a Democrat with con servative values who realized the horrible direction his party was taking and decided it would be bet ter for himself, his state and his country to make the switch. What has happened to the Democratic Party? Harry Truman understood national security so well that he authorized dropping the atom bomb on Japan. John Kennedy understood fiscal disci pline to the point that he institut ed some of the largest tax cuts of Amt Conservative principles have ' left the party of Truman and Kennedy. The fiery spirit of the Vietnam Era has seized the party’ with a vise-grip of demagogic ide ology. Some realize sweeping change has taken place and like it. Others don’t even sense a change has taken place. But for those who realize that something is missing, the Republican Party is waiting with open arms. The issue at hand is the scarci ty of conservative Democrats. At one time, these pols were a dime a dozen. With the passing of gen erations, however, the conserva tive Democrats have either died or come to a realization that their philosophy isn’t in touch with the principles of the party. In Texas, we called these folks WD-40s: \A7Tiiffl nomn/’rolo Ht/nr Af\ TaHqv the Legislature is home to very few of these individuals. Now and then you’ll find elder ly women at polls, luncheons or volunteer functions who are staunch conservative Democrats. These people seem to be the hold outs. They’re conservative, yes. But they haven’t made the switch. Perhaps it is just habit. When these folks leave us, and the remainder of conservative Democrat politicians jump the aisle, we’ll be back to two distinct parties. Perhaps this is good. Perhaps not. The conservative Democrat was the strongest link between the two parties, but the link is breaking. One thing is for sure: In the coming years, the par ty lines will no longer be blurred, and a familiar stereotype will fol low its predecessors into the an nals of history. Holt is a first-year English student.