Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, October 22, 2003 9 SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at Should “God” be taken out of www.dailygamecock.com or the Pledge of Allegiance? send letters to the editor to www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockopinions@hotmail.com Results published on Fridays. • j . • - IN OUR OPINION Garage will be beneficial Parking, especially for commuter students, is far from a luxury, as one Board of Trustees member called it this week. However, a garage planned to be built on Bull Street is a long-in-coming, welcomed surprise. The $11 million garage, which will hold between 900 and 1,000 cars, is part of a $26 million finance plan, which includes deferred maintenance work on the Roger Center and the Jones Physical Science Center. Parking fees are sure to increase. Those who wanted a garage space but couldn’t get one, however, would be willing to pay the price. Along with every student faced with the early You can’t expect a struggling, bruised university to build a massive parking garage and not expect something in return. muiiuug wiciui uuu is parking, we have been fuming over USC’S continued disinterest in student parking spots for years. But now, USC is making an effort to quell the hurt. We can’t, in good conscience, spit this back in the face of the administration. You can’t expect a struggling, bruised university to build a massive parking garage and not expect something in return. If anything, this will take a chunk out of the morning fight at the Coliseum lots. USC is still more war zone than Utopia as far as parking is concerned, but the garage will make a dent in the problem. As long as the administration understands the garage won’t solve all the problems, this is a sign of good things to come. Winners and Sinners NEW GARAGE Yay, Board of Trustees. In two years, when it exists, we’ll be sure to thank you. MOTHER THERESA Promoted to beautification, one step away from sainthood. CRAZY NIAGRA FALLS MAN Our new hero throws himself over Niagra Falls with no protection for the hell of it and survives. CLEMSON PORN KINGS Two football players get personal sites taken down for “adult content.” “JOE MILLIONAIRE" Takes advantage of innocent European gold diggers for yucks and money. We can stop watching at any time, we swear. COLLEGE TUITION Up 40 percent from a decade ago. Hey, looks like everyone’s just as screwed as us. GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS In Monday’s police report, the subject in the last crime, Susan Maleski, was mistakenly referred to as “Leonard. ” The Gamecock regrets the error. 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 Designer Shawn Rourk Page Designers Justin Bajan, Samantha Hall, Staci Jordan. Philip Whitehead Slot Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Tricia Ridgway Copy Editors Mary Waters, Steven Var Haren, Jessica Foster 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 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 SoutfiN 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. 29208 1 Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 George Vvbya // x ^ I ^ the/ Texas Economy MwiSAGKE. ^ / > - DARTOON BY HANNAH ANGSTADT/THE GAMECOCK Save the English language DAVID STAGG GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Let’s get rid of all the special characters. I don’t know why other coun tries have to make it so difficult. Those of us who speak English have no problem reading words without using outlandish charac ters. I don’t know why other lan guages employ the use of accents and umlauts and whatever other funny symbols they can contrive for weird words in their writing. I swear, every time I have to write the word “resume,” I become more and more frustrated with a few things: 1.) that the English lan guage had to steal most of its words from other languages, 2.) that our keyboards don’t have the un earthly characters needed to com plete the appropriated words and 3.) that I have no credentials for a real-life job whatsoever. Allow me to explain. If I want to write the word naive, I need to first figure out the random combi nation of keys to press. Then, in stead of the normal “one key puts one letter on the screen,” I have to press approximately 57 keys in a combination-lock manner. THEN, the computer asks you a weird trivia question that’s impossible to answer (“The last of these was featured in 1985 and this was fea tured on it.”), and if you incor rectly guess, it will THEN spit out a horrendous laugh, give you the Blue Screen of Death and insult your mother before shutting down. THEN I weep for my coun try because the terrorists have won. Something must be done. I say we take any of these words that feature crazy letters and make them into new ones — English language style. Those of us who write in English will hereafter accept words as they are, with out weird syllabic patterns des ignated for words as legible as a road map. Here’s my guide to fix ing things: ♦ i Found: commonly in the word naive, but also in my toilet after bad McDonald’s. Commentary: The “i” has al ways had one dot over it. As if the “i” isn’t selfish enough, it some times has to commandeer anoth er dot for itself. Pretty soon, we won’t have periods either because they’ll all be attached to the “i.” ♦ A Found: In foreign languages, as abbreviations or in pigs’ troughs. Commentary: The “A” is the 50 Cent of the character set. It used to be an “H,” but got shot at, and in its attempt to get outof the way, buck led its arms together. Now it’s an “A” with a couple of bullet holes above it. After I’m done with it, though, it’s going to wish it had per ished in the syntactical crossfire. ♦ e Found: In a smattering of weird words, just as deja vu, re sume and useless. Commentary: Since I’ve brought it up, words like deja and resume that bust out a double ac cent are REALLY messed up. I propose we just throw any ac cents out. They’re obsolete like eight-tracks, Skip-It or a decent Detroit Tigers baseball team. And don’t think I’m letting the English language off the hook ei ther. Yeah, we don’t have accents or tildes or umlauts or manners, but we never spell things the right way. Who puts a “gh” in the mid dle of a word? I wouldn’t. Whoever invented the concept of silent let ters should go down with the in ventor of The Clapper. Oh, and 13¥ the way, the trivia answer is the metal lunChbox, and ®ambo was On if. Stagg is a third-year media arts student. IN YOUR OPINION SG should keep unbiased lottery This letter is to SG president Katie Dreiling concerning dis tribution of Carolina-Clemson game tickets. While die-hard fans deserve tickets, it’s unfair to expect any student to drop what they are doing to wait in line for hours for the chance they might get a ticket. Students might have class all day, could be on a re quired field trip or could have a test they need to study for. Good students are Gamecock fans, too! I know that Gamecock spirit is important, but the rea son we are all here is to get an education, and even football fans have to keep their grades up. A first-come, first-served system could compromise that. A seniority or avid-fan biased system is just that — biased. Some students might never have been to a Carolina game in their lives, but if friends con vinced them to sign up ior me lottery, and they got tickets, they might go. It might change then outlook on USC football forever. They might become the greatest Gamecock fans that ever lived! It’s unfair to count underclass men or under-attending fans out of this important game just be cause they haven’t been in the past. We don’t know the reasons they haven’t been there. How can we judge just much they love Gamecock football? The lottery keeps out bias and avoids compromising edu cational integrity. Perhaps stu dents can sign up for the lottery in pairs and the tickets can be handed out in pairs so that no student has to worry about go ing by themselves and the stu dents who win the tickets are likely to gr. If one student or both can’t go, they have a pair of tickets, and it will be easy to find other students to take them. The tickets are more like ly to be used this way, and all students still have a chance of getting a ticket. For die-hard fans, why not re serve some tickets and have a contest or three during the week before for those fans to win tick ets by showing their undying and unmatched Gamecock spir it? This way, they increase their chance of going to the game by participating and also gain some recognition for being the in credible fans that they are. This would also be a great way to pump up campus spirit in prepa _i •_r_u_l:_ iauuuiv/i uic uig 5CUIU;. I hope that was the type of in put you were looking for, and good luck with your decision regarding ticket distribution. BRANDY GLETT CRARCATE .STUDENT IN MARINE SCIENCE What’s evil about cheap coffee? Silly me. And I thought I was being politically correct going to Starbucks; after all, they have pamphlets that read, “reach out to your community” and “build ing relationships with coffee growers” and the like. Just kid ding. I couldn’t care less when all I need is some cheap joe. So why, around campus and other places where angst-driven youth dwell, do I see pins, stickers and other “anti-Starbucks” para phernalia? Do we really need something else to complain about? I mean, they’re selling coffee. What’s wrong with that? I figured it probably has something to do with the open ing of the Starbucks in Five Points. The very nerve of them, trying to make a buck! “But they’re gonna take over and drive out the ‘little guy!”’ Oh please. So, given that I’m the inquisi tive type (but mostly because I needed caffeine), I went to investi gate this “evil empire” to see what the fuss was about. Did the scent of blood and injustice waft through the door as I opened it? No; actual ly, it was more like decent coffee being brewed. Hey, the price tag didn’t smell too bad, either, con siderably lower than the “local” joints around campus. Hell, I work for minimum wage, and three dol lars is way too much for coffee. Well, if there was nothing wrong with the coffee, then there must be something wrong with the people that work there. Nope, noth ing wrong there, either — just po lite, smiling faces asking if I want ed room for cream and sugar. Well, heckfire, I couldn’t find one thing wrong with the place. Guess I’ll just have to spend less money for better coffee. What a travesty. When it all boils down, what’s wrong with companies try ing to make a profit? It’s not as if n “ 1 i +4-1 o m 117” ic Allt 4-V*rtnor ing out free merchandise on the corner. Not that I have anything against small businesses; I ulti mately respect them. Even Starbucks started out small. But seriously, this notion that Starbucks is bad because they are nationally successful is ridicu lous. You people with anti Starbucks pins should go find something worthy to bitch about. TARA O’SHEA SKCOND-YKAR I'RINT JOURNALISM 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, t Losing faith in Supreme Court RYAN HOLT GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM States’ rights are being being set aside in court. Most Americans live lives in dependent from the rapid waters of political process, thinking that the goings-on of Columbia and Washington have no direct im . pact and can go lifetimes without ever calling their congressman or attending a rally. Normal life will progress faster than the engine of American politics, allowing them to lock the government into a box that “other people” visit. But the days of government seclusion are fading, creating a new problem that lies not in the V/AWU11YV/ V1U11V11, IV day is much like it has been for 50 years, or in the legislative branch, where partisan lawmaking con tinues today as it has for two cen turies. The problem lies in the hon orable black-robed justices of the judicial branch in a new trend that has entered the national scene. For years, the federal judicia ry was content to use judicial re straint and follow a strict word for-word perspective of the Constitution. And although there were a few landmark cases that represented judicial activism, it was a newsworthy rarity. Much of the judiciary has be gun to grow discomforted with its senile approach to the legal sys tem, perhaps feeling left out of the lawmaking process in which its fellow branches regularly engage. This loose-constructionist ap proach to the Constitution has brought about judicial activism, a blight on our legal process and a crank to turn the Founding Fathers in their graves. Uncanny interpretations of the Constitution have brought incon ceivable results. Whoever thought that the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment could be used to allow a woman the op tion of killing a fetus? Or that pre caution against an established na tional religion in the First Amendment would be cause for removal of a Ten Commandments monument in an Alabama court house or the words “under God” from our Pledge of Allegiance? And who would think that the Fifth Amendment would be used as coercion for officers to state in reality, “Read him his rights?” Today, gun control, homosexual activity and capital punishment are being re-evaluated by federal courts, ceding more and more con trol from the states. In their revi sion of many amendments, justices outright reject the strength of the 10th Amendment, which reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respec tively, or to the people.” More than 20 percent of Supreme Court cases this year in volved entities appealing decisions of state or local governments. Why are most even being heard? It’s not like the good people of Texas, Kansas, California or Massa chusetts elected a band of fascists as state leaders, seeking to divert American ideals away from the mandates of the Constitution. When interpretation of law is consolidated into a smaller and smaller body, room for error in creases. And when lawmaking power is ceded from the legislation urancn as an undeserving presen tation for the judiciary, dangerous implications are made. When a person can make societal change by interpreting the Constitution according to his or her standard, a hard-to-obtain Constitutional amendment is the only remedy. Let us not reach that point. Holt is a first-year political science student.