Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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g THE GAMECOCK ♦ Friday, October 24, 2003 SOUND OFF VirrO ONLINE POLL Create message boards at I M M / I-J I I I Should “God” be taken out www.dailygamecock.com or I I 1 i ■/ ■/ I ■ ■ I l of the Pledge of Allegiance? send letters tof the editor to I I A W W ■ \ W - Ik! YES 12% gamecockopinions@hotmail.com —■— ™ ^ ®^^ ' NO 81% WHO CARES? 7% - ' ■ IN OUR OPINION Welcoming heroes home On Saturday, nearly 90,000 people will gather at Williams-Brice Stadium to pay homage to the university and the football team. But on Thursday, about 50 people gathered to pay homage to the men who, after 60 years, had a homecoming. USC welcomed back the first graduating class of the university’s Navy ROTC program on Thursday in front of McKissick Museum-on the Horseshoe. Of the 13 men in that class, seven are still living. The theme for this year’s Homecoming is “Coming Home to a New Carolina,” and no one can say that with more passion than these Navy veterans. most oi mem went on 10 ngm in World War II after graduation. Some, like South Carolina Hall of Fame member Dom Fusci, even interrupted their college careers to serve overseas. It was a beautiful scene — a brisk autumn afternoon on the Horseshoe with student ROTC members dressed in stark white uniforms. And after all the speeches and polite applause, the students formed ranks and marched in front of the alumni, turning their eyes right to honor the men who served our country. The theme for this year’s Homecoming is “Coming Home to a New Carolina,” and no one can say that with more passion than these Navy veterans. Sixty years is a long time to be away. But for Fusci and the rest of the veterans, it should be comforting to look across the Horseshoe and see all the men and women following in their footsteps. Gamecock Quotables “I have learned more in that box than I have learned in years. I have learned how strong we are as human beings.” DAVID BLAINE MAGICIAN ON SPENDING 44 DAYS IN A BOX WITH ONLY WATER “For the past two years at Clemson, I haven’t gotten tickets, and I’m the most die hard Gamecock fan there is.” SEAN BISHOP STUDENT GAMECOCK CLUB PRESIDENT ON THE DIFFICULTY GETTING TICKETS FOR THE CAROLINA-CLEMSON GAME “If you are really dedicated to getting a ticket, you’ll be willing to stand in line for a long time to get a ticket. That’s what the die-hard, crazy fans do.” SIMONE YOUNG PSYCHOLOGY STUDENT ON WHY A FIRST-COME. FIRST-SERVE SYSTEM IS BEST FOR THE CAROLINA-CLEMSON TICKETS “I think this is a luxury to the students.” EDWARD FLOYD use BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEMBER ABOUT ON-CAMPUS PARKING GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS Wednesday’s “Winners and Sinners” should have said that Mother Teresa was “beatified,” not “beautified.” 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, Mary Waters, Tricia Ridgway Copy Editors Jessica Foster. 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 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 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 i ne uamecocK 1400 Greene St. Columbia. S.C. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 nr new TICKET . I ■DISTRIBUTION 4 STSTEH #.»i / Mu h CARTOON BY MARY PINCKNEY WATERS/THE GAMECOCK Women’s rights over ‘morals’ tTTill. 1_■_1___ —1_1_• _ _ 1 1_A At- • _ 1_ ■ 11 ^ _f._ JULIE COOK GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Partial-birth abortion is all politics these days. The U.S. Senate has passed a bill to ban partial-birth abor tions, defining them as when a person “deliberately and inten tionally vaginally delivers a liv ing fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the en tire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus.” Abortion never sounds like something to fight for when so vividly described, which I’m sure Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., knew when he sponsored the bill. While voting against a bill seemingly outlawing baby-stabbing seems sick, more senators should have considered doing it. Y Y 1U1 iy Y X XV^, U1U bill’s operational definition of par tial-birth abortions could be stretched to accommodate all sorts of infringements on the reproduc tive rights of women. Like bills Congress put before Clinton, this is without provisions for health related emergencies during deliv ery. In theory, the soon-to-be-law would allow doctors to willingly put their female patients at grave risk to ensure a delivery, knowing that if the baby should mysteri ously die, they could be hit with a penalty of two years in prison and unspecified fines. The first federal restriction on abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 will soon be in place. A floodgate of possibilities will be open, as the Republican majority will next attempt to en force “morality” at every turn, with more freedoms offered up as the inherent costs. There are no known circum stances to warrant prolonging an abortion until the third trimester. What, you were too busy? However, the fight for a ban on partial-birth abortions is all polit ical. Republicans want to gain a major victory for their side of the aisle, rallying support from the Christian Right, as Bush’s ap proval ratings sink and the re election campaign looms ahead. There is no doubt in my mind L11CLL UilO L/JU1, WilV/ uivj/ UU1U federal law, will be sent to William Rehnquist and Co. in the next few years. They have ruled a similar Nebraska law to be unconstitu tional before, but only by a &4 ma jority. If Bush is re-elected and ap points a few more conservatives to the Supreme Court, the law will most likely be allowed to stand as is, as well as any other more re strictive bills Congress may pass in the next four years. If a Democrat defeats Bush, there’s a chance a few liberal jus tices will be nominated in the next presidential term, ones that may overturn the law if a case comes up and uphold Roe v. Wade. Promises to protect the right to life or freedom of choice are usu ally irrelevant on Election Day. Only this time, the president find himself with a divisive issue that could come up in the Supreme Court and also has the power to very soon appoint new justices who agree with his party’s stance. The next four years will surely bring the question of abortion rights to the forefront of the na tional agenda, and once al lowances are made and rulings start to get twisted, there’s! no telling where the future of human rights is headed. Cook is a third-year political science arid art history student. IN YOUR OPINION * Starbucks’policies gyp coffee farmers Tara O’Shea (“What’s evil about cheap coffee,” Monday) incorrectly assumed that the reason people around Columbia are against Starbucks is because Starbucks is nationally successful. This is wrong. We dislike Starbucks because it is a bad corporate citizen. In a capitalistic society like the one we live in, it is im portant to make your voice heard with your wallet. Just as I don’t buy clothes from a company who employs slaves because it is cheaper, I don’t buy coffee that is not Fair Trade. Fair Trade coffee is one issue that many people dislike Starbucks’ position on and attitude toward in the global community. Coffee is the world’s second-most-trad ed commodity after oil. Twenty-five million families worldwide live from growing coffee. Recently the price of a pound of coffee dropped to the lowest in over a 100 years to around 35 cents a pound, while the cup of coffee you buy at Starbucks has gone up. The cost of growing a pound of cof fee is 85 cents a pound. This negative price difference ex plains why millions of families worldwide are losing their farms and sinking deeper into poverty. Their kids are forced to work, and they have no ac cess to healthcare. Fair Trade coffee is different, though; it guarantees farmers $1.26 or more per pound of coffee. This allows farmers to send their children back to school and pay for healthcare. How does this relate to Starbucks? Well, Starbucks currently buys 1 percent of the world’s coffee. It could easily set a standard and decide to buy only Fair Trade coffee, but it doesn’t. It purchases less than 1 percent of its coffee from a Fair Trade-certified wholesaler. It swallows the extra profit it makes by purchasing cheap cof fee instead of passing on the savings to the consumer. I will not let the cup of coffee I drink every morning be responsible for children working in slav ery-like conditions. And I hope you will see it that way too. The next time you want some Fair Trade coffee, check out Jammin’ Java, Cool Beans, Rosewood Market or Earthfare. Starbucks’ profits also go back to Seattle instead of into our community like local coffee shops’ profits. For more infor mation go to fairtradecerti fied.org. JOHN BLACKSHIRE III FOURTH-TEAR FINANCE STUDENT GPS system won’t help parking issue I’m all for USC trying to make things better for students on campus, but what I have a hard time trying to understand is why the school is dumping money so that we can tell where our shuttle buses are in rela tion to their stops. They say it will cut down on the wait time. I don’t understand — the wait will still be there, but now we will be able to watch these blips from the comfort of our homes or personal PDAs that have Internet (which many of us don’t have). Why can’t they just use some common sense and put two bus es on every route and three on the really long ones like the blue and red lines? It would be a lot cheaper, and it would actually kill the wait time instead of mon itoring it. I use the buses daily and would much rather have one show up sooner then watch Pac Man chase a ghost on the termi nal. PATRICK PIANEZZA THIRD-YEAR PUBLIC RELATIONS STUDENT Tomlinson should note proper style Please explain to Mr. Tomlinson (“Syllabuses is cor rect word,” Monday) that there is a difference between what is accepted stylistic grammar and what is correct. I, myself, have had serious discussions with those who believe “amongst” is more correct than “among.” Yes, “amongst” is alongside “among” in Webster’s Dictionary, but it is clear to me that it is only there because it has been so misused that those who should know bet ter have given up the “good” fight. Besides this, it is clear to me that one who does not know the difference between the statement “the AP Stylebook, the arbiter of style for most newspapers, SAYS ‘syllabuses’” versus “READS syl labuses” should not be express ing stylistic opinions in the first place. JAMES EDWARDS CRADUATE STUDENT IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 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. The ugly need to face up to reality LAURENADAMS GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Unsightly people should stay in their own league. I’ve got good news, people—it’s finally OK to roll down your hall way in a muumuu, double-fisting sticks of butter. The sun has come up on a new age of acceptance, so go out and buy yourself some sweatpants. You wear a size “elas tic” now. “Lauren,” you might be saying, “that was funny, but what does it have to do with me?” Well, let me tell you, readers: If you’re ugly, this means everything. The Wall of Standards has come tumbling down, so grab yourself someone ridiculously out of your league. You see, students, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in advertising today: ugly people. How many times have I seen an ugly man with a beautiful woman or vice versa united in perfect harmony over some Deli Selects ham? Hey, I’m glad the ugly are finally find ing work, but I’m afraid life will soon imitate art. I don’t want to bring home a can of Campbell’s only to find my hideous husband waiting for me. Don’t get me wrong — it’s encouraging to see that Chef Boyardee understands that beauty is on the inside, where the ravioli digests, and not on the outside, but dating inequality is there for our protection, guys. If we all start dating ugly people, what will happen to the pretty peo ple? I mean, really. Do you want Phil with the gran ular problem to get a woman to cry with him during “Sense and Sensibility?” Do you want Steve “Skid-marks” Albertson to find a lady who shares his love of magic card collecting? That answer is yes, as long as she’s ugly too. The odds are in your favor, Skid marks. Statistics show that one in CVCJ.y liUCC pcupic 10 LUU31UCICU ugly. Look to your left; now look to your right. Exactly. Ever heard of survival of the fittest? Natural selection is not a suggestion. I, for one, am not going to take this lying down. Ugly people, I’m here for you, and I’m going to help you find someone in your league. Let’s start out with some pick up lines: “Are your parents retarded? Because you came out special.” Always a lady-pleaser. “If you were a laser, you’d be set on stunning. Or ugly.” You see, this pickup line was originally in tended for pretty people, but you can make it work for you. Next, looks: I can’t help you there. Yours are on the inside anyway. Attitude: it doesn’t matter ini tially because you’re ugly. You aren’t the only one who fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Make new friends. Network. Pretty peo ple don’t understand you anyway, so don’t force something that should never be. Let’s not ruin an already-cloudy gene pool. It’s nat ural to seek out the most attractive members of the opposite sex so that the best possible genes might be passed onto the next generation. T ~X’„ 1_XI__•_ uiuoc gcuco muvmg. There’s a reason attractive peo ple make about 15 percent more money than unattractive ones. (I am so broke.) That reason is no one wants to look at your hideous face. In conclusion, the pretty should not date the ugly. In fact, let’s just say they shouldn’t even be friends. Better safe than sorry. So, ladies and gentlemen, why settle for orig inal when you can have extra crispy — original, in this metaphor, meaning ugly. Take it from some original. Adams is a third-year anthropology student.