Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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SOUND OFF ONLINE POLL Create message boards at . Should the Visitor Center www.dailygamecock.com or move to McKissick museum? send letters to the editor to www.dailygamecock.com. gamecockopinions@hotmail.com Results published on Fridays. i IN OUR OPINION Rivalry runs in our blood If we learn just one thing from the annual Carolina-Clemson onslaught, let it be that hate can be a good thing. It’s hate that fuels the rivalry dividing the state into Carolina and Clemson; hate that, every November, manifests itself into a four-hour spectacle of raw emotion and energy. From the 1961 game when USC’s Sigma Nu fraternity took uniforms from Orangeburg High School and took the field posing as befuddled Clemson Stop by the Russell House this week and let them drain some of the garnet out of you. players to the 2002 game when Clemson students used phallic balloon labeled “Cock” as a beach ball during the fourth quarter, the rivalry runs deep in our blood. For students looking for a way to show their disgust for Clemson this week, look no further than the Carolina-Clemson Blood Drive, held in the Russell House Ballroom. It’s a simple concept: You hate Clemson and you want them to lose at everything, so you stop by the Russell House and donate some of your blood to make sure the Carolina student body gives more than Clemson’s. As a bonus, the real winners are the people the blood goes to save. It’s kind of ironic that such a bitter rivalry can be a lifesaver. So, if you want to show your school spirit this week, stop by the Russell House and let them drain some of the garnet out of you. And don’t forget to wear your “Clemson sucks” T-shirt to the game on Saturday. College Quote Board THE ORACLE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA “As the ‘corporate vision’ in cludes ‘a People Vision — to be the best employer in each com munity around the world,’ ac cording to the McDonald’s Web site, maybe the fast-food giant would be better off changing some things in their own loca tions. Rather than complaining about the usage of ‘McJob,’ the corporation needs to offer better wages in order to stray from the stained image.” DAILY TARGUM RUTGERS UNIVERSITY “If a mother feels perfectly comfortable exposing herself in order to administer precious nu trition to her child, she should have the right to do as much. And when they insist on being fed, babies will not wait for a more convenient location. Indeed, who could ever expect them to consider their mother’s discreetness above their hunger?” GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS In Friday’s police report, Quanda Jefferson should have been listed as the subject in crime number seven. 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, Staci Jordan. Philip Whitehe Slot Copy Editors Amy Genoble, Tricia Ridgway. Mary Pinckn Waters Copy Editors Jessica Foster, Stevet Van Haren Online Editor James Tolbert Public Affairs Kimjerly 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 SusarvKing Business Manager Carolyn Griffin Advertising Manager Sarah Scarborough Classified Manager Sherry F. Holmes Production Manager Amber Justice ad Creative Services Whitney Bridges, Robbie Burkett, ey 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. 29208 Advertising: 777-3888 ^Classified: 777-1184 Fax: 777-6482 'YoO SrtiNe YoUR eeACoM, T'LL SrtiNe /AiNef ' CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS How far have women come? RACHAL HATTON GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM Females finally shatter the glass ceiling. Home to good football and dirty politics, my home state of Louisiana is best known for great food, David Duke and Louis the Kingfish. Lately, we have a pro gressive reason to be proud. Louisiana just elected its first woman governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. She won with 52 percent of the vote. A former stay-at-home mother of six chil dren as well as a high school teacher, she has served in public office for the past 20 years, eight as lieutenant governor. Her platform consists of a “scandal-free past” — big news in Louisiana. As governor, she hopes to expand kindergartens, increase teacher pay and attract more business to Louisiana. Finally, women are getting somewhere. This proves that children don’t keep us from achieving. It proves we can stay at home and then step back in. We no longer have to settle for the “mommy track.” We can be mothers, strong women and so cial leaders if we choose. Women, listen. The glass ceiling of public office is shattering like a beer bot tle on 1-26. Or is it? We need more stories like the one above, and less like the one below. Read onward, dear friend. A 14-year-old Texan girl who appeared on Maury Povich’s talk show centered around the theme of “Out-of-Control Teens” is su ing the show. Her premise? She was instructed to act more promiscuous and provocative than normal. That’s not the shocker, even. Her mother was promised that the girl would receive counsel ing, transportation and lodging if the girl were to appear on the show. After the girl’s appear ance, an unidentified man pos ing as the show’s limo driver stepped in, told the girl she was pretty and offered to show her the town. He then drove her to a seclud ed location and raped her. Show spokesmen claim that even if the girl was raped, the lawsuit is faulty because the al leged rapist is in no way affiliated with “The Maury Povich Show.” So what if he’s not affiliated with the show? The point is that she was a minor under their care. She shouldn’t have had the opportunity to be in such a posi tion. And the worst part is that most likely the show, and the rapist, will get off scot-free, just like the majority of “low-profile” rape cases. So what is really the state of women in the United States? What does it mean that women today can hold public offices, out eam their partners, have stay-at home husbands and have a great level of social mobility? What do these improvements mean if we can still be so intimately violat ed and have little to no legal re course? Forgive my rhetorical ques tions. Women have gained social privileges in leaps and bounds over the past 30 or so years, but we’re far from equal status. Until we don’t have to fear such viola tions and such attacks are not legally permitted, women won’t get the message that they’re re ally socially valued. Just holding important offices and changing policy and dis course is not enough. It’s our ev eryday lives that see the most problems, and it’s there we have to help make changes. Hatton is a third-year women's studies student. IN YOUR OPINION Augustine makes poor assumptions I am writing in response to Patrick Augustine’s Nov. 14 column about the war with Iraq. Patrick, I hope you under stand the implications of this war. First of all, the U.S. gov ernment is not fighting for free dom, it is fighting to give Iraq a strategic advantage in an eco nomic area where we lose. Plain and simple. The media are just trying to get this point across, and I think the Pentagon, the White House and the appropriate sec retaries have done their fair share to censor the material we see coming out of Iraq. If you need any clarification, please refer to Bush’s latest plan to ban any broadcast of the dead returning to America in coffins. You can find the story at www.washingtonpost.com. The Jessica Lynch story is being told in the media more to establish a new jingoism in America than to quell opin ions about the war. I would like to leave you with a few words: War is peace; freedom is slavery; ig norance is strength. PETER COOLIDGE SECOND-YEAR BIOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY STUDENT Offer solutions when you complain This letter is in response to Bysshe Easton’s letter in the Nov. 7 issue of The Gamecock. The one type of person I hate most is the guy who complains about everything, from “injus tices” done^to him to what so ciety “owes1 him to the quality of an event, service or institu tion with which he interacts regularly and voluntarily — and doesn’t even offer his in put on how to fix the problem. My last encounter with such an undesirable and unproduc tive citizen came when I read a letter to the editor from Bysshe Easton — a student who has recently decided that his venerable wisdom cannot be compromised by reading an “amateur” paper. Easton may have addressed a completely valid concern in his letter to The Gamecock last week, but by the end of his dia tribe, I didn’t see how he planned to help out the alleged "poor writing” dilemma that apparently plagues The Gamecock staff. Maybe he was just venting, or maybe he was trying to sell you some of his six-dollar words (ie.: “egregious” instead of “bad”) to use in your paper. But I’m not buying it, and nei ther should anyone else. People like Easton should have to pay to complain be cause they don’t offer any thing in return for their con stant moaning. You see? There’s my solution to a prob lem — charge for finding fault without offering some type of assistance. It makes sense that Easton is a philosophy student — he raises questions but doesn’t offer any answers. Anyway, while Easton laments the crisis of the paper and memorizes the dictionary, I will offer publicly my time and energy to The Gamecock, a publication of merit in which I witness none of the supposed writing or editing issues. My position? Official complaint fee collector. So, Easton and all ofyou other whiners out there, try to contribute ideas on how to end your suffering. After all, you ob viously know everything. WHIT ASHLEY FIRST-YEAR LIBERAL ARTS STUDENT Let your voice be heard. Be part of your democratic system. Get your name in print. gamecodkoptaioES @jh©tmaiLG©m ‘‘■'V * 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 newsroc^n at 777-7726 for more information. Credible reviews are hard to find MATHIEU DEFLEM GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM SG-sponsored site lacks objectivity, validity. Considering Student Govern ment’s endorsement of the Web site TeacherReviews.com, there are many problems involved with the use of such an online service. While we should always en courage open dialogue among stu dents and teachers in evaluating one another’s performance, re linquishing control to a private Web site outside of USC may not be the best way to foster useful learning conditions. Forgoing personal contacts among students to get information on their teachers, students using the site enter an impersonal sys tem that is deprived of any sense of a common commitment to the learning process. A privately owned Web site system not only represents a gen eralized system of distrust, it is redundant. The departments in our uni versity use teacher evaluations which come with much better control mechanisms than any private Web site could offer. Our evaluations are regulated by USC’s policies and procedures and are legally controlled by the state of South Carolina. While our system might not be perfect, we ought to implement it the best way we can and change it where we see fit. It could be proposed, for in stance, to report the summary statistics of the current evalua tions via the university server. Likewise, teachers in the uni versity ought to be encouraged to develop their Web pages and offer educational materials for their students. A central problem with TeacherReviews.com is that there is no quality control and no accountability. On the con trary, the TeacherReviews.com Web site comes with a long list of disclaimers, including that the contents is offered “on an ‘as is’ basis” and that “no representa tions or warranties of any kind” are implied. The site owner even specifies that he makes “no claims or rep resentations as to the accuracy, completeness or truth of any ma terial” on the Web site. Worse yet, tne owner ot TeacherReviews.com adds a le galistic disclaimer that “under no circumstances will Teacher Reviews.com be liable for direct, indirect, incidental or any other type of damages” resulting from using the Web site. Some service! Then what is the value of T-shirts and stickers that advertise for such a site? Can students only expect SG to adopt strategies that are “cost-ef fective” without an attempt to ap peal to faculty and the universi ty administration tq collaborate on planning useful educational tools? Or can and should students expect qualified and committed teachers and the very best efforts from their university to foster an environment of learning? There is an intrinsic value to education without third-party in terference. Students should expect the best from their teachers, as much as teachers expect the same from their students. Resigning to an online, Web based system that is not part of our university will surely not be the best way to attain our educa tional goals. Students and teachers should make their own university, not rely on others do it for them. Deflemis art assistant professor in the sociology department.