The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, December 03, 2003, Page 5, Image 5
THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, December 3,2003 ’ 5
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IN OUR OPINION I
Power outages
endanger USC
(I Well, at least light pollution isn’t so much a problem
on USC’s city campus these days. Power outages have
seem to become a regular staple of college life here.
Electrical explosions and repeated blackouts have
become more than an inconvenience. That’s obvious
when a professor and his graduate assistants are
forced to shovel dry ice in the dark as they try to save
years’ worth of research and enzymes.
The university will get around to it—eventually.
Essentially, USC places
USC must ma e everything it cannot deal
replacing outdated a
electrical cables a , v . . .. x
priority. Don't wait for on 1116 dus* dKl°llst
things to completely la’ownas deferred
fall apart before maintenance,” the
,making a difference, ultimate tool tor the
procrastinating
administrator. USC needs more than $200 million to
cover deferred maintenance costs, of which $25
million is needed for utilities.
The wiring problems at the Graduate Science
Research Center are a serious safety issue, and this
should be reason enough to fix them. In light of budget
cuts and the race to be a contender in the research
sphere of universities, these ignored outages must be
addressed if USC wants to be taken seriously as an
important and relevant research school.
Acknowledging a problem doesn’t make it go away.
USC must make replacing outdated electrical cables a
priority. Don’t wait for things to completely fall apart
before making a difference.
Winners and Sinners
ROCKET TRAIN Magnetically levitated Japanese
train reaches 361 mph; America to build one soon.
Start making those Christmas lists, kiddies.
WORLD AIDS DAY Students fight to slow the
worst global disaster, one giant quilt at a time.
OZZY OSBOURNE Admits publicly after 44
years that he was molested as a child.
S.C. PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS Two in five
students who took the PACT failed. Dang it,
where’s Mississippi when you need it?
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA Fires head coach
despite coach winning 75 percent of games
during his six-year tenure.
VH1 Creates and awards rapper P. Diddy with
“Maverick of the Year” at the last minute to get
him to agree to be a presenter.
GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS
If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us
at gamecockopinions@hotmail.com.
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CARTOON BY MARY PINCKNEY WATERS/THE GAMECOCK
Meet the Bored of Trustees
PATRICK AUGUSTINE
GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM
Who makes the real
decisions around here?
One can hardly read student
jnedia without running into re
minders of what our glorious
Student Senate is doing to allevi
ate world poverty, bring peace to
the Middle East or prevent
Florida from screwing up the
next election.
From all the free press the sen
ate gets, you’d think what it does
is actually important, or carried
the weight of law.
Heck, do you think we’d pay
attention to what all those bald
ing men in Washington, D.C., do
if they couldn’t tax us or bomb
foreign countries?
Despite the bashing that SG
routinely receives, I agree that
the idea of a body in which rep
resentatives of the student body
can express the concerns of the
whole is important, which is why
the Board of Trustees system
frustrates me so much. You see,
unlike the students who run for
office, the 20 trustees actually
have the power to change cur
riculum, raise tuition and set ad
missions standards. Yes, the real
seat of power at USC is the board
room in the Osborne
Administration Building, a
Horseshoe away from the stu
dents in the Russell House.
The conventional argument is
that, like SG, where we elect rep
resentatives to carry our bidding
and ensure that football tickets
are fairly distributed to all, the
S.C. General Assembly chooses
trustees to make informed deci
sions about matters of higher ed
ucation. Sixteen out of 20 sitting
members of the board are voted
on by state legislators, and we all
know how much the Legislature
loves higher education.
If you haven’t been paying at
tention, the recent tuition in
creases are a result of the State
House cutting funding for USC
and other public colleges and
universities.
However, students at USC
have about as big a role in select
ing trustees as we do in influenc
ing them—zilch. Sure, there are
faculty and student liaison com
mittees that the board uses to jus
tify acting in our name, but the
only students on that board are
the top three members of SG, and
even they have no vote when the
chips are down. Any of this mak
ing you feel like the District of
Columbia, which has a “voice” in
Congress but no vote? I recall we
fought a war some 200-plus years
ago in order to have a say in the
decisions that affect us.
The Board of Trustees has no
impetus to give any credence to
the concerns of students, as shown
by the statement of member Eddie
Floyd that “parking is a luxury”
on campus. He said it in reference
to the board’s decision to build a
new garage next to the existing
one on Blossom Street and to raise
garage fees — easy to say when
you have a convenient space out
side the Osborne building.
Fundamentally, the issue is
about democracy — it is patently
unfair for an institution whose
purpose for existing is supposed
ly to educate students to exclude
them from anything but token
representation. One of the goals
of higher education is to instill
citizenship and the ideals of
democratic involvement in its re
cipients, something an elitist gov
ernance structure fails to do.
While little can be expected to
change in the near future, noth
ing will happen if students don’t
express outrage with being cut
out of the process.
Augustine is a third-year
political science student.
IN YOUR OPINION
Religious dogma
isn’t democracy
I am writing to take issue
with Jeff Mobley’s letter to the
editor (“Pragmatism alone
shouldn’t guide law,” Monday).
Mobley makes a long argu
ment for the idea that homo
sexuality is wrong, or a “sin.”
Like all people who apply their
religious beliefs to the public
policy realm, he makes a clas
sic logical error that essential
ly invalidates the rest of his
(admittedly thoughtful) argu
ment. He writes, “In simplest
terms, I believe the Bible.”
Well, lots of ideas flow natu
rally from that statement.
If you accept the Bible as
something more than it is, a
book written by many authors,
over several long and discrete
periods of history, encompass
ing about as many shifts in hu
man thought and perception as
one might imagine, then you
can always find scripture to
back up whatever public policy
arguments you might want to
make. It is, in short, the intel
lectual equivalent of cheating.
Nothing in life is quite that
easy, and I appeal to the read
ers of this newspaper to avoid
falling into these sorts of traps
— they are the sources of end
less conflict in human society,
and one has only to look at the
headlines to see that it is so.
Everything might be a little
easier to figure out if we picked
one historical text and decided
that it was “all true,” but a
thinking person cannot easily
circumvent the rules of logical
thinking in this manner, no
matter how easy it might make
everything else to figure out
from then on.
TYLER LEE
GRADUATE STUDENT IN LAW
USC mistreats
its own students
It’s true what they say; Things
happen in threes. I sent a letter
to The Gamecock lamenting the
intrusiveness of the bag-check
policy when exiting, not enter
ing, the Thomas Cooper Library
— what should be an embar
rassment to library administra
tion and USC in general.
I called a lawyer friend who
assured me the only recourse I
have to spare myself the intru
sion is to go without a bag.
According to her, the library
could argue that the bag check
deters theft of student belong
ings, not necessarily library
property — an absurd asser
tion. The bag check is an intru
sion into students’ privacy for
no other reason than to check
for stolen books.
This Friday, in what seemed
like a ploy to irritate my al
ready-tenuous relationship
with the library, the student
worker at the checkout desk
told me I could not check out
any books because I’d not re
turned a recalled book. I was as
tounded — not because of the
drastic measure (revoking stu
dents’ privilege to check out
books and thereby depriving
them of the right to learn), but
because I’d never received such
a notification. Turns out the li
brary had sent an e-mail to my
university account. I have nev
er checked this account and had
no idea I was responsible for
providing USC with an alterna
tive e-mail address. I left the
checkout desk utterly frustrat
ed and made my way past the
bag checker, who dutifully
called me back. I’d walked de
terminedly past him without
opening my book bag.
Aggravated to speechlessqess,
I flashed the contents of my bag
and got a monotone “OK. Thank
you.” Needless to say, the student
enforcer didn’t bother to scruti
nize any of the three books (one of
which was, in fact, a library book).
The last of USC’s three-prong
assault on me happened in the stu
dent parking lot behind the Roger
Center. Because the parking lots
across from the School of Music
are — as of this week—no longer
available and all street parking
was taken, I drove to the student
parking lot. As I pulled up, I saw
two men collecting $5 from every
one. I thought, “Surely, this can’t
apply to students.” Well, despite
telling the attendant I was a stu
dent with a student parking decal
and that I was headed to the
School of Music, he said coldly,
“Tonight this isn’t a student lot.
$5.” I pulled into the lot, made a U
tum and drove to the faculty park
ing lot at Wardlaw College (where
I’d been previously). Yes, these
lots can transform into “event”
lots at anytime and without prior
warning — says so right on the
USC Parking Services Web site.
What I’ve been forced to con
clude from all this is that USC is
not student-centered. Period. True,
USC students, like students ev
erywhere, are charged not only for
an education but also for services.
However, USC is derelict in pro
viding us with the user-friendly
services we pay for — and should
demand. Consequently, we feel
like second-class citizens in a place
erected to serve us. Imagine that.
KEVIN SIMMONDS
GRADUATE STUDENT IN MUSIC
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For the
love of
health
spending
> x m.
RYAN HOLT
GAMECOCKOPINIONS@HOTMAIL.COM
The necessary evil that
young people must face.
In an effort to step away from
my usual sermons on the great
ness of the conservative move
ment, I thought I’d approach an
issue of politics from an unbiased
stance. The issue? Medicare. Far
too many of us don’t care at all,
unwary how it impacts us as stu
dents even now.
After several grueling hours
of debate and failed votes, House
members, with encouragement
from the president and House
leadership, passed a new
Medicare prescription drug plan
with a five-vote margin. The
Senate followed suit after its own
troubles, including a clotured fil
ibuster by Ted Kennedy.
The highly controversial legis
lation is soon to be law, awaiting
approval by the president. Most
citizens don’t realize that begin
ning in 2006, when the Medicare
Prescription Drug Modernization
Act takes effect, taxpayers will be
charged more to pay for this pro
gram. A House version of the bill
allowed for a privatization mea
sure, which would have greatly re
duced costs on the part of taxpay
ers. However, reluctance by bi
partisan members of both Houses
scrapped the provision, resulting
in the current piece of legislation.
The question at hand is what
in the world does this have to do
with people your age?
The downside is that there is a
heavy financial price that you
will have to pay one day. The
Heritage Foundation estimates
the extra tax cost per household
in 2030 to be $1,125.
The benefits are extensive and
will one day apply to us, some
thing much appreciated by many
of America’s seniors. Beginning
in 2006, individuals will pay only
$35 to receive the following
health coverage. If someone is in
need of medication, he will re
ceive coverage up to $250 for pre
scription drugs. For drug costs
between $250 and $2,000, the pay
ee will contribute 20 percent of
the cost while Medicare pays for
the remaining 80 percent. For
drug costs exceeding $3,500, low
income and middle-class seniors
will pay only 5 percent of costs.
Until 2006, seniors can pur
chase a discount card for $30 that
will provide a discount between
10 percent and 15 percent on
drug purchases.
Students and other nonseniors
now have the option to set aside
several thousands of dollars in
tax-free health savings accounts.
With the greater numbers of
people entering places in the line
of senior citizens, there comes the
greater responsibility younger gen
erations have to monitor their
well-being. Not only are we given
the tax burden, but we’re met with
me mougnt mat pernaps me cur
rent Medicare might not even be
enough. Perhaps when we are run
ning the country, the true effects
of the long-gone Baby Boom will
come to our attention. In the mean
time, we can watch and hope that
the right decisions have been made
in regard to health care and, more
specifically, prescription drugs.
Although Medicare and just
plain health care seem terribly bor
ing, the importance is colossal.
Americans are faced with a scale
— on one side is impeccable health
care, on the other is a greater tax
burden. I say what I always say for
good programs — cut spending
elsewhere to pay for it instead of
raising our taxes. But really, it’s
up to our generation to decide be
cause we’ll be reaping both the
costs and the benefits.
Holt is a first-year political science
student.