The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 16, 2004, Page 6, Image 6
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0 n I i n 0 “Just give me 30 minutes; my
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banning gay marriage? workmen to leAve the wAter on so
www.daUygamecock.com. SS"PREPARE F0R™EIR
=- ----—
In.our.opinion
No excuse for
plagiarism
In Friday’s issue of The Tiger, Clemson University’s'
student newspaper, Editor in Chief Daniel Lowrey
resigned amid the discovery that he plagiarized in at
least five articles over the past three years. This is a
blemish for student media everywhere.
Much like last year’s incident at The New York
Times, in which reporter Jayson Blair confessed to
making up quotes and events in his articles, the
situation at Clemson reminds readers and media
outlets that writers and reporters are not immune
to humanity’s flaws. However, such violations of
basic journalistic ethics
We applaud The Tiger’s breachthe
trust
faff’s effort to deal between a and it8
with the plagiarism „ .. .
situation quickly and readerslup-and are
decisively, “acceptable.
Instead of faulting
The Tiger for what could happen to any paper
despite an appropriate level of vigilance, we applaud
their effort to deal with the problem quickly and
decisively. Lowrey met with The Tiger staff before
issuing a public apology in Friday’s edition. In his
final column, Lowrey indicated that he would like to
remain with the paper in a non-writing role.
Retaining Lowrey, however, would be a mistake as
The Tiger seeks to regain its readers’ trust.
Lowrey said in his Friday column that after
staying up 24 consecutive hours to finish producing
The Tiger, he realized at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday
morning that he still needed to write a column to
fill up space. His deadline was 8 a.m., and Lowrey
said he panicked. The result, he said, was an article
that was only half his.
Regardless of the circumstances, there are no
acceptable reasons for taking the work of others and
calling it your own. Students who misappropriate
ideas that are not theirs, be it in a test, a paper or in
publication, commit the gravest sin of academia.
Universities are correct to treat such instances as
grounds for dismissal, and underline the
importance of an honor code, like the Carolinian
Creed, enforceable by a student judiciary.
Gamecock. Corrections
Because of an editing error, Brad Senkiw’s column ip Friday’s
paper should have said the USC men’s basketball team lost to the
Mississippi State Bulldogs.
The Gamecock regrets the error.
If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us
at gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu.
AboutThe.Gamecock
Editor in Chief
Adam Beam
Copy Desk Chief
Gabrielle Sinclair
Design Director
Shawn Rourk
News Editor
Michael LaForgia
Asst. News Editor
Alexis Stratton
Viewpoints Editor
Patrick Augustine
The Mix Editor
Meg Moore
Asst. Mix Editor
Jennifer Sitowski
Sports Editor
Wes Wolfe
Asst. Sports Editor
Jonathan Hillyard
Photo Editor
Morgan Ford
Asst. Photo Editor
Johnny Haynes
Page Designers
Erin Cline, Staci Jordan
Brian Ray. Brad Senkiv
Mary Pinckney Waters,
Chas McCarthy
Copy Editors
Allyson Bird, Jennifer
Freeman, Jessica Foste
Steven Van Haren
Wire Editor
Z'Anne Coveil
Online Editor
James Tolbert
Senior Writer
Kevin Fellner
CONTACT INFORMATION
Offices on third floor of the Russell House.
Editor in Chief: gamecockeditor@gwm.sc.edu
News: gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu
Viewpoints: gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu
The Mix: gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc.edu ,
Sports: gamecocksports@.gwm.sc.edu
Public Affairs: gamecockPR@yahoo.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
Advertising Staff
Robert Carli, Kate
Femim, Latoya Hines
Carolina Love, Jesica
r Johnson, David
Weatherford
Public Affairs
Kimberly Dressier
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. Tbe 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 Advertising: 777-3888
1400 Greene St. Classified: 777-1184
Columbia, S.C. 2Sg08 Fax: 777-6482
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CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
Why pay when you get it free?
If there’s one thing that USC
can’t spend enough money on,
it’s football. Everybody but the
NCAA wants to give our players
the finest stadium, equipment,
stereo equip
ment,
Escalades and
coaching mon
ey can buy.
We need to
give them
these things,
as quietly as
we can, so that
they come to
our school,
play for our
team, and have
successful ca
reers in the NFL after we have
misused their talent, played them
out of position, and gone 5-7 two
years in a row.
But there’s one iittle area that
USC has never, to my knowl
edge, funded, and that’s the one
area that the University of
Colorado is funding..Rather
than make sure that their re
cruits have the newest in P.
Diddy Escalade technology, or
give them thousands of dollars
of throwback jerseys, the
University of Colorado (known
to the dyslexic residents of
Boulder as “CU”) is paying to
make sure their football players
get to have sex.
Sure, I know that didn’t make
sense to you, so I’ll write it again.
The University of Colorado is
paying for its football players to
have sex. It’s paying people to
have sex with football players.
Football players!
If there is one thing in the his
tory of football, from John
Heisman to Lou Holtz, that play
ers have never had a hard time
getting, it’s sex. I mean, they’re
football players.
With the exception of
Catholic priests and Roman em
perors, no group has ever had
more guaranteed-to-succeed op
portunities for sex than football
players.
Every Division I-A school in
the country has thousands and
thousands of young, unattached
coeds who want nothing more
from life than to sleep with a
football player. It’s good for the
football players, and it gives the
girls a sense of accomplishment
(“Janie, I slept with the starting
center! It was kind of weird,
though. He made me grab his
butt and kept calling me ‘QB’”)
Most of all, it’s good for the uni
versity.
What is bad for the university
is promising football players sex,
paying for them to have sex, and
having the NCAA find out about
it.
Most SEC schools buy
Cadillacs in bulk, but when peo
ple find out about that little trans
action, they only blame us for be
ing pragmatic. When people find
out you’re paying for your foot
ball players to get laid, you just
think your coeds aren’t doing
their job.
So ladies, the next time you’re
at a football game, don’t think,
“Wow, those guys are all wear
ing really tight pants and jump
ing on top of each other.”
Instead, you should think,
“Man, maybe they have an open
ing in the color guard. I could
guard his colors any day!”
Because if we ever stoop to
paying people for having sex
with our football players, then
it means that we’re a universi
ty that no football player in his
right mind would want to at
tend.
And hey, if a top running
back prospect hit on me, I’d
wince, but do my duty.
Take one for the team.
Anything for USC.
in.your.opinion
Wolfe insults Bush
with name-calling
Wes Wolfe should be ashamed
of his column (“Unifying to get
an idiot out of office,”
Wednesday). Instead of present
ing a sound argument based on
reason and logic, he resorted to
nasty name-calling and puns on
me pi caiucin.
Throughout the column he
took many low jabs at Bush.
From calling him an “idiot,” and
“witless wonder," Wes wrote a
very partisan, unprofessional col
umn that does nothing to further
his cause. He made references to
polls showing that Bush was to
be on the losing end in this up
coming election. Instead of citing
this, maybe he should have gone
back and looked at the polls from
the last election that indicated
that name-calling and harsh
rhetoric used by the Democrats,
like that in his column, were the
biggest turnoff for undecided vot
ers, who proved to be the decid
ing factor for Bush in 2000.
The “reasons” he presented
were just as insane as his name
calling. First, he and thousands
of others need to come to grips
that Bush won the election.
Second, as an economics major, I
can tell you that tax cuts help
stimulate the economy, not
wreck it. He should not talk
about things he doesn’t know the
first thing about. Third, and most
importantly, Bush has done an
outstanding job in defending this
nation against terror. This is per
haps the strongest reason Bush
has for being re-elected. To claim
that Bush has failed on this front
is just plain false.
Although in this column I
have defended Bush, there have
been many things that I have not
liked about his policies. In such
things as immigration laws, bud
gets, and federal programs, I
have found many things that I
disagree with the president on.
However, I am not going to dis
regard the office he holds. It is
time for people like Wolfe to start
showing some respect for the
president, whoever he may be.
He should have concentrated on
the topics and not on dehuman
izing our leader. Instead of per
suading me to vote for Kerry, by
his lame tactics he has instead
persuaded me to vote for Bush.
CHRIS LANGFORD
SECOND-YEAR ECONOM ICS
STUDENT
Don't forget dorms
have built-in dangers
In his letter (“Culbertson
plays with fire on safety,”
Wednesday), Mike Myers men
tions that the reason we don’t al
low cooking equipment and var
ious other fire hazards in the
dorms is to prevent the damage
of people’s belongings. Correct
me if I am wrong, but every
apartment-style dorm has a
stove and an oven that produces
heat. What is the difference be
tween leaving your hamburger
frying in a pan on the stove and
leaving it on a George Foreman
Grill, both of which could lead to
fires. If housing really wants to
prevent fires in the dorm they
should outlaw electricity, as this
would prevent any fires.
However, I doubt that housing
really cares about the chance of
a fire — what it does care about
is its insurance premium, and
this can be greatly reduced if all
objects that are not a permanent
fixture in the dorms are out
lawed. Mr. Myers, if you value
your possessions so much then
why do you bring them to cam
pus where they could be stolen?
I have a solution to protect peo
ple from themselves: Make all of
campus a sand lot, plant it in grass
and forbid anyone from bringing
anything to campus, including
clothes and books. This would pre
vent theft because there is noth
ing to steal, fix the budget issues,
foster an open learning environ
ment, and we would have all the
green space one could want.
SEAN RAYMAN
FOURTH-YEAR CHEMICAL
ENGINEERING 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@gwm.sc.edu. Letters
will be edited for space, possible libel
and style. Anonymous letters will not be
published. Call the newsroom at 777
7726 for more information.
Dancing
away the
love-less
day blues
Line dancing is exactly what it
sounds like. It’s freshly cropped
mullets, slippery with booze, gy
rating to country music. With a
group of four brave, single souls
from the Gamecock staff, I took
□ the Valentine’s
Day eve plunge
to remedy lone
liness and see
lots of chain
smoking.
We went
deep into the
night to find
| STtvtN VAN Skyline, a mys
HAREN tical dive locat
0 , ed near the
Second-year _ , , .
mechanical Columbia air
engineering po^;
student Skepticism
was thick in the f fl
Friday air, es
pecially when we walked into the
cavernous hall and all hillbilly eyes
set upon us, seeing into our hearts,
knowing that we were absolutely
not regulars. Our Gucci suits and
fur coats didn’t impress them as
we intended, although one sharp
bumpkin noticed how similar our
minks were to “something I done
killed with a shovel last week.”
We found a table. Now fast-for
ward two hours, and let me set the
scene. Names have been changed
to sound cooler and/or dumber.
I can’t find the words to describe
how fun this place was. There was
line dancing, granted, but there
was also bumping and grinding.
For me, “bumping” was clumsily
knocking into rednecks, ancU
“grinding” was grinding my teetlr
nervously as I jostled about like an
idiot. Jan Friedman, my dance
partner, kicked me around and
kept me in check. She became
more mortified at my complete
lack of inhibition and rhythm as
the night went on and ditched me
for the mechanical bull. This er
ratic, gyrating contraption had
more rhythm than I did, despite be
ing designed as the antithesis, the
black hole if you will, of rhythm.
One member of our party, let’s
call him Matt Augustus, laughed
cheerily with a middle-aged wom
an who wanted to play his fiddle
with, ahem, no strings attached.
He was polite, but the 4-packs-a-day
woman made us all squirm un |
comfortably and clutch our youth.
When her husband, dressed like an
oil tycoon, playfully offered up his
old ball-and-chain for the evening,
Matt obliged. The two were last
seen early Saturday morning get
ting a marriage license at city hall.
The very-Irish Shane
O’Rourke, hopped up on Lucky
Charms and V-Day bitterness, dis
played his break-dancing skills to
a touching rendition of “Muskrat
jjuvc. int; reguicu 3 vuuu 1 uac
this “voodoo craziness” in then
dancing but loved Shane’s knowl
edge of Irish spirits and page de
sign. After they lowered their
pitchforks, he fit right in.
The fashionable Megar
Morrison took careful notes an,
will be doing an expose on the dos
and-don’ts of country style. Most
of these will be don’ts, especially
since she went into mild catatonic
. shock upon entering Skyline. After
we revived her on the mechanical
bull, she whispered, with teary
eyes, “Must... cut their... hair...
send... subscription... to Vogue.”
The tight-knit house band in
tegrated Metallica and “Addicted
to Love” into the Electric Slide. I
was won over, especially because
the middle-aged gal belting out
lead vocals was quite obviously
checking me out the whole night.
As our little group left, I locked
eyes with the singer one last
time. She pointed at me, pointed
at herself, pointed at a rawhide
saddle and licked her lips. I shud
dered, from love or lust I don’
know. She’ll be mine next time.'
College.Quote, Board
CORNELL DAILY SUN
COH.^EfcLf'NlVKRSITV
"Though flawed, the SAT is a statistically accurate measuring
stick' A common complaint about the SAT is that it is biased
against minorities and the poor. This condemnation is often
heard on college campuses, where ironically, research has con
sistently shown that the test accurately predicts college stu
dents’ grades. In the case of minorities, the SAT actually over
predicts college grades slightly, on average.”
DAILY ORANGE
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
“The Democratic Party needs to ask (Howard) Dean to step
down. President Bush is a $200 million dollar incumbent who will
be very difficult to defeat in November. Given that Dean has un
fortunately earned the brand of “unelectable,” has failed to win
a single primary after being the overwhelming favorite and has re
peatedly made a screaming spectacle of himself, it has become
painfully obvious he will not be able to win the White House.”
COURTESY OF Y-WIRE