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ONLINE POLL Have you registered to vote? Let us know at www.daiiygamecock.com. Results posted Friday. thiUbamecock EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR Adam Beam DESIGN DIRECTOR COPY DESK CHIEF i David Stagg Gabrielle Sinclair NEWS EDITOR VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Michael LaForgia Wes Wolfe THE MIX EDITOR SENIOR WRITER Meg Moore Kevin Fellner IN OUR OPINION Peeping incident reveals problems News of a peeping Tom in the women’s locker room at the Blatt P.E. Center was disturbing, but what is more disturbing is Campus Recreation’s reaction. According to police reports, this has been going on since the beginning of August. Yet Campus Recreation did not post any signs or issue any warnings to women who use its facility. Yes, putting up signs and issuing warnings might have created a panic and could have resulted in fewer worn en using the Blatt, but that Campus Recreation is a usk use should have should have been taken given the security more concerned risk, about the safety of It was just one year ago USC StUdentS. When record numbers of sexual assaults occurred on campus. The parents of USC students entrust the uni versity with the safety of their children, and it’s a shame that it seems Campus Recreation was putting the interest of its building before the interest of student safety. Tuesday, USC officials announced USC Police had arrested Mateusz Kacprzak, a first-year geophysics stu dent, for the peeping Tom incidents. While it’s a relief that police have made an arrest, we feel this isn’t an indication that Campus Recreation can relax. Instead, Campus Recreation officials should examine the security of its buildings and find out how something like this could happen and put measures in place that will prevent it from happening again. And while an individual has been arrested, it is important to remember that this is America, where everyone is innocent until proven guilty. IT’S YOUR RIGHT Exercise your right to voice your opinion Create message boards at www.dailygamecock.com or send letters to the editor to gamecoc kopin ions@gwm. sc .edu GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS On Monday’s front page teaser for Viewpoints, Terence Washington’s name was misspelled. 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. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK | tuiiun Adam Beam DESIGN DIRECTOR David Stagg COPY DESK CHIEF Gabrielle Sinclair NEWS EDITOR Michael LaForgia ASST. NEWS EDITOR Jon Turner VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe THE MIX EDITOR Meg Moore SPORTS EDITOR Jonathan Hillyard ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Daniel Kerr SENIOR WRITER Kevin Fellner PHOTO EDITOR Jason Steelman SPORTS PHOTO EDITOR Katie Kirkland PAGE DESIGNERS I Staci Jordan, Jennifer Logan, Chas McCarthy, Jessica Ann Nielsen COPY EDITORS Jennifer Freeman, Anna Huntley, Daniel Regenscheit, Jason Reynolds, Jennifer Sitkowski, Steven Van Haren, Joel Wallace ONLINE EDITOR Brian Cope PUBLIC AFFAIRS Jane Fielden, Katie Miles TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock Advertising: 777-3888 1400 Greene St. Classified: 777-1184 ;» Columbia, S.C. 29208 ^ax: 777-6482 f CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. The Editor in Chief’s office hours are Monday and Wednesday from 3-5 p.m. 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; Sports: 777-7182 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. Flolmes PRODUCTION MANAGER Patrick Bergen CREATIVE SERVICES Burke Lauderdale, Chelsea Felder, Laura Gough, Joseph Dannelly, Kristen Williams ADVERTISING STAFF Robert Carli, Ryan Gorman, Caroline Love, Jesica Johnson, Katie Stephens 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. ma> memos... VICIOUS ADS... CHARACTER ASSASSINATIONS. DIRTY TRICKS... IB MY KIND OF CAMPAIGN? CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Jumping on anti-Bush bandwagon ■ Bring on the hate mail — Anyone could do better than Dubya It seems as though over the past few weeks, a common theme of column writing in the Viewpoints section has been Bush bashing. Wanting to be cool like everyone else, I thought it would be appropriate if I were to jump on the bandwagon and join in the festivities. First, let’s start with the economy. For the sake of our argument, let’s ignore the fact that the real GDP (adjusted for inflation) has risen more than half a trillion dollars — the per-capita average by near a thousand (bearing in mind a population increase of over 5 million denizens), and the proportion of Americans below the poverty line has decreased by 0.7 percent since Bush has taken office. And who cares that our GDP growth rate has been positive since November 2001 or that the unemployment rate is down to 5.4 percent? (Clinton’s career average was similar — about 5.2 percent.) Bush sucks at the economy! Just watch the news and read the headlines! He’s clearly the most incompetent president we’ve had since Taft. Not only does he suck at the economy, but he’s outsourcing jobs! Can you believe that man has the audacity to send our good ole ‘merican jobs overseas when there are those of us at home who are unemployed? Of course, CURTIS outsourcing runiAi has nothmsto unuw do with labor FOURTH-YEAR market trends l?UDENTCS contingent upon the supply and demand for certain permutations of skilled and unskilled labor. Surely technology, education and market trends could not have changed at all since he’s taken office; the shift of production offshore must reflect poor leadership and lack of experience. That’s why I like Kerry: He has a lot of experience dealing with problems associated with outsourcing. (He did, after alL, spearhead a trade mission with Boston Capital & Technology to China creating over 70 outsourcing projects.) Furthermore, what’s with Iraq? He lied to us! There were no WMDs as he’s claimed. I think Clinton’s administration and the UN lied also when they all claimed that Saddam’s used them 10 times since 1983. He then went on to dishonor our troops by taking an illegal instance of prison abuse and then pushing it into the limelight as representative of the action of the majority of our troops in an attempt to discredit his own leadership over the war. Wait a minute — maybe I’m thinking of the liberal mainstream media and Bush opponents. I stand corrected. He’s still a bad president, and he’s personally responsible for all of your bad childhood memories. Bush is an idiot. He’s way stupid. Have you heard him talk? He’s clearly too stupid to run the country. But don’t let that fool you — he’s also an evil genius capable of manipulating and masterminding intricate selfish plots to make him and his oil buddies richer. But don’t let that fool you either; he’s really stupid. As I anticipate the flood of hate mail this column is bound to attract, I’m inclined to be pre-emptive in my own defense. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about either presidential candidate — I’m just getting a bit weary of having poorly researched but highly opinionated Bush-hate rhetoric angrily and fervently shoved in my face. What’s worse is that this sort of attitude is apparently contagious. It seems the campaign strategy of the left is similar to that of Hitler’s: “Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it.” Bush sucks! Anybody but Bush! IN YOUR OPINION Liberalism is better than barbarism Stand back, people. I’m about to assume my “better-than-thou” pose, and I don’t want to hurt anyone with my liberalism. In his column (“Conservatism isn’t compassionate,” Monday), Corey Garriott presents the Democratic Party as a bunch of guilt-ridden, limp-wristed socialites who nurture pet causes and oppressed people. Even worse, they are “whiners.” By contrast, Mr. Garriott seems to think of Republicans as commendable barbarians. One can almost imagine Mr. Garriott admiring their lusty muscles and ripe sinews in some kind of Ayn Rand/Manley Hopkins fever dream pastiche. Well, here’s the truth. The dominant faction of the modern Republican Party is indeed merciless. They campaign through deceptive puppetry. They “flip flop” on issues and then declare John Kerry the blackest of kettles. They mislead relentlessly, and they “whine” about activist judges enforcing the Constitution regarding gay marriage knowing full well that they (Republicans) cheered when the Supreme Court royally overstepped its bounds and crowned Bpsh emperor. Democrats are of a contrary nature, then? Seems to me they have an obligation to be within this political climate. MITCH FRYE Graduate student in the College of Liberal Arts Washington doesn’t recognize history You know, it is so typical of someone who is not from this state (and I can probably assume from the South altogether), for that person to tell us exactly what is wrong with everything we do (“Rebel flag has no place at Carolina,” Monday). First off, 1 attended high school in the small-town South and I’ve studied the middle passage, I’ve seen “Roots,” and I know what apartheid is. Terence Washington argues that advocates of the Confederate flag “recall the South’s heritage and the Confederacy’s fight for states rights.” This is true. Washington continues, to write that we have “forgotten” our cause was “for the sake of slavery.” Slavery did not even become an issue for President Lincoln until he realized that without supporting the cause of emancipation, he would be hard-pressed to rally the remaining neutral states to the side of the Union to win the war. Finally, Washington shouldn’t tell me how ignorant and racist my home is and then end the diatribe with the copout that he wasn’t actually attempting to condemn those who live here. That is ignorant. BRAD TUNE First-year civil engineering student Washington right on Confederate banner I am writing to commend Terence Washington for his recent column on the flying of the rebel flag at the recent football game (“Rebel flag has no place at Carolina,” Monday). Mr. Washington, thank you for standing up for what is correct and having no fear to describe the rebel flag as what it is — a terrible relic of the atrocities exacted on African slaves and a symbol of ongoing ignorance and racism in the Southern states. ELYN BLACKMAN Graduate student in the College of Liberal Arts and College of Mass Communications and Library Sciences 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. Anonymous letters will not be published. Call the newsroom at 777 7726 for more information. DeMint will raise price of your beer ■ The Republican U.S. Senate nominee’s tax plan is bad for students There have been a lot of television commercials about taxes recently. Both Democrat Inez Tenenbaum and Republican -- Jim DeMint are talking about their tax plans. But once you cut through the ^hype, you can see that one candidate wants to cut taxes, and CRAIG the. . other ______ candidate wants SWAISGOOD to raise them FOURTH-YEAR with a radical POLITICAL new idea for a SCIENCE nCW 11163 t0r 3 STUDENT 23 percent federal sales tax. jim uejvunt has an ad that says he wants to get rid of the income tax system. But he doesn’t tell you what he wants to replace it with. DeMint has co sponsored House Resolution 25, which would replace the income tax with a 23 percent national sales tax. We would pay this tax in addition to the five percent state sales tax we already pay at the cash register. The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy did a study on the DeMint tax plan. They found out that a 23 percent sales tax would raise taxes on 95 percent of South Carolinians. Anyone making less than $120,000 would pay more in taxes under the DeMint plan. Of course, most students don’t read reports from Washington think tanks. So I commissioned my own study by the Craig Swaisgood Institute — CSI. I decided to put some real world figures on DeMint’s 23 percent tax plan. How would this affect students? I went down to Addams Bookstore and did a price comparison. The textbook for Biology 101 currently costs $128. With a 23 percent sales tax, it would cost $157.44 — an increase of nearly $30. If you spent $300 on textbooks, you would have to pay an additional $69 in new taxes under the DeMint plan. But students only buy textbooks once a semester. What’s another way this 23 percent sales tax would hit students? The DeMint tax is also a beer tax. 1 went to Green’s and did some more comparison shopping. A case of Budweiser would cost $3 extra, and a keg of Killian’s would cost almost $20 more. So DeMint wants to tax textbooks and beer — and just about everything else that students buy. Do students see any benefit? Hardly. DeMint says his plan would eliminate the income tax., But students have hardly any income to begin with. And there are plenty of income tax deductions for students to take advantage of — like tax credits for college tuition and deductions on student loan interest. All of these tax deductions would be eliminated under the DeMint plan. There are plenty of ways to make the tax code fairer. In fact, Inez has a plan to cut taxes on the middle class. Inez’s jobs plan on her Web site includes 10 different tax cuts, tax credits and tax incentives. It would make the 10 percent tax bracket — the one most students fall into — a permanent part of the tax code. Inez’s tax plan would create tax incentives for businesses that create jobs here in America, so that we will have good jobs to look forward to after we graduate. So the next time you see a political commercial on television, be sure to watch your wallet. And be sure to stock up on beer. Because if DeMint has his way, it’s about to get 23 percent more expensive. WINNERS AND SINNERS r use BASEBALL Success pays off with plans for a spanking-new stadium. SENATE CANDIDATES U.S. Senate candidates Inez Tenenbaum and Jim DeMint to debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in October. GEORGIA TECH The Yellow Jackets come from behind to beat Clemson at Tiger Stadiury. HURRICANE IVAN New Orleans faces toughest challenge — other than the Atlanta Falcons. ^ TICKET COUNTERFEITERS Fake ucketers add insult to injury after USC loss. WISCONSIN FUGITIVE Man on the run from the police drops his fiancee’s baby, while in her car seat, | onto tit? interstate.