Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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ONLINE POLL Should medical and law school students have reserved football tickets? Goto www.dailygamecock.com to vote. Results posted on Friday. TH 'ftfAMECOCK EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR Adam Beam DESIGN DIRECTOR David Stagg NEWS EDITOR > Michael LaForgia THE MIX EDITOR Meg Moore COPY DESK CHIEF Gabrielle Sinclair VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe SENIOR WRITER Kevin Fellner _ _ _ _ \ IN OUR OPINION Students who vote can change agenda Less than 36 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds voted in the 1996 presidential election. Other elections have yielded similar results. It’s sad that the college demographic doesn’t take voting seri ously. It should be the opposite. For years, college students >have been politically active on their campuses. The 1960s and 1970s saw a resurgence in student move ments tor civil rights and other f P60pl6 political and human rights issues. between the Just walk down Greene Street on ages of 18 and , , ... . 24 turn out and any glven day and you are llkely vote, politicians to see st"dent groups demo,n Will have to stratin8 f°r a cause they believe start listening. in The fact is, we are young, we are passionate and we have ideas. And yet, despite all of this, we stay at home in November while the rest of the nation decides who will be the leader of the free world. And when the election is over we come out from hiding t and complain that no one takes us seriously. • Here’s an idea: We start voting, and leaders will have to start listening. Why do you think the American Association of Retired Persons has so much power? Because the majority or people over 45 vote. 1 hat s why prescription drugs and health care issues are topics of every election while funding for higher education is not. If you are a South Carolina resident, you can register to vote at http://www.state.sc.us/scsec/vr.html. Print out the form, fill it out and mail it to your district’s office. The Web site will even provide you with the correct address. If you can’t get home to vote on Nov. 2, mail in an absentee ballot. It’s not hard, just request a ballot from your county voter registration office and mail it back before Nov. 2 and your vote will be counted. ^ Don’t let others decide for you. Please vote. 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 gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu GAMECOCK CORRECTIONS If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know. E-mail us at gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK bull UK Adam Beam DESIGN DIRECTOR f David Stagg COPY DESK CHIEF Gabrielle Sinclair NEWS EDITOR Michael LaForgia ASST. NEWS EDITOR Jon Turner VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe 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 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 Erin Cline, Staci Jordan, Jennifer Logan I Chas McCarthy, f Jessica .Ann Nielsen COPY EDITORS Jennifer Freeman, Steven Van Haren, Anna Huntley, Daniel Regenscheit, Jason Reynolds, Jennifer Sitkowski, Joel Wallace ONLINE EDITOR Brian Cope PUBLIC AFFAIRS Jane Fielden, Katie Miles i 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 Patrick Bergen CREATIVE SERVICES Burke Lauderdale, Chelsea Felder, Laura Gough,Joseph Dannelly, Kristen Williams ADVERTISING STAFF Robert Carli, Ryan Gorman, Caroline Love, v Jesica Johnson, Katie Stephens TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock Advertising: 777-3888 1400 Greene St. Classified: 777-1184 Columbia. S.C. 29208 Fax: 777-6482 ? . ( 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. CJ CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Missionary sheds light on misery ■ The experiences of children in Trinidad should humble us Sometimes the most enlightening moments of our lives happen completely unannounced, and this past Sunday just happened to be one of those times. The day started off like any other Sunday, with me frantically trying to make it to church on time. Halfway through the service it was announced that we had a guest speaker. A quick analysis of the man’s appearance told me he was probably a missionary. I braced myself for the typical “mission report” — pictures, stories and a description of why this particular work is so important. Nothing in my previous church experience prepared me for what I would see next. While I was correct in guessing that the man was indeed a missionary, I was entirely wrong as to the nature of his work. He was a native of Trinidad and had come to talk to us about a children’s home that my church supports in his hometown. As a native of the small Caribbean island, he was able to explain to us in graphic terms how growing up in Trinidad is much different than growing up here in America. At 13, he told us, he received his first pair of shoes so that he would no longer have to walk the three miles to school barefoot. Hearing about h i s background gave me a clear understanding of why he was JUSTIN able to speak SIMMONS Zf°“£ FOURTH-YEAR plight of his POLITICAL fellow SCIFNCF i c i i u w STUDENT countrymen, especially the children. Through pictures he was able to introduce us to several children who live at the children’s home. One child was a boy who had been placed there in home to escape an abusive father. The father had literally pulled a tooth out of the boy’s mouth whenever the boy made a mistake. This obviously has left the boy with emotional scars and prevents him from opening up to any male figures he may meet. Another girl was left on a cinder block outside the home and was told by her mother to “Stay here and 1 will come back and get you.” For days the girl sat on that cinder block, despite the weather, with her face in her hands, waiting for her mother to return for her. Flies would cover her body, yet still she remained patiently waiting for her mother with a hope that only children are capable of. The missionary said one day he went outside and sat down on a cinder block next to hers and put his face in his hands. He said within a minute flies descended on his body, and it was only then that he truly understood how deeply this girl longed for her mother’s return. After 10 minutes of sitting there, he said the girl raised her head, turned and said, “Are you waiting for your mother, too?” I could go on about the family who possessed nothing of value but the joy of being with family. About the children who daily search the garbage dump for food and then go sit in their cardboard houses, grinning as if they inhabited a mansion. Yes, 1 could tell you more, * but my space is limited, and 1 have come to the point of all these stories of abuse, abandonment and poverty. We should be ashamed. Not only should we be ashamed of our failure to do more for people like the ones I mention, but also of our constant desire to have more. After seeing a child with few teeth left in his mouth smile, never again' will I complain about tuition hikes. After seeing children grinning ear to ear after digging through trash for their food, never again will I complain about parking. After seeing the simple and yet complete joy of these people who have so little, never will 1 who have so much close my eyes to the true blessings of life. IN YOUR OPINION Law, med students earned privilege I am writing in response to your editorial regarding law and medical students’ ticket privileges (“Football ticket plan unfair to undergrads,” Monday). First, the editorial seems to suggest that it is unfair for law and medical students to get preferential treatment when it comes to getting tickets. After spending four years as a USC undergrad, excelling in your studies and incurring massive debt just to get into law or medical school, where the tuition is more than twice as much, you will probably expect a little break when it comes to getting your football ticket. Also, USC law and medicine grads contribute a disproportionate amount of alumni money that goes to fund the entire university, even though some of them went to other schools as undergraduates. Second, the editorial concludes by saying that selling student tickets to non-students is unfair. I agree that it certainly would be, but I don’t see what this has to do at all with the rest of the editorial. The writer is not only annoying USC’s most profitable alumni base, but is also making us look bad by writing editorials like this in our school newspaper. J. TYLER LEE JR. Graduate student in the Law School Dwelling on the flag doesn’t help anyone I’m debating between which was more ignorant — Terence Washington’s column (“Rebel flag has no place at Carolina,” Sept. 13) about the Confederate flag and the lack of black history education or Brad Tune’s letter in response (“Washington doesn’t recognize history,” Wednesday). I am so tired of listening to black people who rant, “Why don’t they teach about our people?” Come on, it’s old, tired and played out. Schools teach about slavery, they teach about racism and they teach about the Civil Rights movement. I’m so sick of the Civil Rights movement in its modern incarnation. Blacks can’t figure out any innovative ways to make themselves meaningful in this era, so they find a few issues that they can cling to, like the Confederate flag, that they blow out of proportion. Even after we took the flag off the State House, they still try to make it an issue. Please, find some real civil rights abuses to fight and actually do some good. As to Mr. Tune’s letter, he, like so many other Southerners, chooses to ignore history and paint the Civil War as a righteous war against the tyranny of the North. In the pre Civil War United States, slavery was not just an incredibly divisive issue, but the most important issue as well, just as it had been throughout the history of the country. It was one of the dominating issues at the Constitutional Convention in 1789, which established the three fifths compromise, and it was certainly the most important issue in the election of 1860, which resulted in the election of Lincoln and the subsequent secession of South Carolina and the other Southern states. It has long since been high time for both Southerners and black people to move on. There are so many 21st century issues that are so important; it’s a tragedy that so many of us are stuck in the 19th. CRAIG LINK Third-year history 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. Anonymous letters will not be published. Call the newsroom at 777 7726 for more information. XT Jr WINNERS AND SINNERS ‘ANGELS IN AMERICA’ HBO series about AIDS crisis receives record 11 Emmy awards. JOHN EDWARDS Democratic vice presidential p, .i nominee to speak in Columbia today. TEXAS A&M The Aggies use the 12th Man to embarrass Clemson on Saturday. I SEC OFFICIALS Refs at the Florida-Tennessee game manage to blow two game-defining calls. TICKET DISTRIBUTION Law and Medical school students get reserved tickets, despite USC policy that no students are guaranteed a ticket. TEXAS RANGERS PITCHER Frank Francisco gets upset at a heckler and throws a chair, breaking a woman’s nose. 0 Blame lies in system, not with president ■ Bureaucracies are at fault for the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks As the elections draw nearer, I’ve noticed the Democratic camp is not only tirelessly trying to convince the American people that Bush is incapable of defending the nation against terrorist attacks, but is also increasingly implying that Bush is to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks. The prevalent CURTIS “on: “The PHOW Bush administration FOURTH-YEAR had amPle indication of the STUDENT impending terrorist atrark yet did nothing. President Bush should be held responsible for the events that occurred on that fateful day.” First of all, let’s take out the resolute bias of the wording. Who exactly had information leading to the 9/11 attacks? The CIA had information that bin Laden planned to use hijacked planes on kamikaze-style missions. The FBI had reports of suspicious men training at flight schools. The NSA and Secret Service reportedly both had been monitoring key figures in the attacks prior to their execution. So it is clear that the Bush administration had plenty of red flags yet failed to prevent the terrorist attacks. However, these red flags were distributed among several bureaucratic agencies within the administration — agencies already in place, each with its own distinct bureaucratic culture. One of the first things a political scientist learns about bureaucracies is that they are the most permanent institutions within the government, and their primary objective is not the fulfillment of their established purposes but rather self-preservation. It was this negligence of responsibility in favor of self preservation that allowed 9/11 to occur. The FBI, CIA, NSA and Secret Service are all agents of the federal government charged in some form or fashion with maintaining national security. However, if this were truly their goal, then surely they would have II 1 .1 ll l ■ . II* vuuauuiau.u auu »uaiku uutuigUKb between agencies to prevent the 9/11 attacks. However, if we look at them as we would a pie — a big federal budget pie — it all makes a little more sense. There is a huge disincentive for any one of these agencies to help another, since efficiency and effectiveness for any other agency means that one agency gets a smaller piece of the pie, and the other agency gets what that agency loses. Worse yet, perhaps it means that the one agency is deemed obsolete in light of the accomplishments of the rival agency. Each agency will play according to its own interests and systematically refrain from offering assistance to other agencies. The result — complete knowledge of the 9/11 attacks but spread out and disunited. There are many historical instances in which bureaucracies have killed for the sake of their bureaucratic institutions. The same bureaucratic institutions in Nazi Germany responsible for the execution of genocide had been in place prior to and after the war and, moreover, were comprised of the same people. This disturbing degree of obedience to authority within bureaucracies has proven to be fatal in many instances, even in the United States, including 9/11. 30 to you, tne raitnrui reaaer, 1 pose this question: Is Bush to blame for the tragic events of 9/11, or is big bureaucratic government to blame?