The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 05, 2004, Page 4, Image 4
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THiftfAMECOGK
EDITORIAL BOARD
CUI I UK
Adam Beam
DESIGN DIRECTOR
David Stagg
NEWS EDITOR
Michael LaForgia
THE MIX EDITOR
Meg Moore
*
uuri ucarv v.mcr
Gabrielle Sinclair
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
SENIOR WRITER
Kevin Fellner t
ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
IN OUR OPINION
Carolinian Creed
deserves respect
Last week, USC celebrated the Carolinian Creed, an honor
code espousing student behavior standards. But aside from being
memorized in University 101 classes and used for USC promo
tional items, the Creed seems to have lost its significance on
campus. Most students weren’t even aware it was Creed Week,
or even that the Carolinian Creed existed.
The Creed was created in the 1970s as an alternative to the
hundreds of pages in the official guide for student behavior. Rather
than have a huge document laying out crime and punishment, stu
dent leaders decided to draft the creed, on one page, and use it
Believing in a set of
ideals and trying to
uphold them might
set a standard of
student behavior
from which the
Carolina Community
can benefit.
instead. The result was a document
that, by enrolling at USC, every
student pledged to uphold.
But student behavior recently
suggests many students don’t val
ue the Creed. Students are stealing
food from campus restaurants,
. 1
culling itdiduictui uvvatio uiuu
sands of dollars a year. Students are also ripping down signs put
up by other student organizations to advertise their events. And
Saturday, students threw water bottles and other objects onto the
field to protest what they viewed as a no-call from the officials. It
seems that students are not taking to heart the Creed’s admoni
tion of “respecting the rights and property of others.”
We are not offering the Creed as a one-stop solution to cam
pus crime. Students will act like students, and we understand
that. But if those same students would value the Carolinian
Creed, understand what it means and try to uphold it with
pride, maybe they will think twice before they steal from the
GMP or tear down a student organization’s sign. A belief in a
set of ideals and an effort to uphold those ideals might set a
standard of student behavior from which the Carolina
Community can benefit.So read the Creed, understand what it
means and try to live by it while you are at USC. And maybe
when you graduate it will stay with you as you enter the real
world and become a productive member of society.
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
I
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MUCHII DCdlll
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Meg Moore
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1 , .
LeSTeR PimSaUAT, THe LAST uNDSCiDeD VoTeRin AMeRiCA* Misses The
EiecTion EKTiReiY vvHeN He’s FAcep vJiTH TgTANQTHeR, vexins Decision,,
CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
Rove and Bush win through lying
■ The American people
caved in to Republican
manipulations and fear
My hat is off to you, Karl Rove.
You and the rest of the Republican
Party showed that you are nothing
short of genius. Only a genius could
take a record as bad as George W.
Bush’s and pull in more votes than
Sen. Kerry. True, Sen. Kerry could
have run a better campaign, but that
takes nothing away from your ability
to manipulate roughly 60 million
voters.
You convinced the “soccer moms”
that Bush was the only one to protect
us. You convinced the bigots and
haters that gays were running rampant
in America and the only way to stop
them was to have a constitutional
amendment that, for the first time in
history, would limit rights rather than
expand them. You convinced “pro
lifers” that Kerry would encourage
abortion. You convinced people that
the only problem with the raising cost
of health care was trial lawyers. You
convinced the religious faiths that
Bush was the only one with true
family values. You did all this and you
did not care about the fact that none
of it is true.
But when it came down to the
actual voting, we let fear takeover. A
lot of people wanted to vote against
Bush but they believed what he and
Rove were saying about the only true
way to be secure is to “stay the
course.” What
course is that?
Is that course to
bomb countries
that had
absolutely
nothing to do
with Sept. 11,
2001? Or is
that course to
allow Osama
bin Laden to
continue to run
free? Maybe the
course they
were talking
CRAIG
SWAISGOOD
FOURTH-YEAR
POLITICAL
SCIENCE
STUDENT
auom was iu
continue to alienate the countries that
used to be our Friends. I have no idea.
But 60 million people bought into the
idea that this country is heading in the
right direction.
With 45 million Americans
without health care and millions of
other struggling to keep it, we should
not “stay the course.” With health care
costs rising by more than 12 percent
each of the past four years, we should
not “stay the course.” With thousands
dying over in Iraq, we should not “stay
the course.” With the worst job loss
rate since the Depression, we should
not “stay the course.” With more than
30 million Americans living in
poverty, we should not “stay the
course.” With assault weapons back on
the streets, we should not “stay the
course.”
There is not a single thing that has
happened in the past four years that
warranted four more years of this
terrible “course.”
The sad thing is that Americans are
so out of touch with reality that they
elect senators who tell the voters that
they look forward to being a rubber
stamp for the Rove agenda. Nowhere
in America is that more true, than in
our great state of South Carolina.
DeMint’s campaign slogan should
have been changed from “secure the
future” to “Tenenbaum is a
Democrat.” That is the only reason he
won.
Everyone throughout America
knew Inez was a better candidate cme
on-one, but she was a Democrat trying
to win in South Carolina during a
presidential year. DeMint told all
South Carolinians that Inez would be
another “Ted Kennedy or Hillary
Clinton.” The sad thing is people
bought that, too. He told us that he
would be a vote for the president in all
situations regardless of whether he was
right. After 100 years of sending
senators to represent South Carolina,
we have decided to send a senator to
represent the Bush administration and
their special interests. I just hope for
DeMint’s sake he never has to work
with a Democratic president because
then he might have to use his head and
find solutions rather than just say,
“Yes, sir” to people like Bush.
Congratulations, Rove and Bush. I
look forward to another four years of
taking this country in the wrong
direction and lies from you about how
great things are.
IN YOUR OPINION
We need to bridge
the political divide
Only the handful of you who
know me personally know whom I
supported in Tuesday’s election. As I
write this at 7:42 a.m. on
Wednesday, I suddenly realize that
while all our votes were important
yesterday, my vote should mean
nothing personal to you today, and
your vote should mean nothing
personal to me. What side you took is
irrelevant now because, at some point
in the near future, we will know
whom our president will be for the
next four years. That man will be the
president of all of us, Republicans,
Democrats and otherwise. You don’t
have to approve of the final choice.
You shouldn’t suppress your opinion
of him. All I am recommending, even
begging, of you, is that you accept the
legitimacy of the victor and try to
move past the divisions of the last few
years.
Approximately half of the country
will be unhappy with either possible
result of the election, and if we don’t
pull together in either case, our
country will remain similarly divided
for many years to come. Remember
how much we have struggled on our
way to the present. We have
experienced pain, loss and fear; and
as time has passed, our anger at one
another has only grown. Do you
remember how we were united, if
only briefly, after Sept. 11 ? We can
recreate a semblance of that unity if
we put aside our anger and distrust in
favor of acceptance and compassion,
even if we can never agree. We all
love our country and want what is
best for it, even if we cannot agree on
how to achieve this common goal.
Neither major presidential candidate
has been willing to tell you that
compromise is necessary between the
two sides if we want to make
significant, lasting improvements
within our nation.
Neither has been willing to ask all
of us to make sacrifices in order to
succeed in our foreign policy
endeavors, or to admit just how
difficult success may be. If we want to
heal our country we must be willing
to give something of ourselves
without being asked, and we must be
willing to accept each other as equals
and teammates with a common desire
to do our best for our country.
I have one other request. Be
thankful that you had the
opportunity to vote. If you did not
cast a vote this year, please remember
the next time around how many
people suffered, worked and died in
the past to guarantee your right to
vote, especially if you are not a white,
property-owning male. Take pride in
your vote, which is yours by hard
earned right, and which is your civic
responsibility.
JOLIE HALE
First-year student in the
College of Liberal Arts
Carolina students
disrespect players
I am a student equipment
manager for our football team, and I
feel for the most part that the SEC is
a classy conference, with great
athletes and a lot of tradition. USC
is in a time of trying to build
tradition and respect. As tradition
rich as LSU is, most people look
down on them in Baton Rouge
because of their fans. They do un
classy things, like throw bottles
when they get pissed off at
everything. Man would I hate to be a
part of that. Oh wait, now I already
am. I have never been more
embarrassed to be a student here
than I was on Saturday.
I feel the frustrations of what
happened to our football team as
much or more than any of you, but
why must we act like people with no
class. Do the refs screw us, yes, but
doing what many of you did is crazy.
I promise you that I will not make
their calls any different; it only makes
us look bush league. I also hear from
my sister, who is also a student, that
many of you personally call out these
guys, and yell obscenities at or about
them, etc. How we say we have the best
fans in the country if we do that? These
guys do give it their all, but people
make mistakes. Another thought is,
what if a recruit whom we really need
hears you or anyone saying these things
— you think that makes him want to
come here? I doubt it.
Let’s be great fans and have a good
time, cheering the good, booing the
bad calls, and hopefully winning, but
can we leave the personal player
bashing and bottle throwing outside
the stadium.
P.S. I am also one of the guys who
runs footballs, so can you please throw
Arkansas back to their ball boys, we
only wanted the balls thrown out
against Ole Miss because they do it to
everyone else.
DUSTIN CURTIS
Fourth-year physical education
student
unifiif
WW II If ■
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Bush, Kerry
in control of
insanely huge
pressure cooker
■ Give the people what
they want: four more
years of verbal diarrhea
“President John F. Kerry, do you
promise to uphold the Constitution,
protect our country from its enemies, find
out the truth about extraterrestrials, end all
peace talks with a stirring rendition of‘All
Love,’ make the
Washington
Monument the
world’s biggest
ketchup reservoir
and windsurf no
less than seven
times a week?”
“Yes, Chief
Justice Bruce
Springsteen.”
“Good. By
decree of the
American people,
let’s go party at
Fenway.”
— John
STEVEN
VAN
HAREN
THIRD-YEAR
MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING
STUDENT
Kerry’s dream, Nov. 1
“President George Dubya Bush, do you
promise to uphold the Constitution,
protea our country from its enemies,
induce the Second Coming, attend all
Cabinet meetings in full cowboy gear,
rename the White House ‘Rancho de
. Bush’ and finally find out what the hell
‘sovereignty’ means?”
“Yes, Chief Justice Jimmy Buffett.”
“Sweet. By decree of the American
people, let’s mix some ’ritas.”
— George Bush’s dream, Nov. 1
“This sucks.”
— America, Nov. 1
It’s finally over. Kerry conceded the
election to Bush on Wednesday. With 100
percent of precincts reporting, I’m
projeaing a win for all people who no
longer give a crap. We knew coming in to
this election diat whoever won or lost, one
half of the country would come out happy
and the other half would come out pissed.
So it goes.
\Y/ka.. R.W.U r,.
stressed the need to unite the country.
Good luck. We’re more bitterly divided
than Al Sharpton’s follicles. I’m predicting
four more years of sniveling ass-kissing by
Republicans and petulant whining by
Democrats.
Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday called
Bush’s win “resounding.” Uh, Ronald
Reagan’s 1984 domination of 49 states was
resounding; diis election was an effectual
draw, just like 2000. The only difference
between 2000 and 2004 is that both sides’
hatred is already needling on full.
South Carolina’s Senate race was
brutal, but Jim DeMint achieved a sound
victory. Finally, we don’t have to see TV
ads followed by DeMint saying, “My
name is Jim DeMint, and Jesus himself
approved this bigoted message.” As a kid
in elementary school, we were taught to
memorize the name of the state
superintendent. I learned, did well, my
school didn’t explode, so I give some
credit to Inez Tenenbaum. Whether she
actually “gives her dogs bottled water,” in
the words of Free Times columnist
Michael Graham, is a question I’d love
answered.
Despite a huge national partisan divide,
South Carolina actually got some stuff
done in the midst of the madness. We
finally axed minibottles, making drinks
cheaper but less boozy. Ted Kennedy
would have fought this tooth and nail, I’m
sure. If only we could rid ourselves of the
blatantly moronic blue laws.
I voted for Bush, but I dread the next
four years. Uncivil war? Maybe. At least
John Edwards won’t be vice president
when it happens, or some Republican
sniper will take him out after he fails to
stop his addiction to thumbs-up. Cold
war? Most definitely. Cheney looks like a
sober Gorbachev.
Hopefully, we can pull ourselves
together enough to get some stuff done.
Like killing terrorists. That’s always fun.
I’m sure Bush and Kerry, in the White
House and the Senate, are already working
hard to keep us safe.
“Finally, I can relax. Think I’ll watch
Spongebob.”
— Bush and Kerry, Nov. 3
ONLINE POLL
Were you aware of the Creed
Week events?
Yes 30%
No 70%
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