The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 12, 2005, Image 1
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wunv.dailygamecock.com WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12,2005 _ Since 1908
IN THIS ISSUE
♦ VIEWPOINTS
Americans
giving their all
The Gamecock staff
editorial addresses
whether the American
tsunami relief effort was
sufficient and in
keeping with our role as
world peacekeepers.
Page 5
Expounding
on exercise
Curtis Chow says
students' hefty New
Year's resolutions to get
thin at the gym always
seem to burn out before
their calories.
Page 5
____,......
♦ THE MIX
Finger-lickin’
Jennifer Freeman and
Bobby Brooks venture to
Al Amir to sample some
of the finest
Mediterranean cuisine
Columbia has to offer.
Page 7
♦ SPORTS
Layin’ the
smack down
A scrappy Gamecock
defense is set to take
on the LSI) Tigers
tonight.
Page 9
WEATHER
♦ TODAY ♦THURS.
&- •T
High 7 6 High 7 6
LOW 5 7 LOW 6 0
FOR EXTENDED FORECAST. SEE PAGE 2.
INDEX
Comics and Crossword..8
Classifieds.11
Horoscopes.8
Letters to the Editor..5
Online Poll..5
Family Fund donations surpass expectations
By TAYLOR SMITH
STAFF WRITER
The USC Family Fund is setting a
record this year for funds returning to the
school, proving that the holiday tradition
of giving is not lost around campus.
Annual Giving Director Lola Mauer
said the fund is almost $400,000 ahead
of its goal for this school year, reflecting a
university united in aspirations.
Mauer attributed the extra money to
an increased awareness of the program
around the USC community.
“We have better outreach to faculty
and staff this year,” Mauer said. “And we
have also given some great incentives,
have received some great community
support.”
She said the USC Family Fund has
been around for 27 years and is designed
to provide a chance for university faculty
and staff to give back by donating money
to a department or school of their choice.
The fund is valued at $1,066,000
with almost six months of fund raising
left before the 2004-05 campaign ends.
Mauer said the program’s success shows
that “faculty believe in the future of the
school.”
Donators can give to any institution
within the university, with the exception
of those that provide benefits, such as the
Gamecock Club’s football ticket
distribution.
Whether the donation can be
classified as a gift is up to the IRS, Mauer
said, but any donation benefits USC.
“The gifts that do not benefit the
donators benefit students with things
such as scholarships,” Mauer said.
Giving to the fund is not difficult,
Mauer said. People can donate to the
school by writing checks, giving cash,
exchanging stock options or taking pay
deductions, which is most popular
among faculty and staff members.
“I believe in this institution,” Sonya
Duhe, an associate professor in the USC
School of Mass Communication and
Information Studies who contributes to
the Family Fund, said. “And if you
believe in something you should support
it.”
Because of the Fund’s success, Mauer
said other schools have inquired as to
how the fund is operated and how they
can receive the same support from their
♦ Please see FUND, page 4
JASON STEELMAN/THE GAMECOCK
First-year civil engineering student Ryan Wilson was happy to see his Internet working again Monday afternoon.
Technical Difficulties
Campus Internet problems hinder students' return to classes
By SYDNEY SMITH
THE GAMECOCK
Because of traffic on USC’s VIP,
BlackBoard and Gamecock E-Mail,
many students found themselves
unable to access their e-mail or check
their class schedules Monday morning.
When first-year civil engineering
student Ryan Wilson returned to his
room at McBryde Quad, the clogged
network forced him to find his classes
another way.
“It was the wrong time for it to be
down, because I didn’t even know my
schedule,” he said. “I didn’t find it out
‘til 1 called my sister at 8 a.m. and
made her get online to tell me.”
He said the call to his sister had
been his last resort.
“She wasn’t really mad or anything
like that,” he said. “She just didn’t
want to get up.”
From Sunday night to Monday
morning, the residence hall network
was down. Computer Services Public
Information Coordinator Kimberly
South said a combination of two
problems left students across campus
offline. First, something corrupted the
configuration database that monitors
different IP addresses and Smart
Enforcer.
Representatives from Computer
Services do not know what happened.
By noon Monday, the residence
hall network was back up for students
to log on to Smart Enforcer and the
Internet when the second Internet
problem began. Once Computer
Services located and isolated the
problem with the configuration
database and the Internet was
working, between 4,000 and 5,000
students logged on, overflowing the
system.
Many students are dependent on
VIP and BlackBoard to get schedules
and class information. LDAP, which
logs students on to VIP, BlackBoard
and GEM, experienced a request
overflow that virtually shut down the
system.
By 3 p.m., Computer Services fixed
the problem.
First-year biology student Lauren
Mengler faced a similar situation when
she could not log on to the USC
network at McClintock and had to call
her sister for her schedule. Mengler
said she sometimes loses her Internet
connection for long periods of time.
She said she hopes Internet service will
become more reliable on campus.
“They should fix the Internet
quicker next time so people can get
♦ Please see INTERNET, page 4
21 -year-old tsunami victim
rescued after 15 days at sea
By VIJAY JOSHI
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KLANG, Malaysia — Lying prone on the
bobbing wooden plank, Ari Afrizal looked left and
saw the fiery red sun dipping into the watery
horizon. Weakly, he turned his face the other way
and saw a pearly white full moon rising in the east.
All around him, the sea looked like it was
sprinkled with chopped leaves of gold, shimmering
in the sun’s glow. Ari had never seen a more
wondrous sight.
It was dusk on Dec. 26, and Ari was adrift in the
Indian Ocean.
I was not prepared to die,” the 21-year-old
carpenter said.
And against all odds, he didn’t.
That morning, when the ground began to shake,
Ari was on a scaffolding, hammering nails into a
plank, pan of a crew building a beach home in Aceh
Jaya town about 150 miles from the Indonesian
provincial capital Banda Aceh. Frightened, the crew
moved away from the house and squatted in the sand.
“Then the waves started coming,” Ari said.
The first one, 3 feet high, ripped the scaffolding
down. A minute later came the big one, a bluish
white wall about 30 feet high.
“It produced a deep sound like whooooooo,” Ari
said this week from his hospital bed, in an interview
with The Associated Press. “It destroyed the house.
The wave hit the houses with a terribly loud sound,
phang! phang!”
Ari felt as if he were caught in a giant washing
machine. Tossed 1,500 feet inland, he banged
against a man^o tree and grabbed a branch.
“I saw my friends also hanging on to trees. I
thought the world was coming to an end,” he said. “I
kept praying hard to Allah for my life.”
As the tsunami receded, it pulled him under and
sucked him out to sea. Swimming desperately, Ari
could see the hills of Aceh receding fast.
He swam and floated for an hour before his first
stroke of luck: A wooden plank about 5 feet long
drifted by and he clambered aboard.
“My throat was burning. The sun was hot,” Ari
said. I had cuts all over my body. The salt water was
stinging.”
Five bodies floated past. About 300 feet away two
other men clung to debris.
“I couldn’t even find my voice to call out,” Ari
said. “Eventually they all drifted away and I was all
alone.”
Exhausted, he lay on the plank all day, weak and
hungry.
Coconuts were drifting by, caught in the mass of
debris swept out to sea by the tsunami. Ari used his
teeth and a piece of wood to split open a coconut,
which yielded tender white flesh and sweet milky water.
That night, he barely slept, afraid he would fall
off the plank and drown. He found solace in nature’s
beauty, watching the simultaneous sunset and
moonrise over the water.
The next day, a leaking, listing fishing boat drifted
by. Ari swam to it and found no one on board.
As he drifted, he thought of his parents, his two
elder brothers, a younger brother and a sister. He
knew the giant waves were too powerful to have
spared their home, only a mile from the shore. His
girlfriend’s house was not too far either, he said.
“I jjove her very much,” he said. “I miss her.”
He still doesn’t know whether they survived, or if
they are among the tragedy’s 150,000 dead in 11
nations.
“I was not prepared to die,” he said. And so he
prayed: “Allah I seek your forgiveness and I seek your
help for myself and my parents” and my girlfriend.
“Please give me life. Please give me life.”
But for days, his prayers were not answered.
He was adrift in a busy shipping lane near
# Please see SURVIVOR, page 4
ANDY WONG/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tsunami survivor Ari Afrizal speaks to
reporters on a hospital bed in Klang, in the
outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on
Tuesday. Ari, 21, who was rescued by a
container ship on Sunday, says he drifted
on the Indian Ocean for two weeks.
Graniteville
moving on
after deadly
train wreck;
By AMY GEIER EDGAR
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The first burial service for a casualty of the
Graniteville train crash and chemical spill was
held Tuesday, as at least 25 people remained
hospitalized, and five patients were still in
critical conditions, according to area hospitals.
Also Tuesday, work continued on removing
chlorine from the ruptured tank car. On
Monday night, workers also began to remove
liquid chlorine from an undamaged train car.
The process may take several days and emergency
officials will not rescind the evacuation order
until all the chlorine is removed, Aiken County
Sheriff Michael Hunt said.
Work began Tuesday to fabricate a steel patch
for the ruptured tanker, which contractors
determined would work better than one made of
lead. The temporary polyethylene patch
remained in place and no leaks were detected as
workers attempted to apply the permanent patch.
Area schools remained closed Tuesday, and
officials planned to meet to determine when
students could return. The decision will be
based on air quality samples, said state
Department of Health and Environmental
Control spokesman Jim Beasley.
It also wasn’t clear when the more than 5,000
people living within a mile of the crash would be
allowed to return to their homes after a
mandatory evacuation. Workers will test every
home to see whether heavier-than-air chlorine
has pooled in basements, DHEC spokesman
Thom Berry said.
State Law Enforcement Division Chief
Robert Stewart said at least 16 people tried to
get their driver’s licenses changed to a
Graniteville address so they could collect money
from the railroad. Norfolk Southern is giving
residents money to pay for living expenses while
♦ Please see TRAIN, page 4
Bush increases
Social Security
reform pressure
on Capitol Hill
By NEDRA PICKLER *
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Bush tried
to increase pressure on members of Congress
who are leery of his ideas to change Social
Security by telling them Tuesday they could be
risking their jobs.
“I happen to believe people who have been
elected to office who ignore problems will face a
price at the ballot box,” Bush said during a
forum with voters who support his goal of
creating private investment accounts to partly
replace guaranteed benefits.
Democrats say that they, too, will make an
issue of Social Security in the midterm elections.
“Republicans should be worried,” said
Democratic National Committee spokesman
Jano Cabrera. “Whether Republicans are
cutting . benefits, raising taxes, or further
exploding the budget deficit, Democrats intend
to make Social Security a key issue in 2006.”
Social Security is projected to start paying out
more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2018,
according to Social Security trustees but will be
able to pay full promised benefits until 2042. The
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has
projected the program will be solvent until 2052.
The president wants to revamp the
government retirement program by letting
younger'workers divert some of their Social
Security payroll taxes into personal investment
accounts, although he has not provided details of
his proposal. Many Democrats are unwilling to
♦ Please see REFORM, pagd4