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ONLINE POLL Did you enjoy your spring break? Let us Page 8 know at www.dailygamecock.com. Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Results posted Friday. AMECOCK EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR Michael LaForgia NEWS EDITOR Jon Turner VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe THE MIX EDITOR Jennifer Freeman ASST. VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Patrick Augustine SPORTS EDITOR Jonathan Hillyard DESIGN DIRECTOR Chas McCarthy COPY DESK CHIEF Steven Van Haren IN OUR OPINION Section 8 homes suffer from city’s misconduct The Columbia Housing Authority once again showed its contempt for the plight of the poor in Columbia on Monday and Tuesday when it opened limited applications for the Section 8 program, which pays nearly 70 percent of rent costs for low-income families to live in dwellings of their choice. While the agency relies on the federal government to fund the majority of the program, the CHA has long had a waiting list of prospective voucher recipients, with some families waiting Tragically, the relocation of public housing has more to do with the value of the sites they once occupied. as many as six years tor assis tance. The application process was reopened as the number of families on the list had dropped below 100, far less than the 5,000 to 6,000 that were once in the queue for assistance. After promising an easier process with the introduction of an online form to reduce the need for paper applications, the housing authority failed to anticipate demand, and the server crashed from the load, neces sitating another day of applications. More than 1,500 families had applied Monday, with at least 500 standing in line outside the Cecil Tillis Family Life Center waiting for the opportunity. Section 8 housing assistance has the great potential to aid low-income families in saving for home ownership by reducing the amount of their income spent on housing, hopefully .1 breaking the cycle or poverty and transience and giving them a stake in their communities. However, since the CHA demol ished both the Hendley and Saxon Homes projects, there have been fewer alternatives for low-income individuals, and Section 8 is not enough to bear the burden. Although the Authority has plans to replace some of the demolished structures with mixed-income housing, the newest fad in community planning nationwide, the overall number of units for families that need assistance will be reduced. Tragically, the motivations for changing the locations of public housing have less to do with the need for new, non-decrepit facilities, and more with the property values of the sites they once occupied. IT’S YOUR RIGHT * Exercise your right to voice your opinion. 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Additional copies may be purchased for $1 each from the Department of Student Media. 'tl WHAT SHOULD WE WKEH TDNIGtfr? ACTORS REENACTING BE JACK) J_ : TRIAL 06 BUSH RR. fe FUOS REPORTING THE NEWS? CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Bush’s foreign policy pays dividends ■ uoeny, democracy make Middle Eastern extremism unprofitable I finished the major requirements for my political-science studies almost two years ago with a primary concentration in the Field of international relations. It’s been about three semesters since the subscript underneath my picture has changed from “political science student” to “economics student.” However, this isn’t to say that I’ve fully relinquished my sworn duty as the former to write the occasional bombastic and boring column lauding and supporting my par ticular point of view with a *biank* of center interpretation of my studies. For those of you who keep up with my column (i.e. bored liberal-arts stu dents who don’t make it to campus ear ly enough to grab a free copy of The New York Times), you might know me as the one outspoken conservative columnist in the Viewpoints section. However, on an international scale, at my rudimentary, undergraduate level of understanding, my views have tended to be more liberal on the issue of U.S. foreign policy. It is with this under standing that I have found the recent political developments abroad to be par ticularly interesting. While I openly supported President Bush in his bid for re-election, I did have some concerns regarding his for eign policy. Pre-emptive strikes and bla rant alignments of nation-states to an “axis of evil” are a faux pas in the diplo matic arena, to say the least. If our new foreign policy were to be re flected in an ep ithet for our na tion in the eyes of the interna tional commu nity, it would be something along the lines of Amer ca — We re gonna kick your ass!’” This epithet, of course, would only be stated in a deep Texan accent. Yet even in my skepticism, I cannot turn a blind eye to the recent turn of events. In January, Palestine over whelmingly elected its first moderate leader in recent memory, and Iraq had a record turnout for its first free elections in over 50 years. In February, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who for 24 years has refused to permit any chal lenges to his rule, announced a multi candidate election for September. In March, Syria begins to withdraw troops from Lebanon after 29 years of occupa tion, and Saudi Arabia holds the first municipal elections in its 70-year monarchal history. Saudi officials have even promised that voting rights will be extended to women in tne next round. Could it be that with the onset of four more years of Bush foreign policy that these governments are suddenly un der pressure to reform? Perhaps to a lim ited degree foreign governments now view our threats as a real warning to im pending action rather than as symbolic political rhetoric. I think that much of the skepticism and criticism of Bush’s response to ter rorism arises from its unprecedented na ture. In a war against an enemy that has no political borders, we have not known how to respond to aggression. When Washington failed to issue a large-scale response to the World Trade Center at tack in 1993, the United States left the terrorist infrastructures abroad essen tially untouched and unhindered. Should we have been surprised at a sec ond attack in 2001? If we don’t go be yond hunting down terrorist leaders — if we don’t strike the entire network and institute progressive socioeconomic re forms abroad the conditions for terror ist recruitment are left intact and we beg * for future maladies. This, of course is an oversimplifica tion of the issue, and I can’t say that our present methods are bound to achieve success or that^they’re the sole cause of the recent shifts in global political tides. The long-term effects have yet to ma terialize, but I think we may be onto something: liberate the people and cre ate a society where radicalism is unnec essary and irrelevant. CURTIS CHOW FOURTH-YEAR ECONOMICS STUDENT IN YOUR OPINION i i Graham s fresh style casts mold for Dems John Rabon, the key to getting Democrats back in the game in South Carolina is to think like Lindsey (“Democrats need to snare white moderates,” Tuesday). Right now, Senate Democrats are resolute about not discussing Social Security until the Republicans drop private accounts as pan of the reform. At the same time, nearly all Republicans are adamant about the potential for private accounts to save the system. Yet one senator has been making headlines in the capital for his break from the party: none other than our Lindsey Graham. rv icw wccKS ago, ocn. vjiaiiaiii told reporters he was “an island of one,” reflecting how his pragmatic approach to paying for Social Security’s overhaul had yet to garner support from either side of the aisle. More recently, Graham suggested in the Washington Post to put aside discussion of the accounts to find common ground on fixing the program’s solvency. Loyalty is a central mantra among Republican lawmakers, so what Graham is doing is not only near iconoclasm, but it’s also very attractive to Democrats who are looking for relief from the deadlock. Congressional Democrats are so unhappy about their shrinking minority and their botched presidential race that they are resorting to filibusters, partisan bickering and downright stonewalling to preserve their ideological integrity. While that might be a noble move for the flag bearers of the left, constituents at home who want to believe in government effectiveness (as we all should) see the Democrats’ tactics as counterproductive and, ultimately, unrepresentative. So what do Democrats do to regain power and status at home? Think like Lindsey and present candidates like Lindsey. Former senatorial candidate Inez Tenenbaum is one independent Democrat who comes to mind. Her stances on abortion and gay rights attest to her willingness to stand by prevailing local opinions before a national ideology. It s compromising, independent thinking like this that Democrats need to adopt as their own way of business. They are the party of liberalism and openness to change, after all. In this era of partisanship, where Republican strategy is to tell a dissenting congressman’s constituents he’s an “obstructionist,” Democrats in South Carolina and elsewhere will ultimately undermine their own agenda if they can’t present candidates who will work with the opposition’s agenda. JUSTIN CHAPURA Third-year journalism student Cook assault article leaves out real story The article on the incident involving Jenna Cook (“USC police report fight involving RA, Monday) is not only degrading and rude but also definitely one-sided. If anyone has met Jared Gleim they would know that he is an instigator — he starts drama just for fun. Jenna is a “people person” as she stated in her campaign. However, even the friendliest of people will eventually snap after being lied to and constantly pulled into useless drama by Jared. If the author of the article had actually interviewed Jared, he would have seen that he is a drama queen that is only out to make other people’s lives hell. I have had many run-ins with this freshman myself this year, as have many of my friends, and such accusations toward Jenna are not only unfair but also untrue. He started the fight. She fought back in self-defense. Jenna is losing everything because of one drunken phone call to the police by an underage freshman with nothing better to do than start useless drama. On . behalf of the Columbia gay community, I would like to apologize to Jenna Cook for feeling the direct effects of one drama queen that is ultimately giving the rest of us gay guys a bad name. JOSEPH W.REESE Second-year fashion merchandising 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. Gamblers will find out you can h eat plastic chips m Going all-in should mean putting all your pennies on the table College students have their excesses, most stereotypically Ramen noodles and music downloads. But there’s another excess hitting campuses that is proving ADAM BEAM FOURTH-YEAR PRINT JOURNALISM STUDENT to be a formidable temptation to students prone to exaggeration: poker. More specifically, online poker. Consider Michael Sandberg, the subject of a recent New York Times article. The 22-year-old Princeton student came to college looking for a politics degree from one of the country's most prestigious universities. He will leave with no job and more than $120,000 from playing . poker. Of his winnings, $90,000 have come from PartyPoker.com, considered the Google of online poker sites. I’ve watched as the poker craze has gradually seeped into American pop culture. Sure, poker has always had power in this country, but it was an unspoken power, the kind given to mob bosses and playground bullies. Then I saw “Rounders,” the Matt ' Damon and Edward Norton movie about a guy who losses everything playing poker and has to win it back by the same route. It played on the RHA cable channel a few times, and I was fascinated. Not by the movie, but by the game. It’s not that poker is hard, or easy, but it’s intense. It’s a game of chance that has been converted to a game of skill by a legion of over-analytical type-As. I remember changing the channel after the movie was over and seeing an episode of the World Poker Tour, a made for TV high-stakes poker game. I watched for a while, got bored and went back to bportsCenter. Others got hooked. A lot of others. Now poker is gathering steam on college campuses, sweeping up mostly young men who think they can ditch school and make their fortune with poker. That ^ j . same New York Times article cited two school tournaments at Columbia University and the University of North Carolina, both of which filled up and had waiting lists. At the University of Pennsylvania, private games are advertised every night on a mass e-mail list. Dan Kline, the president of Penn’s club, told the New York Times that 500 people will respond to an e-mail in a half hour. Don’t mistake this for a Bible thumping, Billy Sunday rant against the evils of gambling. In fact, I think poker is a great game. I participated in an all night no-money-involved Texas Hold ‘Em tournament at a bachelor party for a friend of mine and had a blast. More recently I played a friendly game with some friends of mine at this newspaper with a $20 pot. But that’s where it should stop. It’s , | easy to win a couple games and think you’re a Michael Sandberg. It’s just as easy to lose a few games and be forced to drop out of school. Since “Rounders,” there’s been ESPN’s zealous coverage of the World Series of Poker, where guys wear upside down sun glasses and wow the world with their intense faces and all in risks. It’s glamorous, romantic, even exciting. But it’s not teal. In reality, people lose. They go all-or-nothing and wind up with nothing. And for college students who are mostly immature (which definitely includes me) and have little money (also me), gambling can seem like a “why not?” proposal. But I’m troubled with an industry that counts on the excesses of young people to make a profit. Play poker, and have a good time. Just don’t mistake poker chips for Ramen noodles. jra m WINNERS AND SINNERS m H m PEERLESS DEVELOPMENT GROUP Plans to create a “village within a city” at Richland Mall. IRAQ Convenes freely elected National Assembly today. TONY BLAIR British prime minister looks to win third term as the Labour Party holds a comfortable lead going into the May elections. BERNARD EBBERS Former WorldCom CEO found guilty of the largest corporate fraud in American history. CHINA Threatens military action if Taiwan moves to formal independence. PIRATES Abduct three people in the Malacca Strait, between Malaysia and Indonesia.