Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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ONLINE POLL Will you go to the spring football game April 16? Let us know at Page 8 www.dailygamecock.com. Wednesday, April 13, 2005 Results posted Friday. ■: iii. ■’ " . — ... -■ " ■ " ' ■■ ■— —. - ■■■■ - ■■ ■ ■■■ — ... - AMECOCK .'C":. T i EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR ASST. VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Michael LaForgia Patrick Augustine NEWS EDITOR SPORTS EDITOR Jon Turner Jonathan Hillyard VIEWPOINTS EDITOR DESIGN DIRECTOR Wes Wolfe Chas McCarthy THE MIX EDITOR COPY DESK CHIEF Jennifer Freeman Steven Van Haren . IN OUR OPINION -W m 1 Lounty lines reveal blue laws'1 absurdity South Carolina’s House of Representatives is considering a long-overdue bill that would roll back the state’s prohibition on the sale of certain items before 1:30 p.m. on Sundays. These so-called blue laws, named for the color of paper they were originally printed on for display, were intended to reduce or eliminate commerce on the Christian Sabbath in a South centered on traditional . mores. However, now that our There s no reason why we can’t buy su" “!tnv,ns ” p“:" shorts on a Sunday more ne81,iv' “pects of "s morning Past it *s c‘me ^°r the law to catch up with the i i »•• i i rr r i i i • uav-iu-uay lcdiuics <mu suppuii me ciiuiia ui tuuu-wuuuug businesses to operate free from government involvement. The current blue laws, apart from the prohibitions of alco hol sales on Sunday, make little sense. You can go into a department store and buy underwear, but not shorts, before 1:30 p.m. Counties that take in more than $900,000 a year in accommodation taxes are exempt from the rules, meaning six out of 46 counties in the state are at a comparative advantage. While Richland County, where USC is located, is exempt, heading across the river into Lexington County means you have to wait until 1:30 p.m. to buy mason jars. Columbiana Center is partly in both Richland and Lexington counties, meaning some stores can open earlier. If the rules were the same across the board and applied to everything, then perhaps there would be some justification for keeping Sunday free from business transactions. However, because the rules make little sense, they do nothing but annoy people who have every right to conduct business on a day that not everyone views as sacred. Such blue laws are a perfect example of government’s intrusion into the daily lives of its citizens and are the very thing South Carolinians have tradi tionally opposed. Because workers who choose for religious reasons not to work on Sundays would be protected by law under the blue law repeal, there is no good reason not to support such pro gressive legislation. 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. — r-1 ABOUT THE GAMECOCK EDITOR Michael LaForgia DESIGN DIRECTOR Chas McCarthy COPY DESK CHIEF Steven Van Haren NEWS EDITOR Jon Turner ASST. NEWS EDITOR Kelly Cavanaugh VIEWPOINTS EDITOR Wes Wolfe THE MIX EDITOR Jennifer Freeman ASST. THE MIX EDITOR Carrie Givens SPORTS EDITOR Jonathan Hillyard ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Stephen Tastenau SENIOR WRITER Kevin Fellner PHOTO EDITOR Nick Esares SPORTS PHOTO EDITOR Katie Kirkland PAGE DESIGNERS Jillian Garis, Staci Jordan, Jessica Ann Nielsen, Megan Sinclair COPY EDITORS Jessica Foster, Brindy McNair, Daniel Regenscheit, Jason Reynolds, Katie Thompson, Shana Till ONLINE EDITOR Ryan Simmons PUBLIC AFFAIRS Jane Fielden, Katie Mile CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. The Editor's office hours are Monday and Wednesday from 1 to 3 p.m. Editor: gamecockeditor@gwm.sc.edu News: gamecocknews@gwm.sc.edu Viewpoints: gamecockopimons@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 Linden berg FACULTY ADVISER Erik Collins CREATIVE DIRECTOR Susan King BUSINESS MANAGER Carolyn Griffin ADVERTISING MANAGER Sarah Scarborough CLASSIFIED MANAGER Sherry F. Holmes PRODUCTION MANAGER Garen Cansler CREATIVE SERVICES Burke Lauderdale, Chelsea Felder, Laura Gough, Joseph Dannelly ADVERTISING STAFF Robert Carli, Breanna Evans, Ryan Gorman, Caroline Love, Katie Stephens, McKenzie . Welsh i I he bamecocK 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. Dnp frpp rnnv npr reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $1 each from the Department of r* Student Media. TO PLACE AN AD The Gamecock Advertising: 777-3888 1400 Greene St. Classified: 777-1184 Columbia. S.C. 29208 Fax: 777-6482 if CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Let’s set some exam week guidelines ■ Burglars snouia raxe break during exams or prepare for retribution To those graduating in May, I offer you my sincerest congratulations. To the rest of us — hang in there. I should know — I have been here since 2000 collecting dust like the Japanese foreign language books on the bottom floor of the Thomas Cooper Library. Regardless, the end of the semester is upon us, which means most of us will be stressed out about finals and certain group projects that are due. Professors will likewise be stressed out by having to grade those very same finals that we dread, so let’s give them a break as well. I want to take about seven minutes of your time to come up with some rules regarding finals week, and what we should all agree upon to be acceptable behavior, so we can minimize stressing each other out and avoid potentially ugly confrontations in and outside the classroom while taking finals. Burglary on campus — Give us a brfak. If you have that “need” to steal stuff, at least be courteous and wait un til after finals. I’m going to leave a bunch of junk behind that you are more than welcome to have, and you should check out the Dumpsters by the Towers (no — not the Towers, the Dumpsters) for other treasures. What kind of daffy bas tard has the need to deprive someone else of their property anyway? Are we to set traps within our dorms a la “MacGyver"? I had the great displea sure or Having had a break-in on campus this semester (yes, that same night that “someone” broke into East Quad to deprive four women of ANDRES their linen and SCHLOEMANN electronics). I consider myself FIFTH-YEAR , , , , POLITICAL lucky though, SCIENCE AND but what a has CRIMINAL , , . . , JUSTICE sle to deal with. STUDENT ] J0 believe flog ging should be the penalty for this kind of offense. Perhaps we should institute a neighborhood watch pro gram during exam week to avoid un fortunate “accidents” to those caught stealing. I am sure nobody would miss you anyways, and I have been known to travel out to Marion with nothing but a bag of lime, some rope and a shov el. Cell phones — I’m sorry, but every time “Superfreak” or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony go off in class, 1 have to re strain myself from throwing the near est fire extinguisher at the self-impor tant Muppet who does not have the common courtesy toward the profes sor or their fellow students to either turn off the cell phone or set it on vibrate. Professors should seriously think about giving out penalties (points) to those who violate this common courtesy pol icy, because there is no phone call that important trom one or me guys or girts that cannot wait until after class. Just you wait though—we all know some one’s cell phone will ring during one of our finals. Attendance — Remember, we are all grown up now, so it is your choice to attend class. Think about the conse quences (lack of attendance usually af fects your grade), make an informed de cision, but please don’t be that guy (or girl) that waltzes in 20 to 30 minutes late to your class/lab/exam and pretend like nobody cares. If you never go to class, at least be on time for the final, for nothing bothers the piss out of your fellow classmates more than hearing you scuffling into the classroom late and’ then having to climb all over other stu dents to find an open seat If it weren’t a violation of some fire code, I would ask the professor to lock the doors at the beginning of the exam and then quietly laugh diabolically on the inside when Joe Tardy or Princess Lateness are locked out. Of course, certain emer gencies are exempt. With these few common courtesy rules, I am sure we can have an enjoy able finals week If we don’t do things that stress each other out, then I am confident that many of us will have the opportunity to do much better this semester. To our departing seniors, con gratulations once again, but I’d rather stay in college collecting degrees as long as I can (trust me, I hear this all the time). This place can be lots of fun — I’ve been told — if we can all make it work. Activist judges murdered Schiavo ■ Judicial branch reaches far beyond constitutional bounds Alexander Hamilton once called the judiciary the “least dangerous branch” of government. Least dangerous, I guess, unless you are a disabled American cit izen. Apparently, the courts now have the power to condemn innocent, help less Americans to death by torture (sor ry, I fotgot that two weeks of starvation is “peaceful, painless and beautiful” and, of course, what Terri Schiavo would have wanted). The Constitution establishes that the judiciary settles disputes between two parties in certain situations, and Congress has the authority over any fur ther jurisdiction of the court. Article Three grants authority to the courts “as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish” and “with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The Congress is our legislature and is supposed to make the laws. Yet the courts have become a super-legislature with ultimate power to nullify legisla tion and re-write it (and the Constitution) to fit their own ideolo gy Congress opened hearings into the Terri Schiavo case and issued subpoenas to those involved. Ignoring federal law that protects anyone under Congressional subpoena, a county judge in Florida struck down the sub poenas as un constitutional. Exercising its authority, Congress then called emergen cy sessions and BRAD passed legisla LEAKE rion on behalf of Terri, replete FIRST-YEAR ... POLITICAL with the clear SCIENCE intent that her STUDENT intent tnat n feeding tube be reinserted while the federal courts conducted an entire review of the case. Yet multiple courts ignored the bill, refusing to conduct an entire review of the case because Terri’s par ents failed to demonstrate that she was being denied her constitutional rights. Apparently, having your feeding tube removed by your abusive, adulterous husband is not a violation of the right to life and liberty. In order forjudge Greer to begin the murder of Terri Schiavo, he found three doctors to say Terri was a veg etable, ignoring dozens of opposing af fidavits from other doctors. Dr. Ronald Cranford, one of the three doctors, is a vocal proponent of euthanasia who said that even Alzheimer’s patients should be put to death because their quality of life isn’t good enough. Therefore, it is compassionate to kill those among us who “suffer” from a low quality of life because these disabled Americans would be happier in heav en. That’s going too far, you say? Remember, Terri was not sick, terminal or dying but rather suffered from retar dation and limited movement of her limbs. She still laughed, cried, tried to talk and responded to various stimuli. Are we as a society going to let the prece dent stand that if you cannot feed your self or communicate sufficiently, judges can kill you? Should any government official have authority to deem an in nocent citizen unworthy of life and ex ecute them? There are thousands of special-needs children in America who have less brain activity than Terri did. Should they be put to death because they apparently wouldn’t want to live that way? The judiciary needs to return to its proper constitutional place and let Congress write the legislation. Likewise, judges should not have the authority to determine if innocent citizens are wor thy of living. We are at the point that three in 10 babies never survive to see the world outside the womb. They are brutally, violendy murdered because they would be inconvenient and encumbering to their parents. We must protect the in nocent and helpless among us from tyrannical judges. Economic naysayers miscalculate free market ■ Pretentious whiners totally misunderstand complexity of economy “The sky is falling!" So say the media and the masses. With the trade deficit rising to a record $61 billion, the U.S. economy is on the brink of □ utter failure. A few years ago, I would have jumped aboard and shaken my finger defiantly at the fiscal incompetence that could have led to such a CURTIS desperate CHOW condition. Not only is there a FOURTH-YEAR , , r ■ ECONOMICS trade deficit, STUDENT but the U.S. dollar is depreciating against foreign currencies. We’re doomed! But then again, at the time 1 wouldn’t have understood what I was talking about beyond a simple understanding that “deficit” invariably implied something bad and that our currency’s “losing value” means our money isn’t worth as much. wnat strikes me as Dotn amusing and frustrating is when people complain about the trade deficit and the depreciation of the dollar all in the same breath. In reality, the latter increases demand for U.S. exports, thus alleviating the former. Contrary to popular belief, a trade deficit is not caused as much by fiscal policy as much as by market forces. For example, having held a positive real GDP growth rate since November 2001, the national disposable income has also been on the rise. This increase in domestic income leads to an increased demand for exported goods. Again, this is only one example and a possible factor among many. Before we continue further, we should have a basic understanding of the balance of payments. On one hand, we have our trade account that in simplistic terms records our net flow of commodities. On the other, we have the capital account that in similar terms records our net flow of capital. In a country with a floating exchange rate (such as the United States), balance of payments should equal zero, as all debit transactions should equal credit transactions. In our case, a trade deficit necessarily implies a capital account surplus, and vice versa. I’m confident that if we were experiencing a trade surplus, the naysayers and doomsday prophets would all be complaining about our capital account deficit. As it stands, our capital account surplus implies that economy is being partially fueled by foreign investors. Additionally, if we were to look at the national income accounting identities for GDP, we could derive implications between the trade deficit and economic growth. A trade deficit reflects a high rate of investment expenditure relative to savings. This isn’t to say the United States is low in savings. Both savings and investments could be high, and it could simply be the case that our investment spending is larger. If you like complaining about the economy, by all means, go ahead. I understand that it’s fun and makes for delightful conversation. Moreover, it really impresses the ladies if you know enough about the economy to complain about stuff. But if you’re going to do so, at least know what it is you’re complaining about. Otherwise, you might end up doing something like complaining about both the trade deficit and the depreciation of the dollar. You might as well wear a sign that says, “please ignore me, I’m just being whiney." I WINNERS AND SINNERS f ■ g JOHN BOLTON Nominee for U.N. ambassador should be confirmed after tough hearings. ** JON STEWART "The Daily Show” anchor named to Time’s 100 most influential people list, H while Tom Brokaw said during the election, Stewart “was our Athenian, a voice for democratic ^ ideals and the noble place of citizenship, helped along by the sound of laughter.” TOM DELAY The U.S. House majority leader feces more questions for ethics violations and was called on to resign by fellow Republican and U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays. STEPHEN STANKO The suspect of two murders and a rape near Myrtle Beach was captured Tuesday in Augusta, Ga.