The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 25, 2005, Page 9, Image 9
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
You give us your time,
we'll give you a future
A college education is about more than a degree, but many
USC students seem content to kill their time.
The skills a student should be developing here are infinitely
more valuable than a scrap of paper
— capital assets no one can take
away.
The Gamecock is an organization
open to almost anyone seeking to
develop those skills. Clear, concise
writing ability is equally valuable to
business and biology students.
Potential media artists should leap at the chance to publish their
designs. Print journalism students who pass up the opportunity
to work for their own college newspaper are downright negligent,
committing an oversight any potential employer is sure to note.
A grade is just a letter, but skills translate to a good professional
product.The notion that students can graduate directly to lucra
tive professional careers without paying their educational dues
seems pervasive at USC. However, students must rely on their
own initiative.
Moreover, working at a student publication feeds that initia
tive. Nowhere else will a student find himself making editorial
decisions that could potentially reach thousands of readers.
Independent thinking and problem solving on deadline are not
common as innate talents. They’re skills that the best and bright
est students develop on their own initiative.
Students pursuing post-graduate education will find “publish
or perish” applies to young academics as to tenure-track faculty.
Most importantly, though, students should view writing for a
publication such as The Gamecock or the Garnet & Black,
among others, as more than a resume-builder — it is a source of
self-improvement, an asset to every piece of writing and interper
sonal relationship they will ever develop.
Some dismiss USC’s native publications as beneath their stan
dards. These students should realize change is most effective
from within. Any student who thinks he could do better should
do better — The Gamecock and Garnet & Black represent every
student on campus and should be an asset to them as well.
Working for
newspapers and
magazines
builds crucial
skills —
regardless of
career path.
IT'S YOUR RIGHT *
Exercise your right to voice your opinion.
Create message boards at
www.daifygamecock.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
gameeockopinions@gwm.sc.edu.
ABOUT THE GAMECOCK
' 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 Fastenau
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 Miles
CONTACT INFORMATION
Offices on third floor of the Russell House.
Editor: 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
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
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.
TO PLACE AN AD
The Gamecock Advertising: 777-3888
1400 Greene St. Classified: 777-1184
Columbia. S.C. 29208 Fax: 777-6482
■i --4—
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CARTOON COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
Some people like the 17th century
■ It’s too bad Darla
Moore thinks little is
needed from the 1600s
This is my last week as a
Gamecock, and my last week
writing for The Gamecock, so I
guess it’s time for some baloney
about how much I loved sunbathing
on the historic Horseshoe and
meeting a lot of great people
throughout my time at Carolina.
Too bad. That’s not the way I
roll.
But because last week I talked
about Bob McNair, USC alum
extraordinaire, I thought it would be
only fitting to talk about another
rich, famous USC grad — this time
the not-so-perfect variety. No, I’m
not talking about George Rogers.
Have any of you out mere ever
heard of Darla Moore?
Now, I’m not entirely clear what
exactly Moore does. But I think her
three biggest activities are making
money, giving that money to the
university and then telling the
university exactly what it should be
doing with her, I mean, USC’s
money.
Normally I don’t have a big
problem with this, but (in case you
haven’t heard the story) just
recently, a professor of 17th century
Spanish literature reared at USC,
and ol’ Andy Sorensen pointed out
at a Board of Trustees meeting that
just because we lost a 17th century
Spanish lit professor doesn’t mean
the Spanish lit professor we’ll replace
him with will necessarily specialize
in the 17th
century. To
which our good
friend Darla
replied, “Why
are we teaching
17th century
anything?"
Now, at first
I thought this
was a bad idea
— that leaving
out everything
that came
earlier than the
last quarter’s
e co n o m i c
figures would be a bad way to run a
university, but maybe Darla’s doing
OK.
After all, the least important
translation of the Bible in the history
of the world, the King James
Version, was published. No one still
reads the King James Version
anymore, and, more importantly, all
contemporary English translations
of the Bible are not completely
indebted to the KJV. Good job
Darla — thanks for striking a blow
against the insidious force of evil
that is a surprisingly accurate and
beautifully rendered translation of
the Bible. We’re all proud of you.
Plus, cutting out the 17 th
century gets rid of most of
Shakespeare’s crappy plays. Peaking
early in his career, Bill Shakespeare
produced masterpieces of 16th
century literature that included the
famous plays “Titus Andronicus,"
“King John” and “Two Gentleman
of Verona." Luckily, Darla Moore
eliminated the 17th century, so we
don’t have to deal with such
Shakespearean failures as “Hamlet,"
“Othello” and “King Lear." Thanks
to Darla, we can now concentrate
on the lovely “Henry VI, Part 1”
instead of mucking around with
17 th century garbage like
“Macbeth."
Of course, plenty of other totally
irrelevant stuff occurred in the 17th
century, like Jamestown, North
America’s first permanent
settlement. Thanks to Darla, now
we don’t have to learn such boring
things as who we are or how we got
here. Isaac Newton invented
modern physics and calculus in the
17th century — neither of which is
relevant to us today. Heck, Galileo
Droved the sun didn’t revolve
around the Earth in the 17th
century — and who uses that little
piece of information? Darla and me
don’t, I’m sure.
Although I’m graduating, I can
see that USC, under Darla’s
direction, is really going somewhere.
Without calculus, physics,
Shakespeare, the Bible or a belief
that the Earth is round and revolves
around the sun, who needs anything
but business classes? Since business
students didn’t know the Earth was
round in the first place, who’ll even
notice the new policy? As long as we
stick with Darla, USC will just keep
on moving rigjit along — until we
fall off the edge of the world into
that’' big ocean with a dragon it.
Maybe we should update our road
map to success to include the 17th
century, after all.
GRAHAM
CULBERTSON
FOURTH-YEAR
ENGLISH
STUDENT
There's only so much I can deal with
■ These three guys
made my job just that
much less fun to do
Before I graduate in a couple
weeks and leave to cover high
school sports in a small East Texas
town, I feel the need to settle
some scores. Being Viewpoints
editor is a thankless job, and you
sometimes have to deal with some
writers you utterly loathe —
people in desperate need of a solid
foot up their ass.
One of these people is a certain
columnist. Originally, I just
thought he was an over-ambitious
youngster. Of course, now I know
he’s just immature and thinks his
opinion is so excellent, it can’t be
touched by anyone. I don’t think
I’ve met anyone so vain — he
decided to get a new picture taken
for his column presumably because
the old one wasn’t getting him
enough dates to sorority events.
Also, this kid flipped out
because I cut his column (it was
too long) and he didn’t like the
headline. Well, here’s a newsflash:
Columnists don’t get to edit their
own columns and write their own
headlines.
There’s another guy I know
who also needs an ego adjustment.
The guy, who’s affiliated with a
conservative student organization,
seems like he wakes up every
morning to the GOP talking
points. He even suggested that
The Gamecock was biased against
I
Republicans
because we ran
a file photo of
the College
Republicans to
go along with
the story about
the state CR
convention.
We ran the
most recent file
art we had, a
photograph of
a CR
presidential
debate watch
party from last
was a picture of three white guys
wearing camouflage, watching a
TV that had empty handles of Jim
Beam on it.
I know Republicans suck at
public relations, but maybe if you
invite the media over you should
schedule the camo party for
another day and take down the
whiskey bottles and maybe mix in
a woman or a racial minority near
the TV, instead of three white
dudes. Just an idea.
He also suggested I run a
column of his every week,
opposite a liberal column.
Frankly, if I wanted to print the
RNC party line every week, I’d go
to gop.com and find it out for
myself. We’ve had plenty of
conservative columnists this
semester who actually have
original and well-written
opinions, and hopefully the ones
who aren’t graduating will write
for the new Viewpoints editor in
the fall. His writing, however, is
knee-jerk GOP drivel, and I don’t
need any more of that in my
section.
There’s, one more guy who
deserves my attention, a particular
fraternity brother. This guy tried
to get us to cover the presentation
of a check from his organization
to the charity it supports. The
event was early on a Friday
morning, and needless to say it’s
hard to get any student anywhere
at that time. However, we agreed
to run a story on it for Tuesday’s
online edition. That wasn’t good
enough for him.
Because we weren’t going to
run the story Wednesday, he
decided to yell at our News editor,
telling him he wasn’t doing his
job. He said that he was a fourth
year public relations and political
science student and that he knows
these things.
This kid knows jack. As a fifth
year PR student, I know that if
the media doesn’t cover your
event (which we were going to do,
in the online editibn), it’s your
fault. It’s the dude’s damn fault
that the event was scheduled at a
bad time and then was out of
town all weekend and made it
hard for us to run down the story.
So, here’s to you, the three
stooges, for making this great job
seem so bad sometimes. After all,
you can’t taste the sweet without
the sour.
WES
WOLFE
VIEWPOINTS
EDITOR
www. A
daily gamecoc k6
.com
Graduates
have a lot
to offer the
real world
■ We’ve come through
the 9/11 attacks with a
chance to effect change
My first day at The Gamecock,
commercial airliners crashed into the
World Trade Center towers and the
Pentagon, destroying the two towers
and toppling a
significant
portion of one
of the
strongholds of
world defense.
Our newspaper
ran the massive
headline, “Our
World Is
Changed."
Nearly four
years later we
still feel the
effects of such
an abrupt
change but also
recognize our
collective experience has undergone
a much more dynamic evolution
that can never be entirely perceived.
I have in my time here compared the
threats of terrorism and war to the
same pressures college students felt
during the Vietnam War era, and in
doing so, have realized every day that
we live at an exhilarating and yet
humbling time.
We are blessed with a campus on
the move and diverse ideas from
experts and laymen and have them
travel past us at an unimaginable
pace. We enjoy an educational
experience abundant with the
encouragement of technology and
social integration the likes of which
our parents never dreamed of. Not
to mention our training here is more
a part of American culture and more
of a requisite part of professional
success than any other generation.
Concurrently, we have faced dear
losses both public and personal. The
average American couldn’t have
foreseen the events that would
transpire that fateful September day,
nor could the average USC student
have predicted the consequences of
every choice made in academics or
relationships or even careers. We
iuiuuu i nave cxpccicu our roocoaii
team to crumble under such genuine
leadership, but we also never knew
our hope would be renewed with the
promise of a new legend.
If you’re anything like me, you
might lament occasionally on grades
that could have been better, first
impressions that could have dazzled
more, time that would have been
better spent on personal
relationships and we lament only
because we’re told that these years
will be a cataclysm of epiphanies into
fathoming the ideology and
maturation required in this so-called
real world.
We care — not because we’re told
to but because what we do matters,
and this is our last training ground
for life. We’ve learned that our
efforts, our opinions and our
relationships matter because we have
seen the effects of what has resulted
before our time when people simply
cared enough about something to do
something about it. Not more than a
generation or two ago, this campus
was devoid of ethnic diversity and
the scruples of knowing students
were denied the experience of
receiving more than just tradition as
a value.
We still today honor our
differences — and rightfully so —
whether we are proud of Greek
letters or religious proselytizing or
even reputations at local drinking
establishments. But we acknowledge
we are all part of one great family,
and we all represent unfinished
stories that continue to adapt to a
changing world.
I might never know what it’s like
to walk to class with a draft card in
my pocket, but I realize our
generation is capable of achieving
anything and of overcoming great
adversity. We already have. The
university tells us we’re the brightest
cohort of students to ever be at
USC, and despite not quite
knowing how to digest that news, I
think we’re on our way to
something extraordinary. But
because none of us can predict what
that something is, then we’re left
with the expectations of change and
the wisdom to not lament on what
can never be changed.
KEVIN
FELLNER
SENIOR WRITER