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_ VIEWPOINTS^_= AMECOCK EDITORIAL BOARD Editor MICHAEL LaFORGIA News Editor STEPHEN FASTENAU Asst. News Editor JUSTIN CHAPURA The Mix Editor ALEXIS ARNONE Sports Editor JONATHAN HILLYARD Viewpoints Editor BRINDY McNAIR Copy Desk Chief STEVEN VAN HAREN Design Director chas McCarthy IN OUR OPINION Sheehan sullies memory of son, U.S. war dead Cindy Sheehan should go home. When Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey was killed in Iraq last April, set up a makeshift camp outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, some anti-war groups hailed her as a hero. What she has really become is something far less romantic: a spectacle. As the 48-year-old mother struts and frets her hour upon the stage, other families who have lost loved ones in Iraq — perhaps those more genuinely crippled by grief— have sought to distance themselves from her. Yet she keeps on, waving her placards and hurling her cheap slogans like playground epithets. This angry mother could be putting all her energy and ire toward more legitimate forms of protest, or even toward sending care packages to soldiers still alive in the Middle East. Instead she chooses the spotlight. What, in the end, will she accomplish? And what would Casey, who volunteered for the Army in 2003 and posthumously received a Bronze star and a Purple Heart, say if he could see his mother spouting vitriol on tel evision, or leading her three-ring Texas circus? Her publicity stunts dishonor the fallen. In due time, the actions of the Bush administration will be weighed in the balances and judged accordingly. But for now, President Bush is in control. He has sent young men and women — legions of America’s sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers — into harm’s way, and they are dying. If you hate him for it, do it with dignity. Not with calculated moves to grab attention. Because in the end, the nearly 2,000 Casey Sheehans who will never make it home from the Middle East didn’t die for oil, or to protect Israel, or for political machinations. They didn’t die for George W. Bush. They died for their country. Remember that. What she has really become is something far less romantic: a spectacle. 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 CORRECTIONS A front-page headline Monday was incorrect. The headline should have read, “In Israel, student looks terror straight in eye. The Gamecock regrets the error. ABOUT THE GAMECOCK Editor MICHAEL LaFORGlA Design Director chas McCarthy Copy Desk Chief STEVEN VAN HAREN News Editor STEPHEN FASTENAU Asst. News Editor JUSTIN CHAPURA Viewpoints Editor BRINDY McNAIR The Mix Editor ALEXIS ARNONE Sports Editor JONATHAN HILLYARD Asst. Sports Editor ALEX RILEY Photo Editor NICK ESARES Sports Photo Editor KATIE KIRKLAND Page Designers JULIAN GARIS, JESSICA ANN NIELSEN, MEGAN SINCLAIR Graphic Designer LAURA-JOYCE GOUGH Copy Editors CHELSEA HADAWAY, KATIE THOMPSON Online Editor RYAN SIMMONS Creative Services LAURA-JOYCE GOUGH, JOSEPH DANNELLY, MEGHAN WHITMAN, MARGARET LAW STUDENT MEDIA Director SCOTT LINOENBERG Faculty AJvis„ ERIK COLLINS Creative Director SUSAN KING Business Manager CAROLYN GRIFFIN Advertising Manager SARAH SCARBOROUGH Classified Manager SHERRY F. HOLMES Production Manager garen cansler MfrMs.mN GORMAN, KATIE CUPPIA, APRYL ALEXANbER, MARY RACHEL FREEMAN. MCKENZIE WELSH, DEIORE MERRICK CONTACT INFORMATION Offices on third floor of the Russell House. The Editor’s office hours are Monday and Wednesday from 1-3 pm. Editor: gamecockeditor@gwm.se.,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; Sports: 777-7182 Editor’s Office: 777-3914 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 0/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 purchasedfor $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 \\ l BAGHDAD KWKKf^BOMP/j CRAWFORD (W^MOMyj Cartoon courtesy of KRT Campus ‘Mighty Sound’gets mighty bad treatment USC’s most faithful fans deserve more than just drunken seat-stealing The marching band sure as hell better get some love this season. USC’s marching band members are the gods of the stands. They rule all. Besides the players themselves, they’re the most important students at the football game, bar-frickin’-none. Without a band, you’d have crappy club music piped through a few subwoofers. From the opening salvo of “2001” to the dying strains of “Amazing Grace,” USC’s marchers will be the biggest and best fans in attendance Thursday night. I promise. But why the biggest fans get dumped on every year is beyond me. Two years ago, I was sort of odd-man out. I was the electric bass player. Obviously. I never marched. The amp provided for me was too big to lug to the thrice-weekly practices, so I got out of that as well. All I did was show up game day with my $50 bass in tow. Marching into Williams-Brice Stadium every Saturday was such a gas. Everyone, from face-painted kids to grandparents, would smile and cheer us on. We would enter the tunnel and begin a primal scream until we emerged with that glorious field before our eyes. Then the drunks arrived. Again, I never marched, so STCUCI1 w^en l^c band mmm :™°nt0 the held ror opening Fourth-year fesdvides> j was mechanical engineering the only guy left student in the stands. I was dressed like Sgt. Pepper. This was back before the “retro” look was so uncool it was tragically cool to be old and uncool again. The crowds on both sides of the band section would spill over into our seats, which were, mind you, filled with music cases and other such personal property. Not only did marchers’ stuff get trampled, but during games with spirit towels or other such novelties, drunk dudes took it upon themselves to steal the towels for their equally drunk skanks. I couldn’t really stop them. My graphite bass would’ve cracked some skulls, but I didn’t want to chip its cheap-ass finish. No drunk is worth it. I can’t verify that band members wouldn’t get a wee bit snickered themselves on occasion — my bus rides with the tuba section still haunt my sensibilities — but dammit, they did their job, didn’t screw with other people and cheered. They cheered without regret. They were fans underneath all those malted hops. The band gets heckled a lot. It’s treatment you’d expect at an away game, not from our own fans. Our away game at Georgia in 2003 was my first taste on the receiving end - of true hatred. It was a miserable trip, coupled with the equipment guys forgetting my fricking amp and the team’s 31-7 loss. We were yelled at, insulted and pelted with crap. To a lesser extent, this stuff happens at Williams Brice every game. Unacceptable. Does the average student risk less? No. Some people ruin the game for everyone. We all hate having Coke spilled down our backs or trash flung into our faces. I’d live in Douglas if I wanted that. But marchers, with their colorful red suits and funny twangdoodling xylomaphones, apparently make the best targets — for drunks and for kids raised in clubs who can’t comprehend human beings actually playing instruments. I know, I know, if the music isn’t deafening, soulless and ass-sniffing cheap, it must be destroyed. Two predictions for this game: 1. The band will get a lot of undeserved flak from a lot of undeveloped morons but will still be the beacon for 80,000 revelers. 2. USC 96, UCF -.2. Go Cocks. IN YOUR OPINION Extremist judgment of terrorism not fair I am writing in response to Melissa Rhodes’ Monday article, “In Iraq, student looks terror straight in the eye,” which described the experience of Eryn Hutchison as a Foundation for the Defense of Democracies fellow in Israel. The piece quoted Ms. Hutchison as saying that terrorism and a struggle fo.r liberty and justice “can never be intertwined, they don’t coexist.” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once described extremism as viewing everything in stark contrasts — black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. Unfortunately, Ms. Hutchison displays just such extremism in her judgment of imprisoned Palestinians as “brainwashed” and “disgusting.” Such judgments inevitably detach the “terrorist” from the circumstances that gave rise to his worldview. In fact, I am willing to bet the FDD never took their fellows on a field trip across the Jordanian border, where squatter camps function as a home to millions of displaced Palestinians. The truth is that these Palestinians are not brainwashed empty vessels. Perceiving a threat to their family, their homeland, their religion or their future, these young people make a conscious decision to kill themselves and other human beings. • The conditions that lead people to such a horrifying conclusion involve far more reflection on our part than does merely writing them off as brainwashed terrorists. Why do I so strongly reject Ms. Hutchison’s assertions? 1 am living in South Africa, where not so long ago Nelson Mandela was labeled a “terrorist” and was imprisoned for more than a quarter-century. Was he struggling for liberty and justice for non-white South Africans? Yes. Did he also head Umkonto WeSizwe, the armed wing of the liberation struggle? Yes. In this case, it seems one man’s terrorist was indeed another man’s freedom fighter. Very few would call the Nobel Peace Laureate a “terrorist” today. I am not condoning the killing of innocents (regardless of how problematic that tferm is). I am simply attempting to move beyond this rhetoric of “for us or against us” that has recently pervaded Americas policy discourse — to the detriment of rational, balanced, critical thought. '' These simplistic judgments are genuinely dangerous because, by dehumanizing the “enemy,” they justify extraordinary means to be taken in the name of suppressing ones cause. If any truth is to be found in Ms. Hutchisons comments, it comes from her claim that, “They don’t know any more than what they are told.” Indeed, Ms. Hutchison. Indeed. THOMAS SCOTT Fourth-year development studies 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. What am I supposed to do with 15 minutes, eh? Students could use a little more time to trek across campus to class , Fifteen minutes. It’s generally considered the amount of time the average person will be famous, as well as the time it takes for a USC student to book it from the engineering building to the „„„„„ BA Building. nnn^Pnn Right? What kind MMIER of campus do we Third-year five on that philosophy dreams the student , . impossible dream, whereby students can use their instant teleportation device and find themselves within reasonable walking distance of the Koger Renter and Gambrell? Despite efforts to revamp and revitalize the shutde system, it still lags behind on a sort of “we’ll do whatever we want” route assignment. The larger traffic problem involves those pesky cars with those pesky drivers that want to quite openly drive around campus, meaning students left down at engineering have more of a chance of avoiding a ridiculously high charge for textbooks than actually making it from one end of the campus to the other on time. Add to this the often bizarre habits of professors who start and end strictly on time, in contrast to those where official class time and lecture time are only vaguely connected, and we have major problems again. Just a few minutes of ramble over verb conjugation or the social structure of feudal societies can wreck one person’s quest to make it to class half a mile away on time and take a test. It’s not that students are disinterested in verbs or feudalism; we just have other commitments in other classes. When you finally collapse down at the foot of the engineering building, you discover the elevators are packed with people too lazy to manage to climb to floor one or two. Eventually you decide you’re already late for class and rush up the stairs to discover a professor who finds it necessary to berate you for your lateness. It’s a no-win situation. Sure, one might reasonably argue that as students progress to higher levels in their chosen fields of study, time between class sessions becomes more or less irrelevant. Mostly, it’s the fault of the student, who decides at the last minute that going to an absolutely riveting class on tarmac creation is a worthwhile way to spend precious time. USC has the easiest job in the world to rectify the situation. Add another five or so minutes between classes for people to get around. Watching students rush across the busy intersection of Pickens and Greene because of time constraints is an accident not only waiting to happen, but pretty much begging on its hands and knees. I’m sure before my time at USC, 15 minutes was reasonable, but nowadays with subjects such as math and technology, or political science and journalism in colleges so far apart, a little bit of extra time hurts nobody and helps everyone. Is Cindy Sheehan honoring the memory of soldiers killed in the Middle East? Let us know online @ www.dailygamecock.com. x'- •' ’ . ; ' v! ■