The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, August 31, 2005, Page 7, Image 7
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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
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from 1-3 pm.
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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.
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