University of South Carolina Libraries
VIEWPOINTS AMECOCK EDITORIAL BOARD Editor j STEVEN VAN HAREN News Editor ; JUSTIN CHAPURA Assistant News Editor ; JACKIE ALEXANDER The Mix Editor \ ALEXIS ARNONE Design Director chas McCarthy Sports Editor STEPHEN FASTENAU Viewpoints Editor BRINDY McNAIR Assistant Viewpoints Editor AARON BRAZIER • IN OUR OPINION Cheneys hunting goof no longer newsworthy Apparently, Cheney is still in season this time of year. According to CNN, Newsweek and Time magazines are planning to continue the barrage of coverage of the hunting accident involving Dick Cheney, who will forever be known as the vice president who “sprayed” a fellow hunter with shotgun pellets. ^ We’re waiting for the 24-hour media onslaught to explode like a pheasant in mid-flight. The fact that Cheney shot someone, accidental or otherwise, is certainly news: Cheney was the first sitting veep to snoot someone in more than two centuries, and with it should come a few days of investigation. But news outlets have skinned and gutted this carcass of a story for a full week with no signs of slowing. /• . . /• narry vv lurangtun, me umormnare recipient oi Cheney’s spray, survived and had nothing negative to say about his hunting partner. There was no massive X cover-up — only a questionable decision to wait 18 hours before telling media sources about the incident. If that’s the biggest tragedy here, we’ll take it, and Whittington surely will, too. That’s not to say Cheney and Whittington’s hunting party isn’t at fault; indeed, better outdoorsmen could nave probably prevented the accident. Maybe Cheney could throw his weight behind some hunting safety PSAs or TV spots, or at least beef up on proper quail hunting protocol. But an honest - albeit preventable - mistake does not a national tragedy make. Most of the coverage in the past week has taken an amused, lighthearted tone, but you could hear the shoulders slump of a few left leaning radio personalities and bloggers who almost wished Whittington had died. That’s when political extremists on either side v become far more evil than any politician ever could be — hoping for tragedy to make the other side look good by default. News outlets have skinned and gutted this carcass of a story for a full week. T Y TTTt • 1 IT’S VOUR RIGHT Voice your opinion on message boards at toww.dailygamecock.com or send letters to the editor at gamecockopinions@gtom.sc.edu CORRECTIONS If you see an error in today’s paper, we want to know about it. E-mail us at gamecockopinions@gwm.sc.edu i f ABOUT THE GAMECOCK Editor STEVEN VAN HAREN Design Director chas McCarthy Copy Desk Chief AARON KIDD News Editor JUSTIN CHAPURA Assistant News Editor JACKIE ALEXANDER Viewpoints Editor BRINDY McNAIR Assistant Viewpoints Editor AARON BRAZIER The Mix Editor ALEXIS ARNONE Assistant Mix Editor KRISTEN TRUESDALE □ Sports Editor STEPHEN FASTENAU Assistant Sports Editor ALEX RILEY Photo Editor NICK ESARES Assistant t'noro tumor KATY BLALOCK Public Relations Director ROSE OREENE Page Designers MIKE CONWAY, KATE FENWICK, MEGAN SINCLAIR StaffWriters A.J. BEMBRY, TOM BENNING, JESS DAVIS, TIM McMANUS, MARJORIE RIDDLE, GINA VASSELLI Copy Editors CAROLINE DESANCTIS, BETHANY NICHOLS, ELIZABETH PARHAM, KATIE THOMPSON, JAMISON TINSLEY, KRYSTAL WEBBER, LIZ WHITE -I uuuil mtulM Director scon UNDENBERG Faculty Adviser ERIK COLLINS Creative Director SUSAN KING Business Manager CAROLYN GRIFFIN Advertising Manager SARAH SCARBOROUGH Classifieds Manager SHERRY F. HOLMES Production Manager C. NEIL scon Creative Services APRYL ALEXANDER, KATIE CUPPIA, BREANNA EVANS, MARY RACHEL FREEMAN, DEIDRE merrick, mckenzie WELSH i nij u/unrjViuviiv 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 ojTHE 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. CONTACT INFORMATION Offices located on the thirdfloor of the Russell House Editor’s office hours are from 2-3 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays Editor: gamecockeditor@gurni.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 ; Sports: 777-7182 Editor’s Office: 777-3914 Fax: 777-6482 _ CHENEYI iJ.SEASONj Courtesy KRT Campus Think about SG like you would your lunch Don’t forget student senators decide how to spend your money I can hear the grumbling beginning in the back already. “Student Government, wasn’t that election thing last week?” Yes, it was last week. In fact in this space last week they canceled our columns to run student government endorsements. Not that I’m bitter or anything. People have stopped harassing you on Greene Street, and no one’s bothering you to vote anymore. Your beloved columnists are back in their rightful places on the pages of The Gamecock, and the world’s back to normal. So, why should you keep caring about those names you did or did not click on in the election last week? In case you didn’t know, they have a lot of your money. A lot of it. As a dedicated employee of The Gamecock I’ve had the distinct privilege of covering more Student Government proceedings than I care to mention. The first time I heard them discussing the amount of money they have to spend, I almost JACOB gagged on my pen. T, Now I Third-year i , y know what print . journalism y O U re student s a y i n g , “Jacob that’s not really my money. I get it from the state or my parents, or I only work to pay for college.” As someone who is in college because people can’t resist adding the Powerball number, I can sympathize. When you hand over all your money up front every semester and don’t pay attention.to how the university breaks it up, it’s easy to feel disconnected. That said, I’m constantly amazed at how people cough up huge sums of cash and then appear totally uninterested in how it’s spent. You know just last week you got in a fistfight with your roommate at the McDonald’s dollar menu. “Dude, I gave you, like, three dollars for a double cheeseburger when we were here last night. Just get me a quarter pounder!” “That was two weeks ago, and we were at Waffle House, and it was a patty melt.” I assure you the amount of money I’m talking about is more than enough to keep you in quarter-pounders, junior bacons or patty melts for the length of your college career. Every semester your student government spends tons of your money on various projects and programs. Chances are, you’d probably agree with most of what they decide to do with your money, but maybe you wouldn’t. Every school of study at this university has senators in the student government, and you have a representative. Even if you didn’t vote for them, or didn’t vote at all, it’s their responsibility to listen to what you have to say. That’s the beauty of democracy. So get on the computer and find out who represents you, because even if you didn’t vote, it’s still your right to complain. One kind action could bring smiles to others Being kind does not cost an arm and a leg, brightens dismal days On Valentine’s Day I woke up in a terrible mood. I was tired, I had to go to work and my Valentine was on the other side of the world. But then, someone handed me a carnation! My day completely turned around. I was so happy. I got a flower! It’s amazing what one small act of kindness can do for another person. I don’t think people realize that enough.' For about an hour after that, I watched the representative from Carolina Campus Crusade for Christ pass out more flowers. He got several responses. Some people were just as happy as me, others stopped to say how great it was and that every girl they saw had a flower. Some people were shocked to find out that the flower was free, while others didn’t even want one. I’m writing about this today because I think kindness needs a little recognition. ME And PeoPle sis iust d°n’' ~. . know how Ihira-year . . prim much the journalism world needs student it. It’s mushy, but bear with me. Nothing in life is free. We all know that; that’s why so many people were surprised to find out the flower was free. But there actually are some free things. Like holding open the door for someone or letting someone over in traffic and some e-cards are free, too. Think about how glad you are when you are walking into your dorm, arms full of groceries and other goodies, and someone holds the door open for you. Or how it feels to freak out in 5 p.m. traffic because you need to be in another lane, but then someone lets you over. Or just how exciting it is to find out that something is free! What I’m getting at is this: do a small act of kindness for someone — even if it just means waiting an extra second to hold the door open for someone or getting on the Internet to send a friend, who has been having a rough week, an e-card. I know, some of us have a reputation to uphold. We can’t be nice to someone — it will look bad. But if you let someone over in traffic they will never know it was you. If someone does something nice for you, even if it was small, let them know how much it meant. I don’t think I thanked the Carolina CRU guy enough for my flower. The sad thing is, they will never get much recognition for it. On the front page of the paper we’ll keep reading about the bad stuff. It is important to read about the bad stuff that goes on in the world, but we need to hear about the good stuff, too. It’s the good stuff that will bring our morale back up. Online Poll ! * i Do you think the media has given too much attention to Dick Cheney’s hunting accident? , Relationships built on being truthful about sexual history Whether you’re a virgin or non-virgin, partners need facts, not fiction We’ve all heard from our parents that honesty is the best policy. We learned from Liz White last month that honesty in a relationship is essential. I can attest to that, with a recent personal ALEXIS experience. nRnone when Fourth-year entering into print a relationship, journalism I am honest. student And, I expect that honesty in return. Relationships are work, but keeping that honesty shouldn’t be hard. It’s a very simple concept. Don’t lie. The most important thing to be honest about? Your sexual history. Or, as in a certain friend’s case, your sexual non-history. If I’m going to be doing the horizontal tango with someone, I want to see your dance card. I don’t care how many people you’ve danced with in the past, I just want to know if they had two-left feet or something equally as frightening. Let’s talk about the issue at hand for my dear friend. Her beau, whom she was quite smitten with, explained to her that he had been with a handful of women before. This part wasn’t a problem. This statement was brought up by him, very early on in the relationship and occasionally throughout the last few months. Poor guy, it’s something most do and must be part of their hard-wiring at birth. “Must lie to girlfriend at one point in time.” They never read the fine print, “She will find out.” And in the case of my friend, she did. wnat was tne Kernel of truth behind this fabrication? Nothing. He still held his V-card. People laughed when they heard and told her that it wasn’t that big of a deal. At least he hadn’t been with 100 girls. Whether he had been the community bicycle was not what bothered her; it was that he had lied to her and she felt guilty about being with other people before him. She let his sexual non-history affect her own history, something nobody should feel bad about. My friends could have shared something amazing, but instead the act was discredited because of a lie. Bottom line, whether you’re a card-carrying virgin or you’ve given that away to someone, don’t lie about it with the person you’re with. Not only are you risking the entire relationship, you are missing out on a bonding experience with that person. 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 it