Darts & Laurels: March 1, 2018

It’s finally Spring Break. After spending the last two weeks cooped up in Library West, you come to find you’ve forgotten what it feels like to breathe in fresh air or to feel sunlight on your skin. Needless to say, you have been in desperate need of some rest and relaxation, far away from UF’s campus.

You and your friends decided to take the classic college kid route this Spring Break. That’s right, you booked a three-day cruise to Mexico. Passport in hand and already wearing your swimsuit underneath your clothes, you make your way onto the ship. All you want to do is throw your bags in your room and make a beeline to the pool, where you can sit leisurely and drink a margarita.

After you finally make it to the pool bar and retrieve your victorious, tequila-laden drink, you start walking around the pool deck to find an empty chair. A little too focused on your hunt, you accidentally bump into another cruiser and your margarita topples to the ground in defeat.

As you look down at the mess of what could have been your saving grace, you see the liquid has coagulated into an odd formation. In fact, it actually spells out a message …

Darts & Laurels

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a speech Thursday with the clear intent of instilling fear in the minds of those in western nations like the U.S. In his State of the Nation address, the president boasted about the country’s slew of new weapons, including an intercontinental nuclear cruise missile.

According to The New York Times, toward the end of his speech, Putin gave a shout-out to Europe and the U.S. He reportedly displayed the newly developed weapons on giant screens and said he was prepared to use them, along with traditional nuclear arms, if Russia were attacked.

His threats, whether they are based on merit or just another ploy to make the nation seem strong, are terrifying. As the world inches closer to the threat of nuclear war, we can only hope nations across the globe soon realize we need to forgo these methods of attack. To Putin and his attempts to get the world closer to total destruction, we award our first Dart.

In our own country, however, we saw some positive movement when it came to weapons. Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. and Walmart Inc., two of the nation’s leading gun sellers, announced this week they would no longer sell firearms to anyone under the age of 21, regardless of local laws. Dick’s Sporting Goods even went as far as to say they will end sales of all assault-style rifles in its stores and would no longer sell high-capacity magazines.

As we wait for movement on a federal level, it is promising to see changes being made in the arena of gun sales. We award our first laurel to Dick’s and Walmart for their courageous and sensible efforts to limit the ability for people in America to obtain harmful weapons.

This week, activist groups in the U.S. made strides in urging the White House to allow transgender people to continue serving in the military. This is after President Donald Trump said he plans to ban transgender people from serving in the armed forces.

As of Friday, TV advertisements will begin airing on channels like Fox, MSNBC and CNN, where Trump and his associates will be able to see the 30-second commercial, which uses a series of quotes from Trump, a former senior military leader and several Congress members who were in the armed forces to argue all qualified Americans should be able to serve.

To the groups behind this commercial, we award our last laurel. Thank you for striving to promote equality in our country and our armed forces.