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Friday, July 25, 2025

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Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

Popular notions of romance may be encouraging non-consensual sex

Apr. 11, 2017

There’s an ailment afflicting young people today. It’s not a disease or a behavioral epidemic, but an idea. It is an idea that affects our entire approach to intimacy. It stems from our phobia of discomfort, of appearing foolish or being declined. It is the idea that there exists such a thing as a “right moment.” Allow me to elaborate.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

We get by with help from our friends: It’s important to be selfless sometimes

Apr. 11, 2017

The human race is intrinsically a selfish bunch. When we’re born, we are strictly self-serving. We exist only to keep ourselves alive and to advance ourselves to the point where we can do this without help. We communicate our needs by crying, screaming or doing whatever it takes to get our parents’ attention, and once this is complete, we just head on back to whatever we were doing before we decided we needed something.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

You can’t heal your broken ego from the inside

Apr. 11, 2017

I ended last week’s column with an image of a man limping through life with a broken leg. I made the comment that this image captures the problem with our cultural dictum: “Believe in yourself.” The meaning behind my comment is twofold. First, people generally suffer from self-doubt, a certain awareness that all is not well within one’s self, or from an inability to feel affirmed, confident and whole. Second, the solution to this problem cannot be believing in one’s self because the problem lies primarily within the self. Thus, the image of a man who thinks he can mend his leg by walking on it.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

Don’t regret the things you didn’t do in college

Apr. 10, 2017

As the school year rounds off, it can become easy to fall into the slump of “could have beens” and “didn’t do’s.” This, perhaps, hits graduating students the hardest, but no one is immune from the curse. It is the end of things that causes us to look back, after all,

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letter to the Editor: Rebuttal of golf industry column

Apr. 10, 2017

I am the son of a PGA professional and would like to offer a rebuttal to the Monday Matters article regarding the golf industry. The article is unsurprisingly lacking statistical evidence of waning golf interest, probably because there isn’t any. First, the article claims, “Nobody really wants to watch golf.” In fact, the PGA Tour reported a 22-percent increase in viewership in 2016. Second, the article claims that golf has a difficult “learning curve.” The PGA has instituted many new initiatives to make the game easier for beginners, including the Tee It Up program. While we’re at it, let’s talk about this difficult games popularity. The article poses golf as the sport for “out of shape old guys”. Interestingly, the PGA says 2.2 million people tried golf for the first time last year and 73% of them played again and again and again. Now, the money. Yes, golf is a big business with a worth of $70 billion, but it also has an annual charitable giving of $4 billion. And the average price of a round of golf is $36. This article was an attempt at a hot take, one that was so ill-researched, those who don’t golf could even read it as click-bait.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  COLUMNS

I spent the past year writing a sixty-page thesis

Apr. 10, 2017

In all honesty, I’m still not entirely sure why I decided to write a thesis. Maybe I decided to do it because I like making my own life difficult. Maybe I like having something to complain about at all hours of the day. Maybe I just wanted to be able to say, “I have to work on my thesis” out loud, leaving friends and strangers alike dazzled by my dedication to long-form academic inquiry.

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letter to the Editor: The flaws in Ben Shapiro’s criticism of rape culture

Apr. 10, 2017

During Ben Shapiro’s speech on April 3, he criticized the term ‘rape culture’ as a slur against men. I was one of the “idiot protestors” at his event and specifically made my sign, which read “Stop Rape Culture,” for the talk. A sharp commentator who enlivens audiences with audacious statements on controversial issues, Shapiro tried to undermine the very real problem of sexual assault for college students, while blaming rape victims who do not report the crimes for helping to keep rapists out of jails. I address the problems with Shapiro’s claims, not only because they are potentially dangerous, but also to illustrate the often tenuous foundations of his fast “facts.”

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