Opinion | Columns - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | COLUMNS

Fighting could resolve health care issues

Oct. 21, 2009

Amid a thorny nest of substantive issues and thoughtful debate about human agency, America proved last week that our real gift to the world is a bountiful supply of vaguely Asian, dysfunctional families ready to claw their way onto television. Our nation owes you a great deal of gratitude, Heene and Gosselin clans, for too many seem to have forgotten that our country was built on a burning desire to have one's own reality television show.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Public option not only solution

By Warren Rhea | Oct. 21, 2009

Joseph Trimboli makes some good points in his letter to the editor, "People entitled to health care," until he says anyone who opposes the public option is either being paid off by the insurance companies or enjoys killing their fellow Americans.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Loss of control can create obsession

Oct. 20, 2009

Four years ago this week, my mom sent me a Halloween care package. It included Halloween decorations, a haunted house soundtrack for our dorm party and a tin of cookies.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Case against marriage equality faulty

Oct. 19, 2009

Maine voters will go to the polls on Nov. 3 to vote on Maine's Question 1, a referendum that, if passed, will reject a state law that legalized gay marriage earlier this year. And through this prism, the refusal of Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana Justice of the Peace in Tangipahoa Parish, to sign an interracial couple's marriage license earlier this month becomes a lot more interesting, and not in a good way.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Health care not a right, shouldn’t be mandatory

By Daniel Morris | Oct. 19, 2009

This is in reply to Matthew Christ's column, "Political gain halts health care reform."

OPINION | COLUMNS

Balloon hoax family deserves no attention

By Wade Powell | Oct. 18, 2009

You probably heard about the "balloon boy" and his family. You know, the 6-year-old who was thought to be soaring over Denver last week in a giant helium balloon invented by his father. It turned out he never was in the balloon. In fact, he was safe at home the entire time.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Political gain halts health care reform

Oct. 18, 2009

Future scholars will look back on the Great Healthcare Debate of 2009 and scratch their heads out of curiosity and confusion.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Giving peace prize for 'intentions' wrong

Oct. 15, 2009

I'm going to go ahead and go on the record right now. I want everyone to know that I absolutely and wholly intend on permanently ridding the world of poverty, genocide, war and any other possible negative affliction.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Right finds peace in war against Obama

Oct. 15, 2009

Definitions of peace largely assume that it must revolve around an end to conflict or hostilities. The kind of peace the Nobel Prize Committee rewards has always stood out as a more organic whole than simply the humanitarian vibes that immediately follow human conflict--freakin' Ghandi never even won a Nobel Peace Prize despite five nominations.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Women should embrace feminism

Oct. 13, 2009

It takes a TV show to make me appreciate being a woman in the 21st century.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Protest challenged views of misinformed Guevara supporters

By JOHNATHAN LOTT | Oct. 13, 2009

I have great reservation writing this response to Paul Murty's Tuesday column because I'm afraid it will give his ignorance an air of legitimacy. The letter was the most fallacious, logically incoherent and misleading piece the Alligator has published in months.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Che is a hero, not a terrorist

By PAUL MURTY | Oct. 12, 2009

As I walked through Turlington Plaza to drop off a midterm Friday afternoon, I noticed a few posters with Ernesto "Che" Guevara's infamous picture on them. Progressing through Turlington, I saw protesters holding signs condemning Che Guevara, calling him a terrorist instead of a hero.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Philly accusations false

By Kaitlyn Flynn | Oct. 12, 2009

I am responding to Tommy Maple's column, "Philly no friend of man's best friend," in Thursday's Alligator. I am an out-of-state freshman from Philadelphia. Actually I am from South Philly, so although I should have "at least two emotional and psychological disabilities," I sincerely hope you take what I am about to say into consideration.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Art project puts message before money

Oct. 12, 2009

PostSecret, the popular community art project created by Frank Warren, is the opposite of advertising. And that's a damn good thing.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Obama has chance to earn peace prize

Oct. 11, 2009

Fred Armisen offered the most precise answer this Saturday as to why President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a surprise Oslo announcement on Friday: "Because I'm not George Bush."

OPINION | COLUMNS

Obama should win Heisman for direction, determination

By Kyle Krutek | Oct. 11, 2009

In the wake of President Barack Obama surprising the planet by winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, I would like to throw his name into the conversation for another prestigious award: the Heisman.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Media obsessed with college athletes

Oct. 8, 2009

As you read this, I am hard at work imbibing the contents of my giant, green Bubba Keg on a bus to Baton Rogue.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Drivers must become more aware of cyclists

By John Thaddeus Phoebus | Oct. 7, 2009

I awoke bloody and in sharp pain at 2:25 a.m. on Sept. 4. I couldn't tell you what city I lived in, what my name was or what happened.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Philly no friend of man's best friend

Oct. 7, 2009

In a strange twist of fate, a single city has clumsily tripped into the epicenter of the debate over animal cruelty in America. This city has taken a bold stand in favor of dog fighting on legal and social levels, voluntarily placing itself in the line of fire against existing federal law and overwhelming public opinion.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Student Government involvement doesn't stop at polls

Oct. 6, 2009

I hate to break it to everyone who got worked up over the Student Government elections last week, but nothing new happened.