OPINION
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COLUMNS
Technological advances like Facebook more than just fun
By Will Penman | Feb. 7, 2010There’s this new thing out that’s pretty fantastic.
Opinion | Columns
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Palin taking ‘retard’ comment too far
By Ryan Spencer | Feb. 7, 2010Well, it finally happened. I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s well-rumored, profanity-laced harangues would surface while he was in office. Indeed, it was only a snippet of his Chicago-sharpened talent, but it was worth the wait.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
US Senate should put end to gender pay discrimination
By LINDA MERIC | Feb. 4, 2010A year ago, dozens of women’s and civil rights activists gathered at the White House to watch President Barack Obama sign his first piece of legislation into law: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Modern Tea Party is deeply flawed
By PAUL MURTY | Feb. 4, 2010I don’t understand the Tea Party. I’ll admit that I’ve spent the past day trying to research what they want on the Internet, and the only thing I can come up with is they just don’t want to pay taxes. I can understand the frustration. I hate when I go to Publix to buy a newspaper and I have to pay an extra 6 or 7 cents in sales tax. But that’s mostly because I just don’t feel like getting that much change.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Tebow ad is stealing Super Bowl limelight
Feb. 3, 2010Starring in a controversial anti-abortion commercial bankrolled by a fundamentalist Christian group, Tim Tebow headlines the first-ever “issue ad” aired on Super Bowl Sunday and has effectively hijacked the pre-Super Bowl hype machine.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Study abroad offers valuable experience
By Joshua Lee | Feb. 2, 2010Last Wednesday, I stopped by the UF Study Abroad fair outside of the Reitz Union to discover what options are open to me for getting out of Gainesville and my pitiful dorm room.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Ending relationships has its positives
Feb. 1, 2010Breakups aren’t fun. In fact, as far as things in relationships go, they pretty much suck.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
America’s drinking problem serves as way to escape reality
By Eric Tegethoff | Feb. 1, 2010Every foreign tourist who comes to America must think we are walking advertisements for the latest low-calorie Budweiser. America has a drinking problem and a culture that once scoffed at the idea of moderation.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Apple’s release of iPad a letdown
By Ryan Spencer | Jan. 31, 2010There was a torrent of publicity surrounding Apple’s unveiling of its iPad last week. I watched a video of Steve Jobs presenting it, and needless to say, I wasn’t impressed. Here’s a quick rundown of what transpired:
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Politicians support parties, not voters
By PAUL MURTY | Jan. 28, 2010As long as I can remember, we have had terrible political divisions in our country. The only time Democrats and Republicans seem able to work together are in times of crisis, like after the attacks of Sept. 11 or Pearl Harbor. The politics of our country, specifically of Congress, are inherently wrong and against what Americans want.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
U.S. should pay attention to educational instability in Afghanistan
By Joshua Lee | Jan. 27, 2010Too often during times of chaos and conflict, children are marginalized victims and face extreme suffering and life-threatening problems.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Baby boomers caught with pants down
Jan. 27, 2010There are many avenues President Obama could have traversed with his first State of the Union speech, and I suppose that he can be forgiven for wanting to stick with whatever it is his teleprompter told him to say Wednesday night. I probably would have paid attention if he were wearing a T-shirt with three wolves on it.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Religion must evolve with audience
By Ryan Spencer | Jan. 26, 2010The whirlwind that is “Avatar” made it over to the Vatican earlier this month in a private screening before its release in Italy. They were not enthused with the movie, and I am not surprised with their reaction.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Town hall forum to discuss Reitz Union plans
By Jordan Johnson | Jan. 26, 2010As we begin discussions on how to effectively address the issues that face the Reitz Union, Student Government and the Alligator have teamed up to host a town hall forum. The purpose of this town hall forum will be to provide students an opportunity to learn about the significant issues facing our Union and engage each other in a constructive conversation.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Conan offered comforting consistency
Jan. 25, 2010Conan O’Brien’s final episode as the host of “The Tonight Show” aired last Friday, and damn it, I’m feeling a little sad over it.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Dove church, health bill parallel
By Will Pennman | Jan. 25, 2010Religion can be fairly divided into two parts: what you believe, and how you tell other people what you believe.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Supreme Court decision has grim implications for Americans
By JAMES CHAPIN | Jan. 21, 2010Some people believe that Tuesday’s Republican victory in Massachusetts, which may have cut the throat of health care reform, was big news. I beg to differ. The big news came out of a large room holding nine small people and a few witnesses on Thursday afternoon. It was doomsday for the individual in American politics. The Supreme Court decided on Thursday that corporations and unions are no longer beholden to the rules that had limited their spending on federal elections. Remember that date. Because the gargantuan coffers of those corporations and unions are now open very, very wide, and the words “shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech” have led to some very murky consequences. Justice John Paul Stevens read a long, lonely dissent from the bench. He called the decision “a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have ... fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the time of Theodore Roosevelt.”
OPINION
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COLUMNS
America should rid itself of gun use
By PAUL MURTY | Jan. 21, 201030,364 vs. 210. Obviously, 30,364 is a much greater number than 210. Sadly, the former amount represents the number of gun-related deaths, including homicides, suicides and accidental deaths, in the United States in 2005. According to a blog post from the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, 210 is an extrapolated figure that represents the number of gun-related deaths in the United Kingdom if its population was equal to the United States. In reality, there are only 42 gun-related deaths per year in the U.K., according to the blog.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
‘Avatar’ parallels Republican Party
Jan. 20, 2010Read as a straightforward attack on capitalism in a blue-green hue, many conservatives have angrily vented across all media platforms belittling “Avatar” as yet another Hollywood-leftist-socialist-homosexual-pantheistic-anthrophobic diatribe.
OPINION
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COLUMNS
Student’s arrest brings to light America’s flawed priorities
By Will Penman | Jan. 20, 2010About two weeks ago, Haisong Jiang, a graduate student from China studying biosciences at Rutgers, saw his girlfriend off at the Newark Liberty International Airport.
