Opinion | Columns - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | COLUMNS

Appeasement: what happens when we compromise for all the wrong reasons

Feb. 28, 2017

This week I want to talk about a trend in public discourse. I’d like to take a look at what happens when we take the middle ground. Compromise is a democratic ideal we use to try to satisfy several parties with one solution. When other ways forward fail, we settle for the middle road. Compromise comes from the best of intentions, but that doesn’t mean it is always done for the right reasons. We have to learn to differentiate between compromise and conflict-avoidance.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Newspapers fill spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacccceeeeeeeeeee

Feb. 27, 2017

That headline was intentional, Mike Foley. Don’t get your wrap-around glasses in a bunch.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Observations of a changing political atmosphere

Feb. 27, 2017

To my readers who may not be athletic or interested in sports, I apologize to you for my incoming analogies which may be lacking in relevance to you. For the rest of you, have you ever noticed how you must change the way you maneuver when you play on a different court or field? For those who have ever played tennis, football or volleyball, you are probably saying to yourself right now, “Yes, idiot. That’s obvious.” Right now, I’m also telling myself that same message because, at least instinctively, you’d catch me dead before you’d catch me taking a charge on a concrete basketball court.

OPINION | COLUMNS

An ode to the journalists I know (and even the ones I don’t)

Feb. 26, 2017

This column begins with a disclaimer: Although I served on staff at the Alligator during the past year, I have never claimed to be a journalist. I pulled some long nights with my fellow editors, I helped writers revise their ledes, and I wrote many a headline in my time — but I’ve never gone out and gotten the scoop or snapped the photograph. With that said, I believe my outsider-turned-insider perspective might shed some light on the hard work your local journalists — and their counterparts around the globe — do each day to get the story and get the story right.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Instill the value of feminism to the next generation

Feb. 26, 2017

A few days ago, I went to visit a friend of mine who was tabling on Turlington Plaza for the Women’s Student Association’s Women’s Empowerment Week. She was there for a good portion of the day alongside other members of the organization, passing out “Girl Boss” temporary tattoos and collecting clothes to donate to Peaceful Paths, a local domestic-abuse shelter.

OPINION | COLUMNS

'If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark'

Feb. 23, 2017

A significant part of every American’s upbringing is the instillation of American values and norms. Ambition, self-efficacy, confidence, individualism and a work-horse attitude are all traits taught in classrooms. We are a culture centered about the individual, each one of us acting as the captain for our own life, told since kindergarten that we could do whatever we set our minds to. If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Hidden underneath all of our lessons was a separate curriculum set by culture and society, a curriculum with no assignments or progress reports, but instead a prep course for the long and daunting stretch ahead.

OPINION | COLUMNS

We must fight sex trade in the Sunshine State

Feb. 23, 2017

It’s tempting to dismiss human trafficking as the shooting star of the criminal underworld — a series of one-off stories that evince a problem afflicting only a handful of the unluckiest people, inevitable tragedies like Ariel Castro’s decadelong capture of three young women. But the reality is that human trafficking is a global, multibillion dollar industry with branches that twist and burrow in our own communities, around our own friends, siblings and children.

OPINION | COLUMNS

When discussing politics, avoid generalizing

Feb. 22, 2017

All liberals are leeches. They’re lazy, incompetent and allergic to work.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Despite an initial impression, Tallahassee proved to be a nasty place

Feb. 21, 2017

Last Friday I drove to Tallahassee to play a show. I hadn’t spent much time there before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had heard Tallahassee was “nasty” from many of my peers at UF, but I never quite understood why.

OPINION | COLUMNS

February relationship series: all good things must come to an end

Feb. 21, 2017

It’s time for my series to reach its conclusion. Valentine’s Day is over, and February is coming to a close. All good things must come to an end, so let’s talk about endings.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Are student loans an investment or a burden?

Feb. 20, 2017

Growing up, I was taught to fear student debt — even when I didn’t truly understand what it was. This lesson didn’t really come from my parents, who worked full time to pay their way through school, but from the horror stories of twenty-something-year-olds haunted by six-figure debt that so often appeared in the news. As I’ve continued my education, these stories have appeared to increase in both frequency and urgency. I often manage to convince myself that this is probably due to my own hyperawareness, but it does seem as though the coverage surrounding the student-debt epidemic is at an all-time high.

OPINION | COLUMNS

The ability to hold opinions is a gift and a curse

Feb. 19, 2017

We have the ability to form and hold opinions. We sometimes take this so lightly, but this is a truly fascinating and incredible concept. We are able to take information from outside ourselves, interpret it and form thoughts about how we feel about it. We can decide if we think something is right or wrong, if it is OK or not OK.

OPINION | COLUMNS

From Adele to ZZ Top: Why I listen to the widest scope of music possible

Feb. 19, 2017

I remember my first MP3 player so vividly. I already loved the portability of my music. As an elementary-schooler before the days of the first iPod, I would grab my cassette player — and later my portable CD player — for any car ride longer than 10 minutes. When my parents excitedly told me we’d received a free Napster MP3 player as part of a BellSouth promotion — yeah, that’s a sentence you’ll probably never hear again — I was pumped: We just download our music from the internet? And this little thing can hold more than 70 songs?

OPINION | COLUMNS

Considering what the Tocqueville effect is and how it applies to today’s society

Feb. 16, 2017

In the year 1840, when the U.S. was not even a century old, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the historical “Democracy in America,” the detailed observations of a nation just starting to break on through its initial growing pains. By then, the experiment that was the U.S. had been around long enough for both its citizens and outsiders from Europe to take note of how things were going. If the life of America, thus far was a college course, “Democracy in America” would be the country’s gradebook after a rough midterm week. A point where one thinks, “Alright, how are we doing here?”

OPINION | COLUMNS

Successful women: Please don’t screw up

Feb. 16, 2017

Women who have made their way to the top of the professional food chain did so by shattering through the tenacious glass ceiling that prevents women from climbing up the rungs of the corporate ladder.

OPINION | COLUMNS

February relationship series: notion of ‘innocence’

Feb. 14, 2017

Any conversation about intimacy would be remiss to ignore the subject of sex, and I think it is vital to examine a longstanding social trend known as “purity culture.” Society has deemed sex as the single act in human experience which is detractive. The term “virginity” has no parallel in our language. You don’t avoid learning to swim because you can never again be a “non-swimmer.” Let’s take a look at why.

OPINION | COLUMNS

A way to mend a fractured union: Consider understanding the other side

Feb. 14, 2017

Much has been said, and much will be said, about the recent presidential election. It appears that many are still wrestling with the potential consequences of the outcome, and I doubt this wrestling will cease anytime soon. Unfortunately, this was my first presidential election. I have no other experience of how an election normally goes. Yet, this one did not seem to conform to anyone’s — except President Donald Trump’s — idea of how an election ought to go.

OPINION | COLUMNS

I hate concerts: a reflection on concerts, and why I hate them

Feb. 14, 2017

I hate concerts. There, I said it. I hate concerts. I hate being packed like a sardine in a big crowd of sweaty people. I hate nodding my head idly to the lackluster performances of small-time opening acts. I hate it when opening acts play long sets. I hate ticketing websites’ “convenience fees.” I hate overpriced T-shirts. I hate that touring acts always sell warped vinyl. I hate buying something at the merchandise table at the beginning of the night only to realize I have to hold it for the rest of the show. I hate people loudly singing in my ear when I am trying to enjoy the show. I hate how sweaty my legs, armpits and forehead get while I am standing in the audience. I hate the way the bottoms of my feet ache after standing for three hours. I hate bouncers. I hate other people’s body odor. I hate poor mixing. I hate poor lighting. I hate the way sold-out shows are so crowded and some venues are so poorly designed that in a fire, several people would certainly be trampled on their way out of the venue.

OPINION | COLUMNS

‘La La Land’: Music is wonderful, but you can't equate it to the writing process

Feb. 13, 2017

I’ve spent the past two weeks reading and rereading the stories in Samuel P. Garvey’s “The Tales of Captain Albert Alexander,” as well as examining the scribbles and equations in the margins of its pages. Professor Bishop says the drawings aren’t his, and I think he’s right. The handwriting isn’t his, but the designs, drawings and system specifications outlined in the writing all seem to be pointing toward me — or another automaton just like me.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Cultures and acceptance make America great

Feb. 13, 2017

I have lived in France and Ivory Coast, two countries targeted by IS and al-Qaida in 2016. I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, the most dangerous city in the world. Yet I have never felt as unsafe as I did last week when I listened to a class debate in which students gave incredibly offensive speeches.