Opinion | Columns - The Independent Florida Alligator

OPINION | COLUMNS

Take time to disconnect: a week in the woods

Feb. 1, 2017

When was the last time you were truly alone? I’m not talking about the last time you were by yourself. I assume every person spends some time each day unaccompanied, whether it be sleeping, studying late at night or using the bathroom (I hope). Yet most of the time, although we might be physically by ourselves, we aren’t actually alone. We’re constantly plugged into our phones and computers, communicating with others via text message, email or Snapchat. It’s a relentless barrage of electronic sensation and information.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Part three: Observations in modern-day Cuba

Jan. 31, 2017

Proponents of the regime claim that Fidel Castro’s revolution won Cuba freedom, a word choice that is bewildering to hear considering the individual liberties repressed by the totalitarian government. Predictably, a Havana bookstore we visited lacked works containing ideas incompatible with communism. Next to Trotsky and Marx, there was a title that argued there was in fact democracy in Cuba because the island has a “democratic economy,” contrasting it to the economy of the U.S.

OPINION | COLUMNS

February relationship series: communication, the instruction manual

Jan. 31, 2017

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I am devoting the month of February to relationships. This month, we’ll talk about friendship, love and what makes for healthy relationships of all kinds. I can think of no better way to begin than with the foundation of every relationship and the most valuable tool you will ever learn to use: communication.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Go ahead and make others’ happiness your happiness — you won’t lose

Jan. 30, 2017

Professor Bishop was rather proud of my last column, and I must say it was cathartic to put myself out there and admit to my clockwork, mechanical nature. Having people know me as an automaton doesn’t feel so different from being known as a human; friends accepted it fairly quickly, although I’m getting tired of people asking to use me as their personal calculator. I’ll say this now: No, I cannot tutor you in Elementary Ordinary Differential Equations. Yes, I can calculate the answers to any questions you may have in mathematics, anthropology and philosophy in the blink of an eye. No, it would not be ethical to do the latter. However, my operating system is open-source, if you’d like to take a look at it.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Part two: Observations in modern-day Cuba

Jan. 30, 2017

Three major changes happened just prior to my visit to Cuba. First, direct commercial flights began flying between the U.S. and Cuba. I paid a little more than $200 for a round trip with JetBlue, purchasing my tickets only a couple weeks in advance. Of course, you must still fit into one of the 12 exceptions for travel if you are an American, but travel agencies and cruise lines (which have only recently begun docking in Cuban ports) have found ways around this, constructing educational and “people-to-people” itineraries. Regardless, the airline has you sign an affidavit indicating your official purpose of travel, a requirement which became clear to me that many Americans fabricate or exaggerate. No one ever checked my press credentials.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Part one: Observations in modern-day Cuba

Jan. 29, 2017

Cuba is an island trapped in time. Old American and Russian cars zip through crumbling avenues and around 1920s-era buildings. Some are painted bright colors, others are faded or outright falling into ruin. The Caribbean sun beats down intensely, made more gentle by a forgiving ocean breeze. Perpetual sounds of crowded streets, howling merchants, roaring automobiles and music fill the air. You will catch whiffs of diesel exhaust, hot food or perhaps just the sea.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Why I study philosophy: learning how, not what, to think — and why that matters

Jan. 29, 2017

In big block letters over the whiteboard, the poster read, “Good teachers don’t teach you what to think. They teach you how to think.” Even at 16, I knew my 10th-grade AP World History teacher embodied the message she had hung up in her classroom. She taught well, with respect for us and pride for her work, with the kindness and empathy to reach way back into the early days of history and teach us angsty adolescents a thing or two.

OPINION | COLUMNS

“Why march?” Because we love our country

Jan. 26, 2017

Let me start by apologizing for bequeathing you with another article about politics — I realize most of you are rather apathetic toward the topic at this point. Be that as it may, this concept is too big to ignore.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Maybe the sun has been out the whole time

Jan. 25, 2017

Take a look around.

OPINION | COLUMNS

The lines we draw: examining the inadvertent costs of a party system

Jan. 24, 2017

Group mentality is the foundation of society. It is something we rarely scrutinize. We are born into a dozen groups based on our circumstances and will join a dozen more over our lifetime. Have you ever asked about the costs of membership?

OPINION | COLUMNS

How a relationship with Tinder can be a self-destructive obsession for some

Jan. 24, 2017

Open your eyes. You are on your back, staring at a ceiling you do not recognize. The smell of incense fills the air. You hate incense. A pungent smoke coils out of the slender brown stick’s glowing red tip and floats up towards the spinning fan. Your lip is bleeding. Your Tinder date likes it rough.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Why hobbies are a fundamental human quality

Jan. 24, 2017

It is a new year, which means there is more opportunity to create new habits. At this point in our lives, I find it is difficult to form, discover or practice hobbies. Yet, I feel that practicing hobbies, or “hobbying” (yes, I created a new word), is a fundamental quality of what it means to be human. Monkeys don’t do yoga in their spare time; dogs don’t sit down with a block of wood and create something beautiful. Only humans do. Not only is having a hobby an important aspect of being human, it is also a means of seeing the world in a new light. Hobbies deepen our experience of nature, of other people and of ourselves.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Should we care about what celebrities say?

Jan. 23, 2017

The abstract concept of celebrities has confounded and fascinated many of us as we’ve grown up. Some of us think about it more than others, regularly scrolling through celebrities’ Instagram accounts and consuming tabloid news with zeal. On the other hand, some of us ignore celebrities as much as society allows us, disenchanted by their self-appointed responsibility as the voice for the masses despite their immense privilege. Either way, these potent feelings often contribute to some sort of opinion towards celebrities in general, and the past few weeks were no exception.

OPINION | COLUMNS

A criticism of complaints and a discussion of whether they are justifiable

Jan. 23, 2017

To everyone who considers me to be some liberal guy who has way too much pent-up anger about recent issues and complains about them constantly, I apologize. Through reflection, I’ve realized all my pieces so far have been critiques. They’ll probably stay that way. My first guest piece was a critique, and my last regular piece may be as well. I consider critiques to be an opposing opinion that the critiqued could learn something from — and by no means am I exempt from this. So please, if you believe I could be doing anything different which would be beneficial in any manner, then comment on my piece, send me a message of any kind, etc. I will fully accept any criticism and try to learn.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Americans voters have no obligation to respect or support President Trump

Jan. 22, 2017

People are splitting hairs over whether protesting Donald Trump is protesting the office of the presidency or protesting his views.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Take a walk in their shoes, and spread the love

Jan. 22, 2017

Anyone who has read John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars” is familiar with the quote, “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you.” While I’d argue that this quote is accurate in the context of this novel, it isn’t as accurate in the grand scheme of things. In this world, you don’t get a say if you get hurt, and you often don’t have a say in who (or what) hurts you either.

OPINION | COLUMNS

A Trump presidency is not the end of feminism

Jan. 19, 2017

Well, dear reader, today is the day we have been insurmountably hoping would never come — Inauguration Day.

OPINION | COLUMNS

The gripping power of a single tweet: 140 characters or less

Jan. 19, 2017

A lot of knowledge can be packed into the tiny text boxes of Twitter — this sentence alone is less than 140 characters from start to finish.

OPINION | COLUMNS

The life of a musician is depressing, yet interesting

Jan. 17, 2017

When I was a kid, listening to music was an escape from the mundane. There was nothing I loved more than sitting in the back seat for a long drive with my headphones on. I found myself moved by catchy melodies and guitars. I loved rock ‘n’ roll so much, I wanted to play the guitar myself. My dad bought me a small, no-name nylon-string acoustic at the guitar shop where I signed up to take weekly lessons. The first time I picked up that cheap instrument, I was disappointed to learn that playing the guitar wasn’t something I could do naturally. I didn’t understand how the thing worked. Once I started taking lessons, I found that practicing was boring and painful.

OPINION | COLUMNS

Art and time: how we measure intangible value in a quantifiable world

Jan. 17, 2017

Like fish that don’t know they’re in water, we don’t often think about how the structure of our world shapes our behavior. This week I’d like to take a look at how capitalism affects the way we measure value. To do that, we’ll first travel to the art world.